Why Christ is 'the door' through which every good shepherd must come
Christ exposes the wolves in shepherds’ clothing—and warns that no true pastor can oppose Him.
Christ exposes the wolves in shepherds’ clothing—and warns that no true pastor can oppose Him.
Editor’s Notes
In this part, Fr. Coleridge tells us…
How Christ declares Himself the Door through which all true shepherds must enter.
That every pastor’s mission must derive from Christ and conform to His example.
Why Christ came—to give life, and to give it more abundantly, to shepherds and sheep alike.
He shows us that all grace, mission, and salvation must flow through Him and no other.
The Good Shepherd
The Preaching of the Cross, Part I, Chapter XV
St. John x. 1–21.
Story of the Gospels, § 96
Burns and Oates, London, 1886
Why does Christ call the Chief Priests 'thieves and robbers'?
Why Christ is 'the door' through which every good shepherd must come
Why the Good Shepherd told the wolves they had no power over him
Effect of 'The Good Shepherd' on the different classes of the Jews
The parable misunderstood
‘This proverb spoke Jesus unto them. But they understood not what He spoke to them.’
The thoughts of our Lord were too sublime for [the Chief Priest's’] perception. They had never realized their own position as shepherds of souls. They had no idea at all of the tenderness and self-sacrificing love of the Good Shepherd. They had flung at Him the reckless charge which their condemnation of the subject of the miracle implied, little thinking of all the gravity of the accusation, and all the mischief to souls which they imputed to Him, and as little of the true and great weight of their own responsibility.
Our Lord therefore went on at once to explain more fully what His parable implied. St. John seems generally to use the Greek word, which is most correctly translated ‘proverb,’ in the sense in which the other Evangelists use the word which answers to ‘parable.’
Our Lord the door
‘Jesus therefore said to them again, Amen, amen, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All others as many as have come, are thieves and robbers, and the sheep heard them not. I am the door. By Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and he shall go in and go out and shall find pastures. The thief cometh not but for to steal, and to kill and to destroy. I am come that they may have life and may have it more abundantly.’
Thus, in the first place, He answers peremptorily and finally the implied charge that He was not a true Shepherd. He is not only a true Shepherd, but He is the door by whom all true shepherds must enter. Their office is but a participation of His, and their power and commission must be derived from Him.
There had been persons heard of before who had claimed falsely the prophetic or the pastoral office, and the issue had shown that they were impostors, thieves, and robbers. For the sheep had not heard them, for they had not spoken in the Name of God, nor had the grace of God worked in their hearers to make them accept their teaching. They had not entered by the door, for they had not had admission to the office of shepherd through our Lord in any way.
Thus the charge made against our Lord by these Pharisees is retorted against them. Not only is our Lord a true Shepherd, but He is the only true Shepherd, in the sense that He is the door by Whom all others who are in any way to have a share in the pastoral office must enter in.
Those therefore who claimed to be shepherds, and to have the right to denounce Him as an impostor, were by that very fact of their opposition to Him proved out of their own mouths to be impostors themselves, or, if not in the beginning impostors, to have fallen away from their duties as shepherds as far as they had ever been such legitimately, and to be worthy of a place among the thieves and robbers who had preceded them.
The good pastors
‘I am the door. By Me if any man enter in he shall be saved, and shall go in and shall go out and shall find pastures.’
The language is such as to suit either the shepherd or the sheep. For both the sheep and the shepherds enter in and go out by the door. But it is sufficient to restrain the application to the shepherd himself. To enter in by the door, which is our Lord, is, in the case of the shepherd of souls, both to derive his commission legitimately from Him in the Church and also to follow His example and method of acting and dealing with the flock, and strictly to adhere to the doctrine of salvation as He has left it behind Him. Such a pastor ‘goes in and goes out,’ which is the common way of describing the whole course of ordinary life, in the pursuit, therefore, of the avocation to which he is called, and shall find pastures for his own soul and for the souls of those whom he may have to feed.
It is easy to see how much is contained in these few words in which our Lord sums up the blessings which attend the true pastor, and the abundant helps which are provided him for the discharge of his office. Freedom, safety, protection, security in the exercise of a most fruitful and energetic activity, continued under a great variety of circumstances and conditions, all these are implied in the picture of the shepherd going in and going out, as he wills, while his ‘finding pastures’ seems to embrace the whole range of the means of grace and spiritual refection and enjoyment, which are supplied by the sacraments, prayer, the action of the Holy Ghost on the soul, the strength and light and growth which result from the abundant resources and provisions of the Kingdom of God.
The life of the shepherd is thus represented to us as one of great and manifold vigour and interest, as unfolding itself in the practice of a thousand holy virtues and spiritual achievements. The life of the sheep under such guidance and care must correspond to that of the shepherd himself in all this beautiful and rich and secure productiveness, and indeed, as has been said, the language used by our Lord is not limited either to the pastor or to the sheep.
On the other hand, there is the part played by the thief, the evil and false pastor, who comes in not by the door, but some other way, not often, but when it suits his fancy or lust. He cometh not but for to steal, and kill and destroy, for his own interests or wants are his only law in his dealings with the flock.
More abundant life
In contrast to this is our Lord’s account of Himself.
‘I am come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly.’
The spiritual life of the soul was not first given by our Lord, when He came among men in the Incarnation, because His grace and the merit of His Sacrifice had been working in the world ever since the beginning of its history. All spiritual life indeed is His gift, all light and all grace are from Him. But His own appearance in the world was to bring about an abundant increase of all life, as it had been before, and this abundance was to continue to increase as the mysteries of His Incarnation were worked out more completely, and especially after the Passion, and Resurrection, and Ascension, and the great outpouring of the Holy Ghost upon the Church.
There was remission of sins, which answers to the giving of life to the dead soul, before. But now it became more full and the means of obtaining it more easy of access. There was spiritual knowledge before. But now it was clearer, deeper, larger, more penetrating, reaching further into the mysteries of the Divine Nature and counsels, the position and the prospects of man, the dignity to which he was raised, and the future which was being prepared for him. It was before possible for man to become holy, in imitation of God, as He had said even to the Israelites, ‘Be ye holy as I am holy.’ But now sanctification, as far as it is attainable by men, became more perfect, more interior, more intense in its purity, more complete and ripe and heroic in its sublimity.
Grace was more abundant, more permanent, and more penetrating in its effects. The liberty of children and heirs and sons of God supplanted the condition of servile and laborious obedience which had been possible of old, and men could feel towards God and one another with more perfect confidence and peace and tranquillity and security. The sanctity which had before been the privilege of a few of the servants of God, became the possession of countless thousands in every generation of the Church. All this may be contained in the words about the more abundant life which our Lord has come to bestow.
The Good Shepherd giveth His Life
But our Lord has something further to say about Himself in the character of the Good Shepherd, something of which He had not before spoken in this connection, even when He was describing the shepherd leaving his ninety-nine sheep safe in the fold, and going in search of the one sheep who had strayed.
He had spoken of it in another connection when He had forewarned the Apostles of His coming Passion. He had spoken to them of the death which He was to suffer, but not of the purpose for the sake of which He was to suffer.
Now in the presence of His enemies who were to bring about His death, He mentions the reason for which He was to undergo it, the salvation of the sheep of His fold.
In the next part, Fr Coleridge explains why Christ foretold that he would die, and what this shows about him as the Good Shepherd.
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The Good Shepherd
Why does Christ call the Chief Priests 'thieves and robbers'?
Why Christ is 'the door' through which every good shepherd must come
Why the Good Shepherd told the wolves they had no power over him
Effect of 'The Good Shepherd' on the different classes of the Jews
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