Christ is the good Shepherd who came that we may have life and have it abundantly, and He is the great Shepherd of the sheep making sure we enjoy all the bequests of the new covenant.
How we love our dear Lord Jesus, the Shepherd according to God’s heart, who is both the good Shepherd, the great Shepherd, the Chief Shepherd, and the Shepherd of our souls!
As believers in Christ, we are the Lord’s sheep, and He is our Shepherd; just as a good shepherd takes care of his sheep and makes sure they have everything they need, so the Lord as our Shepherd is good and even great at doing His job of providing all-inclusive, tender care for us.
He sought us out and found us, even though we were lost and dead in sins and offenses; He brought us back to Himself, back to the rich pasture, so that we may enjoy Him and partake of Him, and so that He may make us His one flock under Himself as the one Shepherd.
It is because of the Lord’s shepherding that we have responded to the gospel, and His shepherding has brought us into the church life.
Even when we backslide, when we draw back, and when we sin and are far away from God, He still comes to us as the good Shepherd to simply minister to us the divine life and bring us back into the enjoyment of Himself.
Again and again, in the Bible we see how the Lord as the Shepherd according to God’s heart cares for us, His sheep; one particular matter He does is to put us on His shoulders and to hold us in His arms so that we may be intimately and dearly shepherded, cared for.
He gathers His people, His sheep, out of any division and scattering; He calls them, they hear His voice, and they follow Him to the pasture, so that they would be His one flock under Himself as the one Shepherd.
Christ as the good Shepherd gathers His sheep and brings them into the enjoyment of all that He is; He Himself is both our Shepherd and our all-inclusive pasture, for He is everything that we need.
He shepherds us to the mountains of resurrection and ascension, and here He gives us to eat and drink.
And as He shepherds us, as He cherishes and nourishes us, we open to Him, we love Him, we enjoy Him, and we also enthrone Him to make Him the King and Ruler in our being. What a wonderful Shepherd is Jesus our Lord!
Even when we don’t understand why He does this, why that happens, and why did this one do or say this to us, we still trust in His shepherding, for He knows what He is doing, and He cares for us according to God.
We may want this or that, we may think we need this or that, but He knows best, and He gives us exactly what we need and when we need it. How we love and thank our good Shepherd, the One who is the great Shepherd of the sheep!
Christ as the Good Shepherd Laid down His Life so that we may Have Life and have it Abundantly
In John 10:9-17 we see that Christ is the good Shepherd; He came that we may have life and may have it abundantly.
He compared Himself to the hirelings, the hired shepherds, who run when the enemy comes, and who don’t care for the sheep according to God.
In Christianity today there are many “hired shepherds”, hired pastors, reverends, leaders, etc; they are “professionals”, those who know what they are doing because they have been trained, and they shepherd the flock of God according to what they see fit.
Not all are like this, for some are genuinely trying to shepherd others according to the Word of God, but they are in that system. When the threatening comes, such shepherds run away.
But Christ as the good Shepherd laid down His soul-life, His human life, to accomplish redemption for His sheep so that they may share His zoe life, His divine life (John 10:11, 15, 7).
In Greek two words for life are used in John 10:10-11 – one is psuche (the human life, the soul-life) and the other is zoe (the divine life).
The Lord Jesus had two kinds of lives: as a man, He had the psuche life, His human life, and He laid it down to accomplish redemption for His sheep (10:15, 17-18); as God, He shared the divine life for His sheep to have life and have it abundantly.
When we believe into the Lord Jesus, we share His divine life, the eternal life (John 10:28), by which we are formed into one flock under Himself as the one Shepherd.
Christ’s divine life could never be destroyed; His human life was slain in His crucifixion, for He as a man laid down His human life to accomplish redemption for us so that we may receive His divine life.
And He did this not only for the sheep in the fold of Judaism but for all His sheep, even the sheep not in that fold – “I have other sheep….I must lead them also, and they shall hear My voice, and there shall be one flock, one Shepherd” (John 10:16).
Hallelujah, we have heard the Lord’s voice, we believed into Him, redemption was applied to us, and we received the divine life! He shed His blood, He bore our sins in His body on the cross, and now the righteous God has the ground to impart His eternal life into us.
The Lord as the Good Shepherd leads His sheep out of the fold into Himself as the pasture, the feeding place, so that they may eat freely of Him and be nourished by Him (v. 9).
We should not try to “proselytize” by asking people to leave the system of Christianity and come into the church life; rather, we should simply pray that many would hear the Shepherd’s voice and leave any fold to come to Him, so that He may have one flock under the one Shepherd.
Only the Good Shepherd can call His sheep by name, and they follow Him wherever He leads them.
We all can testify that He brought us out of where we were and into Himself as the pasture, so that we may freely eat and be nourished by Him!
The Lord has formed the Jewish and Gentile believers into one flock, which is the church, the Body of Christ; this is under His shepherding.
John 10:16 conveys the essence of the Lord’s recovery: “one flock, one Shepherd”; all the sheep of the Lord, wherever they are, they all belong to the Lord as the Shepherd, and there’s no hierarchy in His flock – there is only one Shepherd.
Thank You Lord Jesus for coming as the good Shepherd to lay down Your human life for us so that we may partake of Your divine life and enjoy life abundantly! Thank You for loving us so much that You died for us and laid down Your soul-life so that we may receive, partake of, and enjoy Your divine life and be formed into one flock under Yourself as the one Shepherd! Amen, Lord, we praise You for accomplishing redemption for us all that we might receive You as our life and be part of Your flock. We believe that You will call out Your sheep by name, You will gather all Your sheep, and You will bring them out of any fold to be Your one flock under Yourself as the one good Shepherd!
Christ as the Great Shepherd Leads us into the Experience and Enjoyment of All the Bequests of the New Covenant
In Heb. 13:20 we see that God raised up from the dead “our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, in the blood of an eternal covenant”.
This eternal covenant is the covenant of the new testament, which is to gain a flock – the church issuing in the Body of Christ and consummating in the New Jerusalem.
The goal of the new covenant is to have the Body of Christ for God to have a flock under Christ as the Shepherd.
In John 10 we are told that the Lord willingly laid down His life for the sheep so that they would be His flock, and He will call them out one by one to come out of any fold and be His flock.
In Heb. 13 we further see that God raised the Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, in the blood of an eternal covenant.
Now in resurrection, Christ is the great Shepherd of the sheep; as such a One, He is making real to us all the contents of the new covenant, and He is leading us into the experience and enjoyment of all the positive matters revealed in the book of Hebrews (Heb. 8:8-13; 1:1-3; 2:9-18; 5:6-10, 14; 7:16, 22, 24-26; 13:1, 8, 12-15).
The new covenant, which was enacted through the blood of Jesus on the cross and is now executed by Christ in His resurrection and ascension, is an eternal covenant; it is eternally effective because of the eternal efficacy of Christ’s blood (Matt. 26:28; Luke 22:20).
We are the Lord’s sheep, the flock, which is the church; the Lord as the great Shepherd today is leading us into the enjoyment and experience of all that He is to us in the new covenant.
He has covenanted Himself to us; He not only promised things to us – He covenanted Himself to us!
He is the executor of the new covenant in His resurrection and ascension, and His blessings are eternal – now He makes sure we enjoy all the blessings of what He is, what He has done, and what He is doing!
For example, if we confess our sins, God must forgive us, for He is faithful and righteous to forgive us.
He has put Himself under a covenant to bless us and do things for us, and as the great Shepherd He carries out all the bequests of the new covenant.
May the Lord advance in us and may we open to Him as the great Shepherd so that we may be brought into the enjoyment and experience of what He has bequeathed to us!
He has promised to impart His laws into our mind and inscribe them on our heart; He promised to be our God and we would be His people.
He promised that we will know Him – from the little one to the great one among us; He promised that He will be propitious to us and He will remember our sins no more! Hallelujah!
He promises to sanctify us, lead us into glory, make us His brothers, declare the Father’s name to us, and release us from the fear of death.
He is a High Priest forever interceding for us, He is the source of an eternal salvation, and He feeds us with solid food.
He has been appointed according to the power of an indestructible life, He has become the surety of a better covenant, and He has become higher than the heavens.
Hallelujah for all His promises, all His bequests in the new covenant!
He is the same – yesterday, today, and yes, even forever; He is the great Shepherd bringing us into the enjoyment of all the new covenant bequests.
Hallelujah, God raised up from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, in the blood of an eternal covenant! Thank You, Lord Jesus, for being our great Shepherd who makes real to us the contents of the new covenant. Thank You for leading us into the experience and enjoyment of all the bequests of the new covenant so that we may be Your flock, the church issuing in the Body of Christ and consummating in the New Jerusalem. Amen, Lord, keep us open to Your shepherding as the great Shepherd of the sheep, and bring us into the enjoyment and experience of all that You are, You have done, and You are doing for us according to the new covenant!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ron Kangas for this week, and portions from, Life-study of John, msgs. 22, 49 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization Study of Jeremiah and Lamentations, week 11, Shepherds according to God’s Heart.
- Hymns on this topic:
– I love my Shepherd’s voice: / His watchful eye shall keep / My wand’ring soul among / The thousands of His sheep: / He feeds His flock, He calls their names, / His bosom bears the tender lambs. (Hymns #80)
– Thou art the Shepherd and the door, / For us to leave the sheepfold, / By Thee we have full liberty / And share the pasture freehold. (Hymns #187)
– Your ministry, O Lord, / How excellent it is; / A better covenant, / And better promises; / Enacted on a better law. / Of such You are Executor. / A better covenant, / And better promises; / A better law of life / And sacrifice this is. / Redemption’s work, done long ago, / A better blood has made it so. (Hymns #1187)
About aGodMan
