
On the Gospel of John, Part 27: Hirelings and Wolves
As we began our discussion of John chapter 10, we sought descriptions in the words of the prophets of Yahweh by which we may understand The Purpose of the Shepherd. This is necessary for us to do, because Christ Himself had said, in Matthew chapter 5, “17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.” So if He came to fulfill the words of the prophets, then the action and the purpose of His ministry must be in conformance with their words, and therefore it is they to whom we must turn in order to better comprehend the purpose and intent of His ministry, so that we may understand what He had come to fulfill. If His intentions are not in accordance with their words, then He has destroyed them, and He cannot claim to have fulfilled them. But praise Yahweh God that He is True, and He is not a liar, since He does not change. The words of the prophets describe the purpose of Christ, and the epistles and actions of the apostles further verify that purpose. For that same reason we read in 2 Peter chapter 3 that Peter’s reason for writing was: “2 That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour”, because the purpose of the Shepherd was indeed the purpose which had been previously announced by the prophets.
Yahshua Christ, being the Good Shepherd, and the only true shepherd, had come only for the “lost sheep of the house of Israel”, to gather them to Himself, as He Himself had professed and as the prophets had described. Furthermore, the words of the prophets had not only explained what happened to those sheep and why they were lost, but they also inform us as to where those sheep had wandered and what would become of them. By the Word of Yahweh God through the prophets, since the only purpose of the Shepherd is to regather those same lost sheep to Himself, the apostles brought the Gospel of the Shepherd to Europe, Anatolia and Mesopotamia, because it was to those same places that the sheep had wandered and that is where they expected them to be found.
Thus far in this chapter of John’s gospel, Yahshua Christ had also explained that the good shepherd would enter through the door of the sheep, in verse 2 where He said “2 But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.” Then He asserted that He Himself is the door of the sheep, in verse 7 where He proclaimed “Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep.” So if He is the door, and if He came in through the door, how can these two concepts be reconciled? How can a door enter in through itself?