As Jesus speaks in a
way in which He appears to present Himself as the Messiah that came to do the
will of His Father, He said “I came that they may have life and have it
abundantly” (John 10:10b). When Jesus speaks of this giving of life in
abundance, is that gift to be thought of as being directed to Israel?
Naturally, that answer is yes. However, the giving of life abundant cannot
be disconnected from the statements about the stealing, killing, and destroying
that had been employed by the thieves and robbers that had come before Him (and
after Him, as was likely to have been quite well known to John’s
audience).
It must be understood
that Jesus is also offering that gift of life abundant to the Gentiles that
were then in possession of the land---the gift of the blessings of the covenant
God of Israel---in His establishment of the kingdom of God. This would have been contrary to a good
portion of the then-current ways of thinking by a large percentage of the
populace. Quite a significant number of the people wanted their Messiah
to steal from and kill and destroy the oppressors (those would not necessarily
have been considered stealing, but liberation), but Jesus intended the
opposite, desiring to establish the kingdom through acts that were the
extension of the love of the Creator for His world. Yes, Jesus intended
that the hated Romans and all Gentile nations were to have the blessings of
abundant life as well. This was a component of the love of the Creator God
that was first referenced in the third chapter (3:16), put into action for the
world.
Making what would
then seem to be a point about the nature of His kingdom and His role as
Israel’s Messiah, Jesus adds to this and says “I am the good shepherd”
(10:11a). This use of “good shepherd,” owing to its usage in the Hebrew
Scriptures (the book of Zechariah most especially), as well as being something
of a reference to Moses (the prophet that was to come into the world and Isreal’s
great shepherd), was another way of speaking about the Messiah. In this
capacity Jesus says “The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep”
(10:11b). In its utterance (and quite obviously in retrospect), this was
designed to begin preparing the covenant people for the fact that their Messiah
was going to be killed at the hands of the very ones that so many of the people
thought He would forcefully overthrow, which also answered the criticisms of
those that stood opposed to the ongoing Jesus movement post-crucifixion and
Resurrection, who would have pointed to the fact that Jesus had been crucified
by the Romans and therefore could not possibly have been the Messiah.
It had always been
the case that when a potential messiah arose to do battle against the enemies
of the Creator God’s people, the evidence that the person in question was
obviously not the messiah was his eventual death at the hands of those same
enemies. Execution or death at arms was the clear signal of another
failed messiah, but this was not going be the case for Jesus. This
pattern of potential revolution leading to death and destruction had been
repeated numerous times both before and after Jesus, so these words of Jesus
not only take on a prophetic role when directed to His hearers, but also an
apologetic role when constructed in this way for the community as they learned
to tell the story of Jesus.
Elaborating on this
thought, Jesus presents a short analogy in reference to would-be messiahs that
had risen before Him (thieves and robbers), saying “He who is a hired hand and
not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the
sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees
because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep” (10:12-13).
How many men before Him had risen up to lead the people in revolution?
How many, when the pressure came and death threatened, ran away, leaving those
whom he had previously led to suffer gruesome deaths?
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