17 - John 10:1

Verily, verily I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.’ -John 10:1. The chapter-makers have made an unfortunate rupture in the address commenced by our Lord in the latter part of the 9th chapter. The whole is intimately and vitally connected with the account of the blind man whose eyes Christ opened, and whose gratitude was proof against the sophistries of the Pharisees. It was not merely in the character of a Succourer that Christ wrought that miracle, but as the Light of the world; in doing it he was engaged in the same campaign against the erroneous teachings of the Pharisees that we find him waging in this 10th chapter. The most touching and beautiful incident in that account is the conduct of Jesus when notified that the poor man had been put out of the synagogue, excommunicated, discasted, by the religious authorities, the rulers of the Jewish Church. The poor man had been warned that to confess Christ was nothing less than the sin of schism; if he should presume to make light of the teaching of the Church he would be treated as a schismatic, and cut off from the covenanted mercies of the people of God; cast forth as a withered branch, a dissenter, a vagabond upon the face of the earth. His parents shrunk from this terrible doom, and would have had their son shrink from it. But along with the gift of physical sight he had received from Christ that of the Holy Spirit, enabling him to see and hold by the measure of truth at that time within his reach. Would that our rationalists could reason as sensibly as he did! Herein is a marvellous thing, he says. The opening of his eyes was a marvel; but this was not the greatest marvel. "Herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes." ’You call yourself the Church; the arbiters of truth; qualified to do the religious thinking for the community; to determine what men shall believe; and yet when one appears who opens the eyes of the blind by a mere word, you cannot make up your mind that he is more than a sinful man. We know that God heareth not sinners; that he does not lend his own sovereign power to those who are intent on overthrowing the truth. If this one were not of God he could do nothing but what others do.’

There was no place in the Jerusalem Church for any one who presumed to reason in this way. It was appalling to hear an uneducated man, a mere beggar, deliberately setting his own private judgment against that of the established and recognised guides of the community, the authoritative expounders of God’s Word, the repositories of the traditions of a thousand years. What madness in him to suppose that he could be right when they proclaimed him to be wrong! So he is excommunicated. He is broken off from the Church, and cast forth a mere waif to perish on the great outside ocean of the world. His position is a terrible one. He has got his sight, that is true; but at what a sacrifice! His father and mother have no idea of identifying themselves with a moral leper, though it be their own son; his friends, compelled to take sides, dare not encounter the wrath of the Church-rulers; the poor man is alone, more alone than ever he was in his blindness. Men gave to him before, and thought it charity; but who that values his own peace or reputation will give anything to the schismatic, the heretic, the man that sets up his private judgment against the teaching of the Church?

Jesus had been abiding his time, and now appears on the scene. He finds the man; goes after him and finds him, and says unto him, "Dost thou believe in the Son of God?" The man replies,"Who is he, Lord, that I may believe on him?" Observe this admirable answer. The man was sure that Jesus was competent to make known to him all essential truth; he had faith in him as an infallible religious teacher; Christ was to him what too often the Church has claimed to be; the faith which the Pharisees demanded, and for the lack of which they excommunicated him, he gave to Christ, for he saw that with Christ were the credentials of God; no man could do such works except God were with him, qualifying him to make known unerringly the way of life. He makes no conditions; he does not say, I will believe, if what you say accords with my sense of what is right. The sense of right which God had given him assured him that the word of Christ was the word of truth, and that everything in himself must yield homage to that word of truth, or else pronounce judgment on itself. The sense of right which God now gives to the truly penitent sinner brings him in like manner to the word of Christ, the word of God.

Then Jesus said, Thou hast seen him, and it is he who talketh to thee. And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him. But he is out of the true fold. What a hapless destiny! He is cut off from the established Church, and from her ordinances. Can anything compensate for this?

Some of the Pharisees were present when the Lord received this forlorn dissenter, this stubborn schismatic, unto himself. Our Lord turns to them and informs them (John 10:39-41) that in excommunicating the poor man, they had been simply excommunicating themselves. They had proclaimed a broad gulf between him and them; and lo, the Lord of life and glory is seen not on their side of the gulf, but on his. They do not as yet recognise him as the Saviour and the Judge of men; but they that know Christ see plainly that these men, in pronouncing that sentence, have simply pronounced judgment against themselves. The private judgment which they stigmatised as so unpardonably erroneous and criminal, turns out to be the judgment of God, even of Him who saith, "If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not;" even of Him who giveth his Holy Spirit to them that ask him.

Christ says to the Pharisees: ’Ye say, We see; we are the seers of the community; we are on the watch-tower of God, and what we see we report to men; we are the shepherds who see for the sheep; see where the true pastures are to be found, what is the best path to walk in, what dangers are imminent; others are forbidden to see - it is not their province; we see for them; it is enough that they have our guidance. Thus professing, your sin remaineth; and your sin is not merely that whereby the individual member of the flock destroys himself, but it is that by which the false shepherd destroys himself and the flock. "Verily, verily I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. Verily, verily I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them.’" The poor man whom Jesus had restored to sight had found thieves and robbers clothed in the garb of the Church’s pastors. Of what scanty treasures he had they stripped him. They robbed him of his good name; of the confidence and love of his parents and friends; of the prospect of a livelihood; and they would gladly have deprived him of his hope in God’s mercy, but this they could not.