18 - John 10:7

’Verily, verily I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep.’ -John 10:7.

We hear a great deal in these days about the Church. There is evidently a great diversity of opinion not only as to the body which is now entitled to be called by that name, but as to the body which in the history of the last eighteen centuries may rightly be so called. And it does almost seem as though men needed a special revelation from heaven to determine this matter for them. Yet it cannot be that there is any lack of instruction in God’s Word regarding this all-important point. It would be a strangely defective revelation, if it told us about a multitude of things in heaven and earth, about the character of our heavenly Father, the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, the way of salvation, the day of judgment, the blessedness of the righteous, the New Jerusalem, and yet should leave us uninformed or half-informed as to the Church of Christ on earth. As a matter of fact the Scriptures are not more copious or lucid with regard to any point than with regard to this. The doctrine of the Spirit is essentially the doctrine of the Church; for the Spirit, whom to send it was expedient for us that Christ should ascend on high, is only manifest through the Church; Christians are a habitation of God through the Spirit; and whatever are the fruits of the Spirit, those are characteristics of Christians, the characteristics of the Church of Christ. But here our Lord is pleased to tell it us in one word, a word that disposes of a great many of the pompous figments of the day: "I am the door of the sheep." "By me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture." The Church is that body, of which Christ is the door, to which men gain access by faith in him. He does not more explicitly teach that men are saved through him, than that men obtain entrance into the Church through him. The man who had been blind, whose eyes he had opened, whom the Pharisees had put out of their Church, and to whose faith Christ had revealed himself as the Son of God and the Saviour of sinners, was, by that publicly avouched faith of his made a member of the true fold. Through Christ the door he had entered in, and it was not in the power of any man or set of men to pluck him out of the hand of Christ, to separate him from the true fold. "The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his." Salvation would be a very different, a sadly inferior thing to what it is, if the sinner had to share his reliance on Christ with reliance on fallible men like himself, and if the charter of life might be manipulated and modified by Scribes and Pharisees. What was true in the days of Christ’s abode on earth is, alas! still true: there are men who busy themselves about the fold, who have never entered through the door; who claim to have guiding authority over the sheep, without being themselves genuine disciples of the meek and lowly One; who seek not the accomplishment of Christ’s wishes, but their own temporal advantage. Their uncrucified pride, selfishness, ambition, and covetousness, influence them as much in their church-life, as ever they did in the non-religious life. They love the exercise of power; they desire to be looked up to and depended upon; they seek a revenue of fame and power from the Church; to use the plain words of the Master, they are "thieves and robbers," intent not on enriching the sheep but themselves. "The thief cometh not but to steal, to kill, and to destroy." We must remember that this severe language was used of the clergy, the most prominent and influential rulers of the Church of that day. They organised the Church according to their own mind; nullified the laws of God by their traditions and Church regulations; ruled that they only could be regarded as God’s people who yielded deference to them, and were guided implicitly by them. As salvation is in hearing, trusting, following Christ; so any system of doctrines that comes between the suppliant and Christ is destructive. It is conceded that these men know not what they do. They have no spiritual perception; they do not see the kingdom of God, but something very different which they mistake for it; they have not themselves a simple, soul-subduing faith in Christ, and are not sensible of their need of it; they have never tasted the joy unspeakable, and the peace passing understanding which Christ gives to his own; consequently they know not what awful havoc they are making of the highest interests of men when they undertake the cure of souls.

"I am the door of the sheep." The fold is the earthly fold; the thieves and robbers that climb up some other way are not climbing into heaven, but into the communion of Christ’s people on earth; "other sheep I have," says Christ, "not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one Shepherd." As there is one Shepherd so there is one fold, in which are gathered all who belong to Christ, all who have an interest in his salvation, who hear His voice and follow him; in a word, all true Christians; described in First Peter (1 Peter 2:5), as "a spiritual house;" and to which no others properly belong. "I am the door;" we enter it only by faith in him. This disposes of the idea that men are to be gathered into the fold first, and then brought to Christ; that there is a place in this fold for those who are not believers; it disposes of the idea of a national Church; of much that goes by the name of Catholicity and comprehension. Christ’s salvation is revealed from faith to faith; from the faith of the evangelist to the faith of the hearer; men are added to the Church of God by the Spirit of God convincing them of sin, and inspiring them with faith in Christ. As we enter the Church through Christ, we can only enter it by a change of heart, by the reception of Christ’s Spirit. We have to lay down our selfishness and take up Christ’s large-heartedness. We must therefore have something of his love for all his people. Far from us be the leaven of sectarianism. Being born of God, let us love one another with pure hearts fervently. Our common faith in him ought to enable us to know those that are his; and if we err here, the remedy is to be found in a stronger and a purer faith in him. He gave his life for the sheep; he came that they might have life, and might have it more abundantly: through us; for we are all commissioned to be helpers of one another’s faith, and to help each other to know Jesus better.

"Fear not, little flock; it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom." It is a little flock. Men may seek to magnify it by bringing into it myriads of "goats," and by seeking to invest it with this world’s honour and glory, but all this is grievously detrimental, and the kingdom will not be given to the Church until she shakes herself free from false encumbrances and alliances, and stands forth defined as Christ has defined her.

"The world knoweth us not, because it knew him not," says John. To the end the world will go on blindly disputing about Christ and about the world. But they that know him know each other, and are known of God. They are found in various organizations; in churches established and non-established; Episcopal, Presbyterian, Congregational, Wesleyan, Baptist, and the like; but they are not suffered by the Spirit of Christ that makes them one, to set up their own organisation as the only true Church of Christ. They are too catholic for this, and shrink from the sin of rejecting any who may have the seal of the living God in their foreheads.