I am the good Shepherd. The word here rendered "good" means more than the "true" ( ἀληθής) or the" veritable" ( ἀληθινός); more than ἀγαθός, good, in the sense of being morally excellent and inwardly fulfilling God's purpose that the sheep should be shepherded.
The word καλός suggests a "goodness" that is conspicuous, that shows and approves itself to the experience and observation of all. Thus the Lord fills up the meaning of the first parable by emphasizing another element in it.
There may be many shepherds worthy of the name, but he alone justifies the designation. This imagery has inwrought itself into Christian literature and art. The earliest representations of Christ in the catacombs depict him as "the good Shepherd" (Tertullian, 'De Fuga.
,' c. 11; Hermas, 'Sire.,' John 6:2); the earliest hymns and latest minstrelsy of the Church dwell fondly on the image which portrays his individual watchfulness, his tender care, his self-sacrificing love.
The good Shepherd layeth £down his life for the sheep; not only does his work with his life in his hand, but he deliberately lays down his life and consciously divests himself of his life, and is doing it now.
The Shepherd dies that the sheep may live (cf. 1 John 3:16; John 15:13). Elsewhere Jesus says, "The Son of man gives his life a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:28). The thought is very grand, and is a strange addition to the claim to be the Shepherd of Israel, and gives intense pathos to the language of our Lord to Simon Peter (John 21:6), "Shepherd my sheep."
The further development of the parable shows that in the metaphor he regards his death as no disastrous termination of the Shepherd's function, but as an event in his career. Hence it is not just of Reuse ('Theol.
Chretien,' 2.) to contend that our Lord does not here suggest a vicarious or propitiatory death on his part. This is a veritable death, which secures the life of the sheep, and does not arrest the Shepherd's care (see John 10:17, John 10:18).