Life and abundance.
Sad indeed is the perversion of Divine gifts, which takes place when those who teach and lead mankind use their influence for moral harm. Yet so it was, our Lord Jesus tells us, with many who came before him with great professions indeed, yet with no help for the spiritually necessitous. Some such had altogether carnal notions of what deliverance, salvation, means. Others were animated by selfishness and ambition. The purpose of many who made great claims was in reality far from benevolent. Jesus does not hesitate to designate them as thieves, entering God's flock with the intention of stealing, killing, and destroying. This was a heavy charge; and our Lord would not have brought it had there not been good reason and justification for so doing. The aim and the conduct of such pernicious leaders was contrasted by Jesus with his own. He, too, came claiming to shepherd the flock of God. But his one purpose was this, that through his ministry of devotion and sacrifice the sheep of the fold might have life and abundance.
I. THE BLESSINGS WHICH THE GOOD SHEPHERD CAME TO BRING TO THE FLOCK.
1. Life. Jesus was "the Life;" "in him was life." What he possessed in himself he came to communicate to his own.
2. Abundance. If we translate the word as in the margin of the Revised version, we understand not the enrichment add perfection of life (abundantly), but the provision made for the life preserved, quickened, perpetuated. The good Shepherd, having saved the flock from destruction, and conferred upon each member of the flock a new and spiritual life, secures for those whom he has saved and divinely quickened a suitable and sufficient provision for all their wants. The fold, the pasture, the living waters, the Shepherd's guardianship and care, may be all included in this word. The wants of those who receive are many and various, but the bounty and benevolence of the great Giver are adequate for their full satisfaction.
II. THE AGENCY AND METHOD BY WHICH THESE BLESSINGS ARE BESTOWED.
1. Christ, the living Person, himself confers them. There are many who look rather to the under-shepherds than to the chief Shepherd. But all who serve the flock are merely the ministers and messengers of the eternal Lord. Not only did he, by his own personal ministry and sacrifice, save the flock from destruction; he, by his perpetual presence and spiritual care, supplies in abundance the ever-recurring wants of his sheep.
2. Christ secured these blessings by his coming to this world. The method by which he sought and saved mankind was mediatorial; it involved his incarnation and advent. This was his conscious aim. "I am come," said he, implying that his was a mission, yet one voluntarily undertaken and cheerfully fulfilled.
3. Even this Divine Person, in executing a purpose so gracious, found it necessary to submit to suffering, to offer himself a sacrifice, to consent to death. He gave up his life (not zoe, but psyche) that we might live spiritually and immortally.
4. And the redemption was completed by our Lord's resurrection and victorious reign. It is observable that in this conversation our Lord Jesus no sooner foretells his death than he declares his intention of rising again. And in fact he resumed life, not only in vindication and assertion of his proper dignity, but in order to exercise from the vantage-ground of his risen life and reign the power he delights in, because it contributes to the abundance of his people's privileges and joys.—T.