Verily, verily, I say to you, He that enters not in by the door to the fold of the sheep, but mounts up elsewhere, *he* is a thief and a robber;
Jesus had just healed a man born blind, and the religious leaders threw that man out. His words here raise three questions: what is the fold, what is the door, and who climbs the wall?
This teaching has a setting. It answers what had just happened to a man who trusted Jesus.
The Lord had given sight to a man born blind. This made the Pharisees jealous. The man faithfully confessed that Jesus had opened his eyes, so they threw him out of the synagogue. The Lord heard of it, found him, and revealed Himself to him as the Son of God. He was clearly one of Christ's sheep, and heard His voice. Our Lord gave this searching and memorable teaching about the shepherd and the sheep in these circumstances.
The picture is a walled enclosure. Commentators read the fold as the nation of Israel, fenced in by the law God gave.
Here the Lord speaks in the form of a parable, and in verse 1 He again doubles His words to press their truth home. The sheepfold was Israel as God established it under law. God's own laws and ordinances formed the fence that kept Israel separate from the Gentiles. The door was God's appointed entry. It was what Old Testament prophecy declared about who the true Shepherd would be. He would come to Israel at the appointed time, in the appointed way. He had to fit every prophecy about the Messiah of Israel: only then would the door open for Him.
Entering by the door was no formality. It meant Christ kept every requirement God had laid down for Israel.
The Lord is the Shepherd meant here. He entered the fold — here it is Judaism — and He entered by the door. That is, He kept all the rites and ordinances God appointed for Israel in that day. Born under the law, He was circumcised on the eighth day. Later, at the purification of His mother, He was presented to God in the Temple. Then John baptised Him in the Jordan. He was the only one so baptised who had no sins to confess. When John challenged Him, He answered, "thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness." Men did not grasp what those words meant. To enter the fold by the door, He had to submit to that rite of John's baptism.
The two words are not repetition. One describes how such men get in; the other describes what they do once inside.
Before Christ came, men had arisen who claimed to lead God's people, but only to exalt themselves. Theudas boasted that he was somebody. Judas of Galilee "drew away some of the people after him" (Acts 5:36-37). Such men had no authority from God, and did not enter by God's appointed door. Like a thief, they entered by stealth, and, as a robber, enriched themselves at the expense of the fold.
The Pharisees were inside the fold and held office. That was the problem: a place gained by climbing proves nothing.
The Pharisee rulers and teachers were in the sheepfold, the Jewish nation. But they had not entered it by the way God appointed. Instead of entering by the door, which they were unable to do, they climbed up some other way by their own efforts. They had pushed themselves into the role of caretakers over those in relationship with God. They had all the official trappings, human credentials and rank among men. Yet God had not accredited them. They had not entered by the door, and the sheep did not hear them.
The same test applies to anyone who takes up spiritual care of others: gift from Christ, not appointment by men.
A man may set himself up as a teacher or a pastor. His fellow men may appoint him to the office or title of pastor. But unless he has a real gift from the Head of the church, it is all a sham, a hollow claim, an empty conceit. His voice will be the voice of a stranger, which the true sheep of Christ do not know and ought not to recognise.
He came in by the door, but not to stay. The fold was not where He meant to leave His sheep.
He was not present to restore the kingdom again; the time for the Millennial blessing had not yet come. He had come to draw His own sheep to Himself and lead them out of the Jewish fold. He would bring them into the new blessings of the Christian flock.
- Door — Christ came the way God had marked out beforehand. He matched the prophecies and kept Israel's ordinances. That is what entering by the door means.
- Wall — anyone who skips that appointed way has to climb. The climb shows the motive: stealth to get in, plunder once inside.
- Trappings — rank, office and human credentials do not open the door. The Pharisees had all three, and God still did not accredit them.
- Voice — the sheep's safety lies in their ear. They do not know a stranger's voice, and should not follow it.
- Out — the true Shepherd did not enter to keep the sheep inside. He came to draw them to Himself and lead them out into new blessing.
but he that enters in by the door is [the] shepherd of the sheep.
Jesus draws a picture every listener knew. A walled sheepfold, one gate, and a man coming in to the sheep. Everything turns on a single question — how did he get in?
The fold in the picture is Israel. God set it up through Moses, and He settled the way in long before anyone came.
The religious system set up through Moses was like a fold. It penned the Jews up apart from the Gentiles, waiting for the coming of the true Messiah. The voices of the prophets had prescribed the door of entrance: He must be born of a virgin, at Bethlehem, and so on. Imposters had appeared. They lacked these credentials, so they looked for a way in somewhere else, and by that they betrayed themselves.
What made the door a door was not wood and hinges. The Old Testament had already published the identifying marks of the coming Shepherd, and those marks together formed the entrance.
That Israel were the sheep of the Lord had been the theme of the prophets of old. Anyone who came into this fold to exercise authority had to do so under the plain warrant of the Lord Himself. And Ezekiel had prophesied in His name that He would raise up for them "one shepherd" who should feed them, His "servant David." That means the greater one of David's line. King David had only been the forerunner and type of Him. This was, of course, the Messiah, the Lord's Anointed. Every mark that pointed out the Anointed pointed out the Shepherd of Israel also. These marks combined made up the "door," or way of entrance by which the true claimant of such a right would come.
Others had come before Him with claims. The way a man enters exposes what he is after.
All those who came before Him, pretending to be the shepherds and leaders of Israel, were thieves and robbers. Whoever they were, they did not enter by the door. They climbed over the wall and forced their way in by violence or cunning, and so they betrayed their true character. The sheepfold was Israel. These men sought to get possession of the sheep for their own profit, for their own glory. They were neither Messiahs, nor servants of God, nor sent by Him.
By contrast, entering the right way was itself the evidence of His commission.
The first thing the Lord marks is that He had entered by the door into the sheepfold, so proving His authority from the owner of the flock to take charge of the sheep, in contrast to any secret entrance, which by itself convicts a man of a dishonest purpose.
The door was not only a matter of where He was born. Commentators point to His whole submission to what God had appointed for Israel as the walking through of it.
The Lord is the Shepherd meant here. He entered the fold, which is here Judaism, and He entered by the door. That is, He kept all the rites and ordinances of that day which God appointed for Israel. Born under the law, He was circumcised on the eighth day. Later, at His mother's purification, He was presented to God in the temple. Then He was baptised by John in the Jordan, the only one so baptised who had no sins to confess. After that He began His ministry in Israel. So when John the Baptist challenged Him, His answer — "thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness" — carried a meaning men did not grasp at the time. To enter the fold by the door, He had to submit to that rite, John's baptism.
A few verses on, Jesus gives the door a name: His own.
The door is always the place marked out and appointed by the architect for entering. This is why Jesus says further down, "I am the door of the sheep." He is the one God has appointed as the way out for the Jewish remnant, and the way in for us all into the sanctuary, into His holy presence... He did not try to stir men up by exciting their passions, like the false Messiahs. He did not drag an unconverted and stubborn people along behind Him. Meek and lowly in heart, He followed the path the Lord had traced for Him. He entered by the door.
His entrance was not the destination. Having established His right to the sheep, He moves them.
The subject here is first His title to the name and place of Shepherd. Then it is His visit to the fold, to lead the sheep out of the ancient enclosure — the fallen Jewish system, already set aside in the mind of God... The door was the way appointed by God. Every predicted circumstance of His first coming, up to that moment, was accomplished. The rest were about to be fulfilled.
- The fold. Israel under the law was a walled enclosure. It kept the people apart from the nations as they waited for their Messiah.
- The door. God built the fold, so God fixed the way in. The prophets named the marks of the true Shepherd, and those marks together were the door.
- The proof. Coming the appointed way was Christ's credential. Those who climbed in another way showed that they wanted the sheep for themselves.
- The obedience. He kept everything God had appointed for Israel — meek and lowly, refusing the shortcuts of the false Messiahs.
- The purpose. He entered the fold to lead His own out of it, and the same door He came in by He later names as Himself.
To him the porter opens; and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out.
Jesus draws a picture from everyday shepherding: a sheepfold, a gatekeeper, and a Shepherd whose voice the sheep already know. Three questions follow. Who opens the door to Him? What makes His voice different? And where does He take the sheep He calls?
The picture rests on an ordinary custom of the time.
When the owner of the sheep in the fold was away, a porter or watchman guarded the entrance. One of his duties was to let no one in but the shepherd. So the man he opened the door to had to be the shepherd of the sheep.
The porter — the gatekeeper of the verse — stands for something larger than a hired watchman.
"To Him the porter opens" (v. 3). The porter is a figure of the power of God. He may act in providence by ordering circumstances, or by the Spirit working in the hearts of men. So the way lay open for Christ to reach "His own sheep."
The fold is Israel's own religious system. The Shepherd came into it by meeting every requirement Scripture had set for Him.
Everything foretold of the Lord Jesus, He answered to. Every rightful ordinance for Him to pass through, He recognised and fulfilled. He passes into the sheepfold by the door, and "to Him the porter opens." The people of Israel were shut off from all other people. Yet the sheepfold was only Judaism, and into it the true Shepherd of Israel comes.
Hearing here is more than sound reaching the ear. Some people listened to Scripture every week and got nothing from it.
Hearing His voice implies more than hearing the words of the Lord. It means His words carried a personal message that reached their hearts. Preaching at Antioch, Paul told the Jews that their rulers "did not recognize Him nor understand the utterances of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath" (Acts 13:27). So they heard the prophetic Scriptures, but those Scriptures carried no message to them.
The phrase "His own sheep" marks out a small group inside a nation that was turning away. It also picks up an earlier line in this Gospel.
While the Jews as a whole lapsed into blind rejection of Christ, a few received Him. These are here called "His own" sheep. The description points to the close and inseparable link between the Shepherd and the sheep. His own people refused their King, for "He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him" (John 1:11). But His own sheep did not revolt against Him, their Shepherd. They were His own particular property, as the Lord said to His Father, "Yours they were, and you gave them to me" (John 17:6).
He knows more than the name.
The little flock as a whole is His very own. Yet His love and interest go out to each individual sheep. He knows the name of every one, for He calls His own sheep by name. He called Zacchaeus by name out of his hiding place in the sycamore tree. He saw Nathanael hidden under the fig tree. He knew the past history of the Samaritan stranger.
After the resurrection, one woman at the tomb hears her own name.
The Good Shepherd, risen from the dead, calls His sheep by her name. The known and loved voice, powerful as the grace that called her, at once reveals Him to the one who heard it. She turns to Him and replies, "Rabboni — my Master."
He comes in, but He does not stay in. The leading out is not a suggestion the sheep may decline.
He makes them His own, and He calls them by name, as one who knows them. The Shepherd Himself does it, and He knows those who are His. The object is to bring them out of it. He enters into the "fold," but it is not the "flock." ... "He leads them out." He must put His sheep out by His own authority. He cannot let His own sheep stay there.
The leading out has a starting point and a destination.
Here the Lord is the Shepherd who calls His own sheep and leads them out of the Jewish fold into all the blessings of the new Christian flock. ... Having called them, the Shepherd does not leave them in the Jewish fold that had rejected Christ. "He leads them out" of the Jewish nation that was passing on to judgment.
- Access — the porter opens, so God's own power clears the way for the Shepherd to reach His sheep. No one else gets in.
- Voice — hearing means His words reach the heart. People can read Scripture for years and never hear the Shepherd in it.
- Owned — "His own sheep" are His property, given to Him by the Father, and they did not join the rejection.
- Named — the whole flock is His, yet He knows each one by name, as Zacchaeus, Nathanael and the woman at the tomb each found out.
- Out — He enters the fold only to lead them out, away from a nation facing judgment and into the blessings of a new flock.
When he has put forth all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, because they know his voice.
A shepherd walks in front of his flock, and the flock follows him. Jesus uses that picture just after the leaders threw a healed blind man out of the synagogue, to show who truly leads God's people and how they know Him.
The Lord is not describing sheep wandering off. He is describing a deliberate move out of the old Jewish system, and He takes the first step Himself.
When He puts forth His own sheep He says, "he goes before them." What that meant for Him! He was the first to go outside. Yes, He was rejected, He was crucified, He "suffered outside the gate" (Heb. 13:12). Jesus was going to call a people outside the Jewish order of things. This is what He has been doing for almost two thousand years. He calls souls out into what He has set up, the direct fruit of His own death and resurrection.
This had just happened to the man Jesus healed of blindness.
No doubt they had turned him out of the synagogue. But Christ stamps His own meaning on their wicked act, according to God's purposes. The man had no idea at that painful moment that it was really grace leading him out.
One detail carries the weight here: a shepherd does not push his flock from behind.
People have often noticed that this is one of the most familiar pictures in the world. Shepherds do not drive their sheep, as people do in England and perhaps Ireland. They go before them, and the flock follows.
Going before is not only a matter of direction. It means He has already met everything the road holds.
Before He made the sacrifice, He had gone the path the sheep trod… "When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them" — in the paths of temptation, sorrow, difficulty. We go through our small share of the exercise of faith; He went through everything. Moses refused the treasures in Egypt; Christ refused the whole world. Abraham "sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange country"; Christ was a stranger in the whole world. In all His path we see Him not screening Himself by His divine power, but bearing everything that a human heart could bear. There is not a trial but He felt it.
The verse states a rule, not a one-off event. So it reaches into every situation a believer meets.
It is always true — true at all times, and true of all saints — that when the Good Shepherd "has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice." This is a truth, a divine principle, of immense value, and it touches daily life deeply and widely. It assures our hearts that, whatever happens, He is at hand. He is always near — within sight, as we may say, and within the sound of His voice… It is your safeguard in danger — your victory in conflict — your light in darkness — your strength in weakness — your comfort in sorrow — your fellowship in solitude — your brightest hope in the deepest gloom.
The reason given for following is not clever judgment but recognition. That recognition is itself the protection.
The Lord had already tasted the hatred and scorn of people, above all of the Jews. But He also knew the depths of shame and suffering He must soon pass through, before the open separation of the sheep. So, in fact or in form, Jesus went first either way, and the sheep followed; "for they know his voice." This is their spiritual instinct, as it is their security — not skill in determining or refuting error, but simple cleaving to Christ and the truth.
He brings out all His own — not one stays behind. And none of them knows where the road leads. They know the voice, and that is enough.
When they left Egypt, none could be left behind. Not one of the Lord's hosts stayed in the land, and not even a hoof of their cattle. … Like Abraham, who obeyed God's call and went out, not knowing where he was going, so the sheep followed Him. They knew little of the purpose of the Shepherd's heart for them, or of the large and wealthy place He was guiding them into. They knew only His voice.
- Out — the Shepherd does not stay in the old fold. He puts His own out of it, and He is the first one outside, rejected and crucified.
- Before — He never drives from behind. He walks ahead, so every step the sheep take is a step He has already taken.
- Tested — the road He walked ahead of them was one of temptation, sorrow and difficulty. There is no trial of theirs He has not felt.
- Voice — they follow because they recognise Him, not because they can argue down error. That recognition is their whole security.
- Enough — He brings out all His own — not one left behind — and like Abraham they go without knowing the destination. Knowing the voice is all the map a sheep needs.
But they will not follow a stranger, but will flee from him, because they know not the voice of strangers.
A flock walks in the open behind its shepherd, and this verse makes a striking claim: the sheep will not go with a stranger at all. Their protection lies in what they don't recognise.
Many voices call to the sheep. Their safety does not come from being able to identify every one.
The sheep follow Him, because they know His voice. There are many other voices, but the sheep do not know them. Their safety consists, not in knowing them all, but in knowing that they are not the one voice which is life to them — the voice of Jesus. All the rest are the voices of strangers.
A stranger is not always an obvious enemy. He may hold the place of guide and teacher and still be one.
First there was the Stranger (verse 5). He spoke to the sheep with an unfamiliar voice. There was no ring of love in it. The sheep had never met him; he was nothing to them. They flee from such men. There are people like this today. They take it on themselves to guide and teach. But the sheep of Christ instinctively keep well away from them. They do not hear the Shepherd's voice in what these strangers say.
The verse gives the sheep one movement: away. They are not told to win the argument.
No one has to become an expert in error first.
They are not required to know whose voice it is, nor to be learned in theological arguments. There is only one Voice for which they have ear or heart; and from another voice they flee. From anyone who would imitate that Voice, or claim authority over them alongside it, they do right to suspect evil. For the sheep as a rule, apart from what may appeal to them in the need of others, their best safety is in flight.
It does not mean the sheep are unaware such voices exist. It means the voice finds nothing inside them to answer it.
In John 10:5 the Lord does not mean that the sheep should know nothing about these strangers. Clearly, the New Testament writers were well aware of the subtle attacks of the enemy. But they did not "know" the voice of strangers. There was no conscious inward knowledge of this voice. There was no link with these teachings in their minds, and no response in their souls.
The Lord is describing His own sheep here, so the verse also tests who they are. Not everyone standing in the fold belonged to Him.
Not all who lay in that Jewish sheepfold were His sheep. His presence in it tested this and drew the line of separation. His sheep were the ones who recognised the Shepherd's voice. They did not merely know Him by outward evidence; their hearts answered Him as they answered no one else.
Writers also separate a passing lapse from the settled direction of a life.
Someone may say that certain people have followed evil teachers and leaders. But the Lord said His sheep do not follow them, and do not know them! On the contrary, they flee from strangers. So those who do follow them cannot be His sheep. We are speaking, of course, about a person's settled character, not about a sudden impulse. A true believer will be recovered from that.
This verse warns against studying every wrong path in order to avoid it.
They escape the stranger, not because they know his evil teaching, but because "they know not". If we know God's path for His people, we do not need to turn aside and study the evil of every side-path of the destroyer. How many have lost their way while investigating a side-path they know to be evil.
The safeguard is positive: enjoy what the Shepherd has already given.
A good remedy to keep us from the tricks of the stranger's voice is to be thankfully taken up with the things our Shepherd has given us. … Instead, we are often dissatisfied, unthankful and murmuring, like the people of Israel long ago. This is a golden opportunity for the stranger's voice. Let us not give him a chance.
- One voice. Safety begins not with knowing many voices, but with knowing the one that gave you life.
- No response. "They know not" means no inward recognition, no echo in the soul — not ignorance that strangers exist.
- Flee, don't fence. The sheep escape by walking away, not by out-arguing the stranger. For ordinary believers, flight is the wisdom.
- No expertise required. Nobody has to master every error to be secure; that burden was never given to the sheep.
- A test, then. Following strangers as a settled pattern shows whose sheep a person is. A sudden lapse is different: a true believer will be recovered.