What did Jesus mean when He promised an abundant life?

He now contrasts Himself with the thief. It would be right of me to say to all of you there would be no life at all for anybody save on the basis of the work that Christ has wrought. His death lies at the basis of all life. The life that will be enjoyed in a coming age of millennial blessing here on earth is on the basis of the death of Christ, but to us today there is not only life but life “more abundantly”. I think it is a good thing to ask ourselves, ‘Am I going in for the real abundant life which Christ has made known and revealed?’ I am afraid we have got to look at ourselves whether we are young Christians or old Christians, there is a life which is not merely the divine spark, so to speak, which is in every true saint, but life is often used in Scripture in a second sense. We use it in ordinary conversation, there is a young man of the world who says, ‘I am going out to see life’. You cannot look at life? Life puzzles the scientists, what is it? We can tell the difference between a live person and a dead one, you cannot see it, but you can see it in is manifestation. I know what the young man means, he means he is going to have a jolly time and perhaps a bit of sin and the bright lights of the city and is going out to enjoy himself, he is interested in the things the world calls ‘life’. Now we Christians have got life, we are brought into the knowledge of God as our Father, we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God, we have most blessed things to occupy our hearts affections and our devotion to our risen Lord. These are things that are really life. The Lord said, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly”. He came to reveal an abundance of such things that we may walk in the power of an abundant life. It is a wonderful fact. This is the divine program which the Lord had before Him when as the good Shepherd He gave His life for His sheep.

As to the "more abundantly" of verse 10 it is not only that they should have life as every believer from Adam had life, but the liberty that redemption brought them into, and life in resurrection power and character. Of old, they had differed nothing from a servant, though lords of all.

Contrasts. — Having presented Himself under the simile of the door, the Lord will return to that of the Shepherd, there being much more to say on this head. Now He necessarily contrasts Himself with a thief and with a hireling. Self-seeking characterised such. The everlasting welfare of the sheep was the Lord's concern. To further it was His aim, even at the cost of His life. The thief would kill, steal, and destroy, gratifying his will at the expense of the sheep. "I am come [or, came]," said the Lord, "that they may have life, and may have it abundantly" (10). So the original should be translated, and not as in the Authorised Version, "more abundantly." Life, then, in its fulness, in its abundance, He gives. What a word for the Jews standing by! The One they despised, and would kill, if they could, came to give life to dead souls!

"I came that they may have life and may have it abundantly" (R.V.). Such is our portion. Not invalid life. Not existence merely. Thank God we have spiritual existence, but we have more. Spiritual vitality, spiritual vigour, spiritual enjoyment-these things are ours in the risen Shepherd who once in His goodness laid down His life for the sheep.

In verses 10 and 11 we get the contrast between the thief and the Good Shepherd. These thieves and robbers were men such as those mentioned by Gamaliel, in Acts 5:36-37; self-seeking imposters who brought in destruction and death. The true Shepherd brought in life; laying down His own life in order to do so. If He had not come and died, there would have been no life at all for sinful men; having done so, life is made available, and it is bestowed in abundant measure upon His sheep. We live in the light of the abundant revelation of God which has reached us in the Word made flesh, hence we have life abundantly. The life given to saints in all ages may be intrinsically the same, yet its fulness can only be known as God is fully revealed. This is indicated in 1 John 1:1-4.

Lastly, all these blessings lead the sheep into the enjoyment of life, that life of communion with divine Persons that leads to fulness of joy (1 John 1:4). This indeed is the life abundant in contrast with the natural life which even at its best is the life deficient, the life in which the joy fails (John 2:3).

He is the door for the sheep. He is their authority for going out, their means of entering in. By entering in, they are saved. They go in and out. It is no longer the yoke of ordinances, which, in guarding them from those without, put them in prison. The sheep of Christ are free: their safety is in the personal care of the Shepherd; and in this liberty they feed in the good and fat pastures which His love supplies. In a word, it is no longer Judaism; it is salvation, and liberty, and food. The thief comes to make his profit on the sheep by killing them. Christ is come that they might have life, and that abundantly; that is, according to the power of this life in Jesus, the Son of God, who would soon have this life (whose power was in His Person) in resurrection beyond death.

The true Shepherd of Israel — at least of the remnant of the sheep — the door to authorise their coming out of the Jewish fold, and to admit them into the privileges of God by giving them life according to the abundance in which He was able to bestow it — He was also in special connection with the sheep thus set apart, the good Shepherd who thus gave His life for the sheep. Others would think of themselves, He of His sheep. He knew them, and they knew Him, even as the Father knew Him, and He knew the Father. Precious principle! They could have understood an earthly knowledge and interest on the part of the Messiah on earth with regard to His sheep. But the Son, although He had given His life and was in heaven, knows His own, even as the Father knew Him when He was on the earth.

218 This is the general position, but there is more (v. 10). Jesus, in contrast with all the false pretenders, who only came to steal and to kill, came that we might have life, and that we might have it in abundance. The first expression is the object of His coming in general, which characterises the Gospel, and also the Epistle, of John: it is the Son of God come down, that we might live through Him. He is the eternal life which was with the Father, and gives life, and becomes Himself our life. (Compare 1 John 4:9; ch. 1:2; ch. 5:11-12; John 3:15-16; one might multiply quotations.) The second part of the sentence shews the character and fulness of this life: this life is in the Son. Having the Son, we have life, and we have it according to the power of His resurrection. The faithful in old times were quickened; but here it is the Son Himself who becomes our life, and that as Man risen from amongst the dead. We have it "abundantly." This 10th verse gives us the great purpose of the coming of the Son of God; but His love must unfold itself fully; He is not only the Shepherd, but the "Good Shepherd," and the Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. His death has done everything for them; it has redeemed them, washed them from their sins, justified them, purchased them for heaven; however, I think the object of the passage is the love and devotedness of the Good Shepherd; rather than lose His sheep, He lays down His life. The hireling thinks of himself, and runs away; and the wolf comes and seizes the sheep, and scatters them. In Gethsemane, Jesus said: "If ye seek me, let these go their way." Those who have the place of shepherds, abandon the sheep when the enemy comes; He lays down His life, rather than leave them a prey to the wolf. But there is yet more: the Good Shepherd knows His own, and His own know Him, as the Father had known Him, and He had known the Father. Wonderful position! Wonderful relationship! Jesus had been the object of His Father's heart; in the same way His sheep were the objects of His heart. Taught of God, His sheep knew Him, and trusted in Him, as He trusted in the Father; and He lays down His life for them. But in laying down His life, He opens the door to the sheep from amongst the Gentiles, which He must also bring, and they should hear His voice. With both one and the other, all should be the fruit of His heart and of His mouth, and there should be but one flock, and one Shepherd. As to man, this completes the fruit of the Lord's work, at least down here.

And what He does we learn from Himself: — "I am the door: by me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture" (John 10:9). Such is the Lord's own description of Himself, as the one absolutely needed by all. Through Him, and Him alone, is there entrance into blessing, but, through Him, into all blessing which the sheep are capable of enjoying. He came that we might have life, and might have it abundantly (perisson) — life through His death, life in Him, life in its fulness, so that its possessor should have no need to turn elsewhere to have, what the Lord can give, supplemented by something He cannot supply. Freedom, too, without the burdensome restraint under which Israel was placed, and pasture suitable and sufficient, would be found, and that for any one who would enter in by Him. All, then, that the sheep want would He supply, for that is the work of the Shepherd, which He so graciously took up, and which, though He has died, He still carries on, and thereby manifests the significance of His three titles, the Good, the Great, and the Chief Shepherd. By His death for the sheep He manifested Himself to be indeed the Good Shepherd. Raised up as the Great Shepherd of the sheep, we learn that His relations with them now continue unbroken; and, as He is the Chief Shepherd, we understand, that there are those under Him, who tend the flock in person during His absence from earth.

As to the thief, he came to steal, to kill, and to destroy. His object was to benefit himself, and that by covetous and dishonest means, and by inflicting suffering and loss on the sheep; whereas the Good Shepherd came to save, to give life, and that more abundantly: all through the priceless cost of laying down His own life for the sheep.