What is the one shepherd and one flock that Jesus talks about in John 10:16?

The Lord's words in verse 16 add another unexpected development. He was about to find sheep who had been outside that fold. There was to be the calling of an election from among the Gentiles. We see the beginning of this early in the Acts — the Ethiopian in Acts 8, Cornelius and his friends in Acts 10. We have often dwelt upon the "must" which occurs several times in John 3: have we ever praised God for the "must" here? — "them also I MUST bring." Sinners of the Gentiles become the subjects of the Divine work. They hear the Shepherd's voice and are attached to Him. Then, as a result of this two-fold calling — from Jewish fold and from the straying Gentiles — there is to be established one flock, held together under the authority of the one Shepherd. The word in this verse is definitely "flock" and not "fold." Sheep held together by outward restrictions: that was Judaism. Sheep constituted a flock by the personal power and attraction of the Shepherd: that is Christianity.

The “other sheep” of verse 16 are manifestly Gentile believers, not of the fold of Israel. They were to be brought also, as a result of the death of the Good Shepherd, and to be joined with the Jewish sheep, but not brought into the fold. Rather, “there will be one flock and one Shepherd.” The one flock is the Church of God composed of all believers of the present age, whatever their race. It is not a fold, where restraints of laws and ordinances are present, but a flock, free of legal encumbrances, in order to follow the Shepherd to the green pastures. For the Shepherd is present: He is their resource, their leader, their protection. It is the sense of the abiding presence of the Lord Jesus that is so essential to the true welfare of the Church in her entire history. Let us settle for nothing less.

Here the Lord can speak distinctly for the first time of other objects of His love. He might come minister of the circumcision for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. (Matt. 15:24.) But His love could not be so circumscribed, when His death opens the floodgates. The mention of His death leads Him to speak of what was quite outside Israel. "And other sheep I have which are not of this fold" — not of the Jewish people within their enclosure of law and ordinance; "them also I must lead, and they shall hear My voice; and there shall be one flock, one shepherd" (verse 16). ℵcorr.BDLX, etc., support the plural form, γενήσονται, "they shall be," the rest have the sing., γενήσεται [Weiss, Blass], which might bear the same meaning.

John 10:16. The Shepherd of the sheep has led His sheep outside the Jewish fold and opened the door to "any man" to enter into the new blessings of the flock. Manifestly, then, the flock cannot be limited to sheep from among the Jews. There are other sheep that the Shepherd must bring from amongst the Gentiles. They too shall hear His voice (cf John 17:20; Acts 13:46-48; Acts 15:7). His sheep thus separated from the Jewish fold and the Gentile nations would form one flock under one Shepherd.

160 Having now viewed Himself as the Shepherd in His exalted position, He looks at those belonging to Him as thus the exalted Shepherd, confirming I think distinctly the distinct positions of the office and order of the passage as followed here: "And other sheep I have" (of the Gentiles), "who are not of this [Jewish] fold," the "fold" in which He then was: "them also I must" (it was an obligation on Him of His Father, and the dueness of His own love), "bring," not "lead out," as before as to the Jews, or sheep among them at least: "and they shall hear my voice"; it is Christ's voice now, "therefore," "turn away from him that speaketh from heaven"; "and there shall be one" (not aulee, "fold") poimnee, "flock, and one Shepherd," to wit, the Church and Christ.

In verse 16 our Lord speaks of other sheep, which are not of this fold. These are the Gentiles. He leads out first from the Jewish fold His sheep; then there are the other sheep whom He will bring and who will hear His voice. The result will be one flock and one Shepherd. The Authorized Version is incorrect in using the word "fold." Judaism was a fold, the church is not. The ecclesiastical folds in which Christendom is divided have been brought about by the Judaizing of the church. The fold no longer exists. There is one flock as there is one Shepherd; one body, as there is one Lord. All who have heard His voice, believed on Him, entered in by Him, are members of the one flock.

It was and is of all moment to regard "the flock" as God's; and all the more, because it is the habitual way even of excellent souls to forget this truth and assume that the sheep whom they feed and tend are their flocks. Such a thought betrays an unwitting denial of God's rights, and falsifies the relation of His sheep, and engenders erroneous interpretation of His word to the hurt of His servants themselves as well as of the saints. Take the common misuse of Heb. 13:17, implying that those that guide, or have the rule, have to give account of the souls who are exhorted to obey them. The truth is, that the guides are called to watch in their behalf as having to give account, not of the sheep, but of their own conduct toward them before the Lord. Again, the unity of the flock of God is undermined by not a few who talk without the least warrant of its consisting of many folds. The Lord on the contrary is showing in John 10, not only that He quits the Jewish fold, and leads His sheep out, but that He has other sheep not of that fold, Gentile believers; both of whom were about to constitute the one flock, as He is the one Shepherd. There was to be no such thing henceforth as a fold, still less many folds, but His new flock. The one flock of Christ contains all Christians. The sheep might gather to His name here, there, and everywhere, with many an under-shepherd; but as He says, "They shall hear my voice; and there shall be one flock, one shepherd." This is Christian truth.

We have already alluded to the composite character of His flock — being now made up of Jews and Gentiles, — as He teaches in the sixteenth verse. Indeed, the whole history of the formation of the flock is there set forth — "Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: these also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice; and there shall be one flock and one Shepherd." This is the special feature of the flock during this dispensation. In the past, Israel alone was His flock; hence the Twenty-third Psalm commences, Jehovah is my Shepherd. But inasmuch as when He came to His own, His own received Him not, He by His death "broke down the wall of enclosure that separated the Jews from the Gentiles, and laid the foundation in His blood for the gathering out of both alike through faith in His name. Ever since Pentecost, therefore, He has been calling His sheep from every land, and from every clime, and they hear His voice, and they are brought, and together, whether Jews or Gentiles, they form the one flock under the one Shepherd.

But not only so, in verse 16 He says: "Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice: and there shall be one flock (no longer fold), one Shepherd." (N.Tr.) By His own voice heard in the inmost soul of Gentile as well as Jew, a precious link was formed between each sheep and Christ Himself; and thus His flock was constituted in all the blessing that He had been opening out for those who entered in by Christ as the door (vers. 9-15), founded as all blessing is on His laying down His life for the sheep.

(5) In laying down His life for the sheep the Lord opens the door for His sheep from among the Gentiles. His sheep are not only found in the Jewish fold: He has a vast number among the Gentiles. They, too, must be brought out of heathen darkness into the Christian flock; they, too, will hear His voice and will form, with the sheep from the Jewish fold, one flock under One Shepherd.