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§28 Jesus Is Rejected (John 10:22–39)

The notation of time and place in verses 22–23 is intended to set the stage for a new encounter between Jesus and the Jerusalem authorities, not to locate the events of 9:1–10:19. The time frame of Jesus’ ministry, especially in Jerusalem, is provided by the Jewish religious festivals. The last of these to be mentioned was the autumn Feast of Tabernacles (7:2), the setting of chapters 7–8. Now it is winter and time for the Feast of Dedication (known today as Hanukkah); the events of 9:1–10:19 are assumed to have taken place in late autumn, between the two festivals.

The Feast of Dedication celebrated Jewish independence and the recapture and reconsecration of the temple in 165 B.C. under Judas Maccabaeus after its desecration by the Greeks under the Seleucid king Antiochus Epiphanes (see 1 Macc. 4:36–61; 2 Macc. 10:1–8). It was a time for such words as “we are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone” (8:33) to come alive in the heart of every Jew. Like the other festivals, it was also a time of messianic expectation. Though the Romans respected the temple precincts and allowed the Jews freedom of worship, this festival was a reminder that the political independence gained under the Maccabees was no longer a reality. For all but the most militant activists the only hope of regaining that independence was the appearing of the Messiah. The question asked in verse 24, however (If you are the Christ, tell us plainly), represents not a genuine popular longing for the deliverer, but rather the efforts of the authorities to trap Jesus into embracing the messianic role. To say “I am the Christ” in just those words would be to welcome any and all attempts to make him king (6:15) and so to place himself in jeopardy from the Romans.

The scene is reminiscent of Jesus’ interrogation in the other Gospels at his trial. “Are you the Christ, the son of the Blessed One?” (Mark 14:61; cf. Matt. 26:63; Luke 22:67a). Here, as in Matthew and Luke (though not Mark), Jesus’ reply is ambiguous: I did tell you, but you do not believe (v. 25; cf. Luke 22:67b–68, “If I tell you, you will not believe me, and if I asked you, you would not answer”). The ambiguity lies in the fact that in this Gospel Jesus has not already told them (or anyone in a Jewish context) in so many words that he is the Messiah (though he has in a Samaritan setting, cf. 4:26). What he means is that he has told them by his deeds (v. 25), in particular the healing of the sick man at Bethesda and the man born blind (cf. v. 21). Such miracles done on the Father’s authority testify that Jesus is both Messiah and Son of God (cf. 5:36; 20:31). They do this by virtue of the appended discourses in which Jesus expounds their meaning. Those who reject the unified witness of Jesus’ deeds and words prove by their rejection that they are not Jesus’ sheep (i.e., that they do not belong to him and are not subject to his care). It is another way of saying they “do not belong to God” (8:47).

With the words, because you are not my sheep (v. 26), Jesus returns to the imagery of verses 1–18. What follows in verses 27–30, however, is best understood not as parable but as a self-revelation of the Son using the metaphor of shepherd and sheep, very much in the style of verses 14–16. The self-identification, “I am the good shepherd,” is here implied rather than expressed, but Jesus’ activity as shepherd and Son is unfolded similarly in the two sections.

I. Verses 14–16	II. Verses 27–30
(a) I know my sheep and my sheep know me—just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—	(a) My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.
(b) and I lay down my life for the sheep	(b) I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish;
(c) I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.	(c) no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.

Formally, the two sections have in common the revelatory “I” -style in which the speaker is the Shepherd/Son. As to content, they have three features in common: (a) the mutual knowledge of sheep and shepherd (based in section I on the mutual knowledge of Father and Son), (b) the shepherd’s gift of life to his sheep (based in section I specifically on his death), and (c) the shepherd’s ministry to his sheep (in section I a mission to “other sheep” and the achievement of unity; in section II the security and protection of the flock). Section II is a simplified version of section I, focusing on the safety of the sheep from harm or destruction (cf. vv. 9–12) and using this to illustrate the work carried out in common by the Father and the Son. In chapter 5 the principle that “my Father is always working, and I too must work” (5:17) was illustrated in terms of the giving of life (5:21, 26) and the exercise of judgment (5:22, 27). Here the same principle finds expression in that which is the corollary of the giving of life, that is, the provision of security for those in danger. The commonality of work forms the basis of a syllogism:

if:

no one can snatch them out of my hand

and

no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand (vv. 28–29)

Then:

I and the Father are one (v. 30)

Jesus and the Father are one because they do the same work and stand in the same relation to the sheep. This is not the same as saying merely that Jesus imitates or obeys the Father. Their oneness is not an ethical oneness, or unity of will. They actually do the same work, that is, the Father accomplishes his work in the world uniquely through Jesus his Son. Jesus’ statement is no less provocative to his audience than was 5:17 (which made the same assertion) or 8:58 (“Before Abraham was born, I am”). In 5:18, the authorities “tried all the harder to kill him”; in 8:59 “they picked up stones to stone him”; and here they again … picked up stones to stone him (v. 31; the narrator’s use of again has the precedent of 8:59 clearly in view).

Once more Jesus appeals in his own defense to his great miracles (or better, “good deeds”), this time as the works of a good shepherd (v. 32; cf. vv. 11, 14). They are not great because of their magnitude but “good” because they give life and protection to those in need. They model the kindness of God himself, the Shepherd of his people, for they are, Jesus reiterates, deeds from the Father. His ironic question, For which of these do you stone me? (v. 32) presupposes the logic of his defense of his healings in the other Gospels: “Therefore, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath” (Matt. 12:12; cf. Mark 3:4). Here in John the issue has already shifted from that of the Sabbath to Jesus’ claims of sonship (cf. 5:16–18; 9:16). To the Jewish authorities, the issue is blasphemy: You, a mere man, claim to be God (v. 33; cf. 5:18). Their apparent reference is to the claim that I and the Father are one (v. 30).

Jesus’ reply is surprising, not because he appeals to Scripture, but because of the way he does so: Is it not written in your Law, “I have said you are gods”? (v. 34). The quotation is from Psalm 82:6: “I said, ‘You are “gods”; you are all sons of the Most High.’ ” But Jesus does not quote what precedes (“They know nothing, they understand nothing. They walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken,” 82:5) or what follows (“But you will die like mere men; you will fall like every other ruler,” 82:7). When he says your Law, Jesus does not mean that the Scripture belongs to his opponents and not himself, but rather that an appeal to Scripture (unlike the mysterious appeals he has been making to the authority of his Father) is an appeal in which he and his opponents stand on common ground. The principle that the scripture cannot be broken (v. 35) is something on which Jesus and the Jewish authorities are in agreement (cf. Matt. 5:18). To that extent he is serious in his use of the psalm. But what makes his argument seem strange is the fact that those who are called gods are by no means being commended. It is true that Jesus’ argument is from the lesser to the greater: If those who were merely the recipients of God’s message could be called gods, why is it blasphemy for Jesus, uniquely chosen by the Father and sent into the world, to call himself at least God’s Son? Jesus’ intent is not to weaken the claim he has made in verse 30 or in any way to lessen the offense taken at his words by the religious authorities. His point is not that he is God’s Son but not God, or that he is God in a sense comparable to the way that title was used in Psalm 82:6. His point is rather that titles as such are irrelevant in his revelation of himself to the world. Right from the start of the discussion, the Jewish authorities have been trying to talk with Jesus about titles (vv. 23–24, 33), while Jesus responds by referring instead to his deeds, which, he says, I do in my Father’s name (v. 25; cf. vv. 25–30, 32, 37–38). Only in verses 34–36 does he address the question of titles, and he does so only to make the point that titles mean nothing. The works of God are all that matter. Jesus could easily have said, “I am God” or “I am God’s Son” or “I am the Messiah,” but it would not have had to mean any more than God meant when he spoke of “gods” in Psalm 82. The purpose of the quotation is not to claim for Jesus a fixed title but to reduce the whole matter of titles to an absurdity.

In verses 37–38, Jesus resumes, and brings to completion, his own agenda for the discourse: Do not believe me unless I do what my Father does. But if I do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I in the Father. The effect of these words is to reiterate the claim of verse 30 that I and the Father are one. The point of issue for Jesus is not the title Christ (v. 24), or God’s Son (v. 36), or even God (v. 33), but the relationship between himself and the Father, a relationship displayed in such miracles as the healing of the blind man. More even than mutual knowledge (cf. v. 14), this relationship is one of mutual indwelling: The Father is in Jesus, and Jesus is in the Father. The hearers are not part of this relationship, nor are they invited to be, but Jesus wants them to know and understand that the relationship exists (v. 38). The immediate hearers cannot accept such a claim: Again they tried to seize him, but he escaped their grasp (v. 39; cf. 7:30, 44; 8:59). The readers of the Gospel can accept it, but at this point in the narrative they are not yet fully prepared to understand it. Mutual indwelling will become a major theme in Jesus’ farewell discourses, and only then will the further secret be revealed that Jesus’ disciples are in him and he in them in a way comparable to the relationship that exists between the Father and Jesus (cf., e.g., 14:20; 15:4; 17:21).