Some Jews came to Jesus and asked Him: “How long dost Thou make us to doubt?” (Jn 10:24), or (as in the AV margin) “leave us in suspense”. The matter they claimed to be in doubt was Christ’s Messiahship. They asked further: “If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly”. But, as David Brown comments, “When the plainest evidence of it was resisted, what weight could a mere assertion of it have?” They had seen so many miracles, each of which demonstrated Jesus’ supernatural power, that any further statement of the fact that He was indeed the Messiah could exert no influence on their thinking, unless it was accompanied by divine power. But that divine power was withheld in the face of their willful rejection of the evidence set before them in each of the many miracles that Jesus performed.
Why did they not believe in Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ? His own answer was: “Ye believe not, because ye are not of My sheep”. But who are the sheep of Christ? He told them: “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me”. The sheep – people like Peter and John, Mary of Bethany and Mary Magdalene – listened to what Christ said; they trusted in Him as the Messiah; they looked to Him for the salvation of their souls. And they followed Him; they sought to follow His example; they were conscious of His authority.
None of these things were true of the Jews who asked Him to confirm that He was the Messiah. They would not take Him as their Prophet to teach them the way of salvation; they would not take Him as their Priest to offer up a sacrifice that could really take away sin; nor would they take Him as their King to rule over them and to defend them – especially from the devil who was tempting them to stay on the broad way although it leads to eternal destruction. And what about us? Have we taken Christ to be our Prophet, our Priest and our King? He still calls us as the Good Shepherd: “Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else” (Is 45:22).
All who look to Him – that is, who believe in Him – have been brought among the sheep. They are now under the care of the Good Shepherd (Jn 10:11), who gave His life for them, the just One taking the place of unjust sinners, that He might bring them to God (1 Pet 3:18). In being made Christ’s sheep, they have been given the nature of the sheep, and so they will follow Christ for the rest of their lives. Being under the Good Shepherd’s care, they will always be safe; they will be brought to everlasting glory; they will never perish in a lost eternity.
So He promises, “I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand” (Jn 10:28). No man has the power to do so; no more can any devil pluck a sheep out of Christ’s hand; His grip of them is too strong. The divine Saviour has infinite power; even Satan has only limited power. He may tempt them and, to some extent, succeed – as he did with David and Peter, for example. But none of the sheep will ever perish; they can never lose the eternal life which they have for the sake of Christ; they will always be safe because of the great work that He has accomplished on earth, on their behalf. Even when they stray, He will in His own time give them repentance. He always brings back to Himself the sheep who stray. But let us notice three further reasons why the sheep of Christ are perfectly safe:
1. They are justified.
God justifies all who believe in Jesus; they are no longer under a sentence of condemnation because of sin; they are now under a sentence of acceptance – God accepting sinners as if they had never sinned. And He is just in doing so, because Jesus was condemned instead of those who believe in Him. He suffered unto death; He suffered the cursed death of the cross. What is more, believers are accepted as if they themselves had kept the law of God perfectly. Again Jesus was their Substitute; He kept the law in their place. God the Father sees the perfection of both these aspects of the work of Christ as the believer’s Substitute; the Father sees that the Saviour fully satisfied His holy law in both these aspects. And therefore He is completely just when He makes the pronouncement that the believer is fully accepted as righteous for the sake of Christ.
Accordingly Paul asks, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?” The Apostle has a simple answer: “It is God that justifieth” – not a creature. Not even an angel could have the necessary authority. No angel, though possessing a far better intellect than human beings, can fully understand the extent of the righteousness of Christ in satisfying divine justice, both in meeting the perfect standard of obedience required by the law and in fully satisfying the penalty it demanded for His people’s sin. But God understood perfectly the completeness of Christ’s satisfaction to the law and He was altogether well pleased with it. He understands also the reality of faith in every believer’s heart. So no mistake is possible when God pronounces a sinner justified; it is an irreversible pronouncement; there can never be any need to reverse it. The sheep have believed on Christ; God has justified them; and so they will always be safe.
2. Christ’s intercession.
The sheep cannot keep themselves safe, but the Good Shepherd can. In His intercessory prayer, He said, “I pray for . . . them which Thou hast given Me” (Jn 17:9). And now that He, the God-man Mediator, is exalted to heaven, He continues to make intercession for them. Just as He could say in this world, “Thou hearest Me always” (Jn 11:42), so His intercession in heaven is all-prevailing. When, on the basis of His redeeming work on earth, He makes intercession for His sheep to be kept, their safety is assured. They cannot perish; not even Satan can pluck them out of the hand of the One who makes intercession for them.
The sheep must look to Christ to keep them safe. But they must not become complacent; they must use the means that the Lord has appointed, including prayer. They must use, for instance, David’s petition, “Hold up my goings in Thy paths, that my footsteps slip not” (Ps 17:5). David was not resting on his prayers; nor are Christ’s sheep today; they look away from themselves to the gracious power of the Good Shepherd to protect them – especially in spiritual things. And they look to Him, as the great Intercessor, to present their petitions to the Father. It is thus they can be heard and kept safe
3. The covenant of grace.
It is only possible to know that the Lord had an eternal purpose of mercy towards a sinner when that sinner has been called effectually, and is now among Christ’s sheep. That eternal purpose, within the covenant of grace, is another aspect of the safety of the sheep. At the end of his days, David rejoiced in the “everlasting covenant . . . ordered in all things and sure” (2 Sam 23:5) that God had made with him. In that covenant, David was represented by the Son of God, and flowing from that covenant were all “the sure mercies of David” (Acts 13:34, for example) – all the saving mercies that he enjoyed on earth and was sure to enjoy to all eternity. By faith, David saw that these mercies were sure to him; and among these mercies was the leading of the Lord, his Shepherd (see Ps 23:1).
Under the terms of this covenant, God the Son undertook to take a human nature and, in that nature, to keep the law and undergo its penalty on behalf of all those – the sheep – whom the Father gave to Him. The Father likewise undertook to bless, especially with spiritual blessings, all those for whom Christ became a substitute in keeping God’s law and undergoing its penalty. Christ has fulfilled entirely what He undertook to do, and the Father is sure to fulfill all that He has promised. All the sheep of Christ are therefore perfectly secure. His promise is totally reliable: “They shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand”.