John 10:22-42

Read John 10:22-42 My sheep follow me; the Father and I are one

The Feast of Dedication is what we call Hanukkah, the 8-day festival of lights in December that celebrates two things: the revolt led by the Maccabees that liberated Israel from Greek domination, and the subsequent re-consecration of the Temple in 164 BC after it had been desecrated by Antiochus IV Epiphanes.

In verse 24, what do the Jewish leaders demand that Jesus tell them?

Previously, Jesus has avoided saying explicitly to the religious leaders that he is the Messiah, probably because that title means something different to them than it means to him.  He has only said it more clearly to people who believe in him (explicitly to the woman at the well and implicitly to the blind man he healed).

Jesus says that his works already testify to who he is, but they don’t believe because they are not part of his sheep (verse 26).  This suggests that only those who follow Jesus can really understand who Jesus is.  Why does greater understanding come only to those who decide to follow Jesus?

Jesus then continues his discussion of sheep from the previous passage.  In verse 27, he says that his sheep hear his voice.  Where do you go to hear the voice of Jesus?

Jesus repeats in verse 27 that he knows his sheep and they follow him.  We know that even Jesus’s sheep don’t always follow, or Jesus would not have told the parable of the man who left the 99 sheep to go and rescue the lost one (Matt. 18:12–14; Luke 15:3–7).  What can we do about the fact that, sometimes, Jesus’s sheep know his voice but still wander off?

What can we do about the fact that, sometimes, it is us who know Jesus’s voice but wander off?

What assurance does Jesus give in verse 28, and how does he strengthen his point in verse 29? 

In verses 28 and 29, Jesus says that no one can take you out of his hand or the Father’s hand.  What does this assurance mean to you personally?

Clearly, this promise only applies to those who are part of Jesus’s sheep in the first place, not to the leaders whom he said are not among his sheep.  (Similarly, in the story of the Last Judgment in Matthew 25:31-46, only some are sheep; those who have refused to care for the least among us are identified as goats and are not among Jesus’s sheep.)  Here, Jesus seems to indicate that the defining characteristic of his sheep is that they hear his voice and follow him.  What is Jesus asking you to do as a member of his flock?

In verses 28 and 29, Jesus again equates himself with the Father when he says that no one can take his sheep out of his hand and no one can take his sheep out of his Father’s hand.  He has again equated himself with the Father.  But in case that wasn’t obvious enough, he ends in verse 30 with “I and the Father are one.”  (Some translations reverse the order, perhaps to follow the rules of modern English grammar, but in the Greek it is “I and the Father are one.”)

In verse 30, Jesus says, “I and the Father are one.”  This is his clearest statement that he is God.  How does this strengthen your faith in Jesus?

The religious leaders recognize that what Jesus has said is blasphemous, unless it is true, so they pick up rocks to try to stone him for blasphemy.  Jesus asks, “For which of my good works are you trying to stone me?”  They respond that they are not trying to stone him for his work but for making himself God.  People sometimes accuse the Jewish authorities of just being political.  How does this incident show that some of them are very serious about trying to follow their faith?

Verses 34-36 do not appear to respond directly to the complaint in verse 33 that Jesus is equating himself with God and instead seem to say that humans can be called “gods.”  These verses could be interpreted as a separate point from what surrounds them.  However, scholars think that Jesus is making a kind of argument known as an a fortiori argument, which was used by the rabbis and others throughout history, in which the speaker is saying that if a lesser thing is true then a greater thing must all the more be true: If even humans can be called gods, then it is all the more true for Jesus, who is consecrated (verse 36) by God.  Here is what the verses mean:

In verse 34, John uses the Septuagint (Greek) translation of Psalm 82:6, which says, “You are gods.”  (Most Bibles translate the Old Testament from the Hebrew, so Psalm 82:6 reads slightly different there.)  Psalm 82 denounces the gods of other nations for not providing justice and protecting the lowly, but this psalm was also interpreted as an indictment of the corrupt leaders of the nation of Israel, who failed to provide justice and protect the poor in Israel.  The Old Testament in some places describes those in authority as having the function of God because their authority comes ultimately from God (for example, Deut. 1:17; Ex. 21:6).  Psalm 82:6 refers to them as “gods” and calls them “sons of the Most High” but adds that they will die like any mortal; so it uses the word “gods” for humans.  Jesus uses this verse to tell them they should not object to him calling himself the Son of God.

Although Jesus points out that the Old Testament sometimes refers to people as “gods” (for example, judges/leaders) in what ways is Jesus different from humans who because of their positions might be called “gods”?

After arguing that it is appropriate to call him the “Son of God,” Jesus makes another claim that he is greater.  In verse 36, he says that “the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”  How does this indicate his uniqueness and difference from mere humans?

In verse 36, Jesus says he has been “consecrated” by the Father.  To be consecrated means to be holy and set apart for a particular purpose.  The Feast of Dedication celebrated the re-consecration of the Temple and its altar to serve God’s purposes after it had been desecrated.  Jesus may have had that feast of re-consecration in mind when he used the word “consecrated.”  How does Jesus, as the One consecrated by God, ultimately replace the altar and the sacrifices of the Temple?

In verses 37-38, Jesus says again that, even if they do not believe him because of his words, they should believe him because of his works, which show that he is in the Father and the Father is in him.  To what extent is Jesus’s miraculous work reason enough to believe in him?

Jesus returns to the place across the Jordan River where John the Baptist was first baptizing people – where Jesus was baptized by John and where he gathered his first disciples.  How might this be a special place for Jesus to gather spiritual strength as he prepares to face what he knows lies ahead?

When you are facing difficult challenges, what are the places you can go to physically, or the spiritual foundations you can call to mind, to help you stay grounded in God’s purposes for you?

Verses 41-42 tell us that the local people remembered that John had pointed them to Jesus.  They thought about Jesus’s signs, and many of them came to believe in him.  This is a contrast with the religious leaders, who refuse to believe despite all the evidence.  What can we learn from this interlude in Jesus’s life?

Looking at this whole passage from verse 22 on, what stands out to you as something you can take with you and apply in your life?

Take a step back and consider this:

There are two major places where Jesus uses the imagery of sheep for his followers: here in John 10 and in the Last Judgment in Matthew 25:31-46.  It might be instructive to compare what Jesus says about sheep in the two passages.  In John 10:27, Jesus says that his sheep hear his voice and follow him.  In Matthew 25, he says that some sheep don’t realize that when they have fed the hungry, welcomed the stranger, visited the sick or imprisoned, etc., it is Jesus they have served.

Did the sheep in Matthew 25 “hear” his voice and follow him?  They heard enough to understand the call to love one another, and they followed his command by showing love for those in great need.  Perhaps his commands were so internalized in them that they didn’t even think about whether they were serving Jesus; they just knew they were following the law of love, the Golden Rule to do for others what you would want them to do for you.

In contrast, the “goats” did not care follow the law of love, did not follow the Golden Rule, and so they did not see Jesus in the ways he shows himself to us in the least among us.  They did not follow his commands.  They did not show any evidence that they actually “heard” his voice.  And yet they are surprised.  They somehow think they should have the same judgment as the sheep even though they have not acted the way the sheep have acted.  They think they should be ushered into eternal life even though they have not followed Jesus’s commands.

When Jesus says that his sheep “hear” his voice and “follow” him, what do you think he expects that to look like?  What do you think he expects them to be doing?

Interestingly, Jesus does not say in these sheep stories that the sheep go to church, pray, study the Bible, or do any of the other “spiritual” things Christians often emphasize.  That doesn’t mean those other things aren’t important.  But it does indicate that Jesus wants more than just “spiritual” practices.  Does he only want us to follow him into places of good pasture?  Or does he also want us to follow him into service to people in need?

Later in this Gospel, Jesus will tell us to love one another as he loves us, to keep his commandments, and to remain in him; and he will pray that we all may be one.  How are those also things that a sheep does if the sheep is hearing his voice and following him?