"I am the good shepherd." Again He solemnly proclaims the superiority of His authority over that of the Jews. This is now proved not by anyone's testimony, but by the examination of the deeds themselves.
Previously He set His own deeds against the crimes of the false prophets. He showed the most excellent outcome of His labors in comparison with their false speech. They, He says, were strongly inclined only to theft, murder, destruction, deceit, and things unfit to mention.
He Himself, by contrast, came so that the sheep might not only have life, but something more. Therefore He beautifully and justly cried out: "I am the good shepherd." So also here, He defines the truly good shepherd by his voluntary desire to die for the sheep.
He defines him by his readiness to lay down his life for them. He calls the hireling a foreign steward, a coward, a fugitive, and something of that kind. Since He knew about Himself that He would lay down His life for the flock, He again cries out with complete certainty: "I am the good shepherd."
Indeed, it was fitting for Him who is first in all things to surpass all (Col 1:18). Thus the Psalmist would again prove true when he says somewhere to Him: "That You may be justified in Your words, and prevail when You are judged" (Ps 50:6).
Besides what has been said, we must also consider this. I think that when the Lord offered the Jewish people what would bring them great profit, He tried to persuade them to think rightly not only through His own words, but also through prophetic sayings.
He wished them to know clearly that He is the good shepherd, and that they are not. Why? Because it was natural to think that, if they were not persuaded by His words, they would have to agree with the prophets' sayings, even against their will.
Therefore when He says, "I am the good shepherd," He lifts the Jews' mind to remember what was spoken by the voice of the prophet Ezekiel. Ezekiel speaks in this way concerning Christ and those who received authority over the Jewish flock.
"Thus says the Lord God: O shepherds of Israel, do shepherds not feed themselves? Should not shepherds feed the sheep? Behold, you eat the milk, clothe yourselves with the wool, and slaughter the fattened, but you do not feed My sheep.
The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the wounded you have not bound up, and the straying you have not sought. But the strong you have worn out with labor. My sheep were scattered because there were no shepherds.
They became food for all the wild beasts, and My sheep were scattered upon every mountain, upon every high hill, and over the face of the whole earth. There was no one searching, nor anyone bringing them back" (Ezek 34:2-6).
The rulers of the Jews had only one aim: to satisfy greed, receive offerings from those subject to them, collect taxes, and establish commandments beyond the law. They gave no attention to what could benefit or preserve the people under their authority.
Therefore the truly good Shepherd again says to them: "Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against the shepherds. I will require My sheep at their hands, and I will remove them from feeding My sheep. The shepherds shall no longer feed them.
I will deliver My sheep from their mouth, and they shall no longer be food for them" (Ezek 34:10). Again, after some other words: "I will set up over them one shepherd, and he shall feed them, even My servant David.
He shall be their shepherd. And I, the Lord, will be their God, and David shall be ruler in their midst. I, the Lord, have spoken. I will make with David a covenant of peace, and I will destroy evil beasts from the land.
They shall dwell in the wilderness and sleep in the groves. I will give them the places around My mountain, and I will give you rain, the rain of blessing. The trees of the field shall yield their fruit, and the earth shall yield its fruit" (Ezek 34:23-27).
In these words God declares with perfect clarity that the impious assembly of the Pharisees will be removed from authority over the Jews. He has made it wholly evident that, after them, Christ will preside over the rational flocks of believers.
According to the flesh, He comes from David. Through Him God established the covenant of peace, that is, the evangelical and divine preaching. It raises us to love for God and grants us the Kingdom of Heaven.
Through Him also comes the rain of blessing, that is, the firstfruits of the Spirit. He makes the soul in which He dwells like fruitful soil. Since the Pharisees caused no little evil to the sheep, they did not feed them at all.
Rather, they tried in every way to harm them. Christ, however, brought salvation and appeared as the giver and cause of the blessing from above. Therefore He rightly is what He declares Himself to be in the words: "I am the good shepherd."
Let no one be scandalized that God the Father called the Man from the seed of David a servant, though He is God by nature and the true Son. Rather, let him consider that He humbled Himself, taking the form of a servant (Phil 2:7).
Therefore He is rightly called servant by God the Father in accordance with the form He assumed.
"I know My own, and My own know Me, as the Father knows Me, and I know the Father." According to the simpler interpretation of these words, the Lord wished here to indicate only this. He will be manifest to His own.
He will grant to those who believe in Him an unhindered knowledge of Himself. He Himself will also know His own, clearly showing that knowledge is not useless for those who have received it. Indeed, what could we count higher than being known by God?
But this saying requires deeper examination, especially because of the added words: "as the Father knows Me, and I know the Father." Therefore we must turn to such an examination of the saying.
I think no one with sound understanding would say that any created being could receive such knowledge of Christ as God the Father has of Him. The Father alone knows His own, and He Himself is known only by His own Offspring.
For "no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father, what He is, except the Son," according to the Savior's own word (Mt 11:27). We know and believe that the Father is God, and likewise that the Son is true God.
But what the ineffable Nature is according to essence is wholly inaccessible to us and to the other rational creatures. How, then, can we have knowledge of the Son equal to the Father's?
We must notice how He says that He knows us, and that He will be known by us, as He knows the Father and the Father knows Him. Therefore we must also examine what contemplation we should apply to these words according to their meaning.
What comes to my mind in this inquiry I will not hide, though each is free to accept it. I think that by "knowledge," γνῶσιν, He here does not mean simple "awareness," εἴδησιν.
Rather, He uses it in the sense of "proper relation," οἰϰειότητος, either by kinship and nature, or by appropriation through grace and dignity. Thus among the Greeks not only relatives by marriage, but also blood brothers, are usually called known or related, γνωστούς.
That divine Scripture also regards proper relation as knowledge can be seen from the following. In one place Christ says of persons who have no proper relation to Him: "Many will say to Me in that day," clearly the day of judgment, "Lord, Lord, did we not work many wonders in Your name and cast out demons?
Then I will declare to them: Truly I say to you, I never knew you" (Mt 7:22-23). If knowledge meant only awareness, how could He who has all things "naked and open before His eyes," as it is written, not know any existing thing (Heb 4:13)?
How could He not know any existing thing, since He "knows all things before they come to be" (Dan 13:42)? Therefore it is utterly unreasonable, and even more, impious, to imagine that the Lord does not know someone.
Rather, we must think that He spoke of their having no proper relation and communion with Him. "I do not know you," He says, as lovers of virtue, as keepers of My word, or as joined to Me through good works.
In accordance with what was said above, you should understand the same concerning wise Moses, when God says to him: "I know you above all, and you have found grace with Me" (Ex 33:12). This means: I have placed you in closer relation with Me than all others, and you have attained great grace.
We say this without abolishing the meaning of awareness from knowledge. We only define the mode of meaning that best fits the contemplative sense of the words being interpreted.
Otherwise, how are we "the offspring of God" (Acts 17:29), and how could we become "partakers of the divine Nature" (2 Pet 1:4)? We have cause for boasting not only because Christ wished to receive us into kinship with Himself.
This kinship belongs to us all in actual reality. This is because the Word of God, even with flesh, remains the divine Nature. Yet we are His kin, though He is God by nature, because He assumed the same flesh as ours.
Thus the mode of kinship proves similar. As He is related to the Father, and the Father is related to Him by identity of nature, so we are related to Him because He became man, and He to us.
Through Him, as through the Mediator, we touch the Father. Christ is as it were a certain middle point between the Godhead above and humanity. He is both at once, and in Himself He embraces realities so far separated from one another.
As God by nature, He touches God the Father. As true man, He touches men. But someone may perhaps say: "Do you not see, most beloved, to what dangerous conclusion your argument leads?
If we think that, since He became man, He knows His own, that is, entered into kinship with His sheep, then who remains outside the flock? In that case all would be related to Him, since they too are men, as He is. What greater meaning, then, will there be in the word 'My'?
What advantage can those who truly are His have? If all are related, for the reason already given, what more will those known by Him possess?" To this we reply that the mode of kinship is common to all, both those who know Him and those who do not.
He became man not by benefiting some partly and not others, but by having mercy on the whole fallen nature. Yet this mode of kinship with Him proves wholly useless for those who insult Him by unbelief.
It is appointed properly for those who love Him as a special reward. So also the work of resurrection extends to all because of the Savior's resurrection, since He raised the whole human nature with Himself.
Yet it is wholly useless for lovers of sin, for they will descend into Hades, receiving restoration to life only for punishment. For those who live nobly, however, it will be of great benefit, since they will receive resurrection for communion in blessings beyond understanding.
In the same way, I think, the work of kinship touches all, both evil and good. Yet it does not have the same meaning for all. For those who believe in Him, it will become the cause of attaining true kinship with Him and the blessings joined to it.
For those who do not believe, it will be a most grievous accusation of ingratitude and impiety. Thus we reason about this. Let another devise something better.
Finally, we must notice how truly and soundly the saying is constructed. He does not speak of these things indifferently and confusedly, but sets each matter in its own particular and fitting place.
He did not say, "My own know Me, and I know My own." Rather, He first sets Himself as knowing His own sheep, and then says that in this way He will also be known by them.
If knowledge is taken in the sense of awareness, as we said at the beginning, then you may understand the saying in this way. We did not know Him first. He knew us first.
So Paul says something similar in his Epistle to Christians from the Gentiles: "Therefore remember that you, Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, made in the flesh by hands, were at that time without Christ.
THEOSIS