John 10:29Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Then, having said what His sheep will attain, He thereby stirs them up and awakens desire in them. What then? Does this mean that no one can snatch them away only by the Father's power? Are You Yourself unable and without power to guard them? Certainly not.

So that you may know that the saying, "The Father who gave them to Me," was spoken for the Jews, lest they again call Him an opponent of God, observe this. After saying, "No one shall snatch them out of My hand," He then showed that His hand and the Father's hand are one and the same.

If this were not so, He would have had to say, "My Father, who gave them to Me, is greater than all, and no one can snatch them out of My hand." But He did not say this. He said, "out of My Father's hand."

Why, He says, will they not perish? Because no one can snatch them out of My hand. For My Father, who gave them to Me, is greater than all, and no one can snatch them out of His hand, and therefore not out of My hand either.

For My hand and the Father's hand are one. I and the Father are one, that is, in authority and power. By "hand" He means authority and power. Therefore I and the Father are one in nature, in essence, and in authority.

The Jews also understood that by these words He declared Himself consubstantial with God. Because He made Himself the Son of God, they took up stones to stone Him.

Since He saw that the Jews despised Him as a mere man, not understanding that the man seen and touched was God by nature, He said this to persuade them that He is the Father's Power: "No one shall snatch them out of My Father's hand."

That is, out of My hand. He calls Himself the almighty right hand of the Father, for the Father accomplishes all things through Him, just as we accomplish our works through our hand.

In many places of Scripture, Christ is called the hand and right hand of the Father, which signifies power. Simply speaking, hand means the all-accomplishing power and might of God, since the understanding of God always surpasses bodily images.

The Son, who is always begotten of the Father, is equal not by growth, but by birth. He is God from God, coeternal from the Eternal. The Father is not God from the Son; the Son is God from the Father.

Therefore the Father gave to the begotten Son that He should be God. He gave to the Begotten that He should be coeternal with Him. He gave to the Begotten that He should be equal.

This is what it means that He is greater than all. "My Father, who gave them to Me," means: that I should be His Word, that I should be His Only-begotten Son, that I should be the radiance of His light. He is greater than all.

"And no one shall snatch My sheep out of My hand" (Jn 10:28). If by hand we understand power, then the Father and the Son have one power, for there is one Divinity.

“My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all,” greater than all who can plot evil against the sheep. The words “has given them to Me” are again used only to explain the plans of the divine economy. “And no one is able to snatch them from My Father’s hand.” And lest it seem that Jesus Christ, as though powerless, seeks help for Himself from the Father, He added:

You asked: “If it is written, ‘No one will snatch them from My Father’s hand,’ why do many perish?” I answer this: no one can snatch from the unconquerable and irresistible Right Hand those who, by right faith and a valiant life, have prepared themselves to be the possession of that Right Hand. Yet someone can deceive them. That is, no one can drag them away by force and arbitrary power, but another can deceive them by false reasonings and seductions. This depends not on the irresistible Right Hand, but on the carelessness of people endowed with freedom. Destruction comes not through the weakness of the Guardian, but through the frivolity of those being guarded.

The Father gave Me these sheep. He is greater and mightier than all, and therefore no one will take them from Him. No one will take them from Me either, because I and the Father are one.

In the first years of His preaching, Jesus forbade those who believed in Him to make known that He was the Christ. He wanted the people to believe in Him for themselves, and for this He gave the people many signs.

Now, when His ministry was coming to its end, He found it timely to declare openly and publicly that He is the Son of God, consubstantial with the Father, so that the Jews could not justify themselves by ignorance.

When He said, "I and the Father are one," His enemies understood these words perfectly and immediately testified to this, saying, "You, being a man, make Yourself God."

If they had been sheep of His flock, and here He reminded them of the discourse He had given earlier during the Feast of Tabernacles, they would have listened to His voice. He would have given them eternal life, and they would not have perished under His protection, because no one could then have snatched them from the hands of His Father.

This explains why no one will snatch His sheep from Christ’s hand. God the Father is almighty, and Christ and the Father are one. “Who has given them to Me”: cf. the note on Jn 6:37. This was “said for the sake of the Jews, so that they should not again call Him an adversary of God” (Chrysostom). “Greater than all”: according to the flow of the discourse, one must understand that the Lord here calls His Father greater than all in strength and power. Thus no enemy can overcome Him, and consequently cannot snatch His sheep from His hands, that is, forcibly separate believers from God against their will and desire.

Verses 29-30. The Jews could have said that Jesus was claiming too much for Himself by promising blessed eternity to His followers. In answer to the thoughts of their hearts, the Lord says that no one can snatch His sheep out of the Father's hands.

This is the same as saying that they will not be taken from the Son, since He and the Father are one. Even if the unity of which the Savior speaks referred only to one power, one would still have to conclude that the essence of the Father and the Son is one.

"One in power, and one in Godhead" (Zigabenus). Yet the Savior proves the equality of His power with the Father's power by the unity of the Father and the Son. Therefore, when He says, "I and the Father are one," by the word "one" He speaks of unity of essence.