John 10:6Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

And again it seems to me that the writer of the Gospel book does not say without purpose that "Jesus spoke this proverb to them," and that they did not understand "what it was" that He was saying to them.

He says this with no small expressiveness. One may state it plainly in these words.

The Pharisees had so far departed from the ability to understand anything necessary, though they boasted immeasurably in their supposed wisdom, that they did not understand this proverb.

Yet it was so readily understood and transparent, containing nothing difficult or inaccessible to comprehension and reception.

In a fitting manner he mocks the mindlessness of the Jews, if they counted Christ as nothing, though His teaching surpassed the law and His explanations were far sweeter than those of Moses.

It is that we knock, so that it may be opened to us. They, having rejected Christ, refused to enter within to be saved, and preferred to remain outside to perish.

Because we have listened to these words with piety, and before understanding them have judged them true and divine, we stand very far from those Jews.

For when two people hear the words of the Gospel, one impious and the other pious, and they encounter something neither understands, one says, "It has said nothing."

The other says, "It has spoken the truth, and what has been said is good, but we do not yet understand what has been said."

Since this one believes, he is already knocking, and he is worthy that it be opened to him, if he continues to knock.

But the other still hears: "Unless you believe, you will not understand" (cf. Is 7:9 LXX).

Why do I say this? For this reason. When I explain these obscure words as far as I am able, someone may not follow the explanation.

Perhaps the words are very hidden. Perhaps I have not grasped their meaning. Perhaps I prove unable to unfold what I understand. Or perhaps he himself is very slow.

Let him not despair. Let him preserve faith. Let him continue on the way and hear the Apostle, who said: "If in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal this also to you.

Nevertheless, what we have attained, let us walk by the same rule" (cf. Phil 3:15-16).

That is, He is the One through whom not only the sheep, but also the shepherds, enter the sheepfold. Therefore προ Εμου means the same as προ της θυρας.

Consequently, the preposition προ here indicates not so much time, since time is shown more by the verb ηλθον, as the essence of the matter.

All who came apart from the door, without Me, and “climbed in some other way” (cf. v. 1), are thieves and robbers.

But since they are opposed to Jesus Christ, those who passed into the sheepfold apart from the door do not mean all who failed to believe in Him.

Rather, they are persons who presented themselves as guides of the people to salvation. They wished to put themselves in the place of the Messiah in the spiritual guidance of the people.

For this reason some translate προ Εμου as “instead of Me.” This is also evident from the words that follow: “but the sheep did not hear them.”

By the thieves and robbers here are plainly meant the Pharisees. Before them, and in denunciation of them, Jesus Christ is now speaking these words.

At that time the Pharisees appeared most immediately as men of an anti-Christian spirit or direction, the chief enemies of Jesus Christ.

Yet since they also presented themselves as guides of the people, they tried to defend their authority before the people against the influence of Jesus Christ.

Therefore they were also men of a false messianic spirit. For this reason they are set in opposition to Christ, the door into the sheepfold.

Jesus Christ calls them thieves and robbers because their activity was impure and self-serving. He also calls them this because of the force of their hostility against Him, the true door for the sheep.

They came before Jesus Christ because, when the Messiah appeared on earth, Pharisaism already dominated the people of Israel.

When He began His public ministry, the Pharisees formed a strong hostile camp against Him, striving to retain the shepherding of the people for themselves.

“But the sheep did not hear them.” Many, despite the opposition of the Pharisees, were powerfully drawn to Jesus.

“Whereas all who came before Me and instead of Me are thieves and robbers, they would have led the sheep to eternal destruction if the sheep had obeyed them.

I am the door. Whoever enters by Me will be saved; he will go in, finding shelter and protection, and go out, to seek good pasture, and will find pasture.”

Through faith in Jesus Christ a man enters the number of the members of the kingdom of God, the Messiah. In it he finds satisfaction for all his spiritual needs.

“Whereas spiritual thieves and robbers come for self-serving aims, and in order to attain them they destroy their spiritual sheep after gaining dominion over them, I have come that they may have life.

And that they may have it abundantly (και περισσον εχουσιν), and may possess in full abundance everything needful for life.”

Since in v. 10 Jesus Christ continues to oppose Himself to the thieves and robbers, this verse belongs to what precedes. Yet as the One who comes, Jesus Christ is no longer the door for the sheep, but the Shepherd.

He portrays Himself as such in what follows. Therefore v. 10 may be considered a transition from the preceding section to the following one.

The same Lord, the Son of Man, is the Door into this kingdom of God. No one can pass from the world of material interests to the higher spiritual world except through that Door, which stands at the boundary of the two worlds.

This higher world is the world of lofty moral striving, contempt for earthly joys, and the radiant joys of the spirit. The Word of God, the second Hypostasis of the Holy Trinity, was pleased to descend to earth and to man, and to assume man’s flesh.

He did this so that, when man freely goes toward the incarnate God, He might meet him with the mercy of the Son of Man. He then brings him into the spiritual world, the world of absolute truth, goodness, pure love, and joyful eternal life.

Such is the meaning of the Shepherd and the Door in our life. Our life has already been formed under Christian influence, though of course it is still far from perfect.

But let us turn our thought to the Old Testament Church. Especially in the last four centuries before the Nativity of Christ, it became a community pastured, as the prophets had said before, by shepherds for themselves. From Malachi to John the Baptist there were four centuries of silence of the prophetic spirit in Israel.

These shepherds destroyed and scattered the sheep of the Lord’s pasture. In place of the Spirit of the Lord, they introduced a spirit of casuistry and petty ritualism. They lowered the level of feeling and thought in the human soul.

Or, in the words of the Lord Himself, they ‘took away the key of knowledge. They did not enter themselves, and they hindered those who were entering’ (Lk 11:52).

Then the Lord removes these shepherds. He Himself becomes the one Shepherd of His flock and establishes the Church of Christ, saying to her: ‘I am the Shepherd.’ ‘I am the Door.’ And, ‘I am with you always, even to the close of the age’ (Mt 28:20).

The Lord’s discourse does not break off from the last verse of the preceding chapter, as Chrysostom says. It is connected with His statement to the Pharisees and scribes that they are blind. By claiming that they see, they bring themselves under condemnation.

At the same time it is clear whom the Lord calls a thief and robber. ‘Here Christ indicates,’ says Chrysostom, ‘both those who came before Him as false teachers and those who will appear after Him.’

St. John Chrysostom further says that in the first two verses the Lord calls Scripture the door. For Scripture brings us to God, opens the way to the knowledge of God, guards the sheep, and does not allow wolves to come in.

Let us note that in this sense the Door is also the Word of God, who spoke ‘in many portions and in many ways through the prophets,’ and ‘in these last days has spoken in the Son’ (Heb 1:1-2). Therefore the Lord said to the Jews, ‘If you believed Moses, you would believe Me’ (Jn 5:46).

This was precisely the meaning of the Pharisees and scribes as thieves and robbers in the flock of God. They did not believe Moses, and they fed the flock for themselves, not for God. This was already indicated above in the citation from Ezek 34:2.

They were ‘teaching as doctrines the commandments of men’ (Mt 15:9; see also Isa 29:13). The Lord reproached them for this by pointing to Isaiah’s prophecy.

In that prophecy God says to the people that this people draws near to the Lord with its mouth and honors Him with its lips, but its heart is far from the Lord. Its reverence before the Lord is only the study of human commandments.

These men did not wish to know the Spirit of the Lord in Scripture. They are those who ‘climbed in by another way.’ They brought human thoughts and strivings into the flock, not divine ones. Therefore they ‘climbed in by another way,’ because they could not enter by the Door, since the truth guarded the flock.

The Door into the sheepfold is the Lord Himself. No one may introduce his own inventions into Scripture, as the Pharisees and scribes dared to do from love of power and greed.

Jeremiah also reproached the princes and teachers of the people for this (Jer 23:1). After the Lord Jesus, representatives of various sects did the same from boastful self-confidence and pride of thought.

The doorkeeper opens the door only to the shepherd who enters by the doors, that is, by the Lord. The sheep must listen to him. Here, as Chrysostom beautifully observes, ‘the Lord calls Himself both Door and Shepherd, and also Lamb, indicating different aspects of His ministry.

When He brings us to the Father, He calls Himself the Door. When He expresses His care for us, He calls Himself the Shepherd. He Himself goes before the sheep.’

Yet this does not exhaust the whole deep meaning of this parable, which those who heard the Lord did not at first understand (v. 6). First, it established that a shepherd can enter only through the Door of truth, that is, through the Lord Himself.

Second, it indicated the headship of the Lord Himself as Shepherd. Third, it also established the Christian hierarchy of the Lord’s servants, who likewise are shepherds of His flock. They must unfailingly enter the sheepfold by the Door.

That is, they must receive authority and command to govern the flock of God from our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. ‘So it was,’ says Chrysostom, ‘with the apostles. They freely went in and out, as though they possessed the whole universe, and no one could drive them out.’

From the Christian point of view, this parable, together with its later development, signifies the Church of Christ. In it, shepherds who enter only by the Door, that is, by the Lord, feed the flock not for themselves and not from themselves.

They feed it only as trustees of the Lord, who is the one Shepherd. These shepherds, when appointed as ‘stewards of the Lord,’ are sanctified by the Holy Spirit in the sacrament of priesthood.

‘Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household?’ (Mt 24:45). Speaking in the name of the Lord, they represent on earth ‘the voice of the Lord, which the sheep hear’ (v. 3).

‘It is like a man going on a journey, who left his house and gave authority to his servants, to each his work, and commanded the doorkeeper to watch’ (Mk 13:34). So the Lord, departing visibly from the earth, prepares those servant-shepherds who will feed His flock.

Therefore the Lord said three times, in the person of Peter, to all the Apostles, to the bishops ordained by them, and to those who received priesthood from them, including the diaconate as a special ministry (Acts 6:3-6): ‘Feed My lambs. Feed My sheep’ (Jn 21:15-17).

On bishops in general, compare Acts 20:28, 1 Tim 4 and 5, Titus 1, and other passages. At the same time, in the person of Peter, the Lord asked the whole succession of pastors by ordination a deeply significant question: ‘Do you love Me?’

One must distinguish what concerns Peter personally, and his cleansing from the sin of denial, from what in the Lord’s words applies to all pastors. The first matter belongs to the study of Jn 21:15-17.

This is a necessary condition, fully equivalent to the sayings, ‘I am the Door’ and ‘he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.’ He who does not love the Lord cannot be a shepherd.

If he does not love the Lord, he is certainly a thief and robber, one who climbs in by another way. He cannot enter through the Door, which is the Lord Himself.

Therefore the scribes and Pharisees presented a monstrous spectacle. They guided the people while ‘not having the love of God’ in themselves (Jn 5:42). When such a thing, to our misfortune, occurred in the Christian world, it became the cause of heresies and calamities in the Church.

God preserve the Church of Christ from ever seeing a shepherd who is a hypocritical atheist, as was not rare in Rome, or a shepherd who thinks that piety is a means of gain (1 Tim 6:5; cf. 1 Pet 5:2-3).

‘Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you bishops, to shepherd the Church of the Lord and God, which He obtained with His own blood,’ said the Apostle Paul when taking leave of the bishops of Asia Minor.

‘The Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to demonic teachings through the hypocrisy of liars’ (1 Tim 4:1-2). For, as the Apostle also says elsewhere, false apostles sometimes appear, disguising themselves as Apostles of Christ (2 Cor 11:13).

All these were foretold by the Lord in the parable we are reading, under the name of thieves and robbers. They climb in by another way and do not enter by the Door, which is Christ.

We must say a few words about the word παροιμὶα, ‘parable,’ used in this place of St. John’s Gospel. In the Vulgate this word is proverbium, and in Biblia Sacra it is similitudo. It is not the word παραβολὴ, used in the Synoptic Gospels and rendered in Latin translations as parabola.

The word παροιμὶα carries the notion of a more mysterious saying than παραβολὴ. We find these two words placed together in verse 17 of chapter 47 in the Greek text of the Wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach.

This verse corresponds to verse 19 in the Russian translation of 1872. In that verse we read: ‘Your name, Solomon, spread abroad,’ and, ‘for songs and sayings (παροιμὶαις), for parables (παραβολαῖς) and interpretations, the nations marveled at you.’

Compare in the same chapter of the Wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach, verses 15-17, concerning an enigmatic or mysterious parable. Παροιμὶα seems to differ from parable in that it contains higher teaching about the works of God.

Παραβολὴ, a parable, is divine teaching about human actions. In the present section of John’s Gospel, as we have seen, the Lord points to Himself as the Door and as the Shepherd. He mentions human actions only to guard His flock from harmful workers who climb in by another way.