Jesus therefore said to them again: Amen, amen, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.
ειπεν ουν παλιν αυτοις ο ιησους αμην αμην λεγω υμιν οτι εγω ειμι η θυρα των προβατων
12 Church Fathers comment on this verse
As for His later calling Himself the door, one should not be troubled by this. He calls Himself both shepherd and sheep, 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.
Thus the Scriptures are the door. Through this door the Lord leads the sheep out to pasture.
What pasture is this? The future delight and rest into which the Lord brings us.
If in other places He also calls Himself the door, there is no need to marvel at this.
When He wishes to depict His care for us, He calls Himself the shepherd. When He wishes to show that He brings us to the Father, He calls Himself the door.
In the same way, in different senses He is both the Sheep and the Shepherd.
Again, by the door one may understand the words of the divine Scriptures. The Lord Himself is and is called the Word. Therefore He may also be called the Door.
Jesus spoke to them in these words as a proverb or comparison, and He used obscure speech in order to make them more attentive.
When He had achieved this, He resolved the obscurity and said, "I am the Door."
Being God by nature and seeing what is hidden in the depth, He knew, of course, that the Pharisee had understood nothing of His words.
This was so, though he was accustomed to boast of knowledge of the law and to magnify himself in his supposed wisdom.
Therefore He gives them a most clear interpretation, and in few words reveals the meaning of the parable.
As good by nature, He guides even the unworthy toward reception, so that some benefit might appear for them as well.
He plainly calls Himself "the door of the sheep," teaching a truth universally acknowledged. Through faith in Him alone we attain communion with God.
He Himself bears witness to this when He says, "No one comes to the Father except through Me" (Jn 14:6).
Either He wishes to indicate something of this kind, or, what better accords with the present contemplations, He again makes clear that through Him we come to leadership and authority over rational sheep.
This accords with Paul's words: "No one takes this honor for himself, but he who is called by God" (Heb 5:4).
Indeed, none of the holy prophets appointed himself. Nor will the glorious and great choir of the Apostles be found to have called itself to this.
Rather, it was appointed by the will of Christ, who called them to the apostleship by name and each separately, as He says in the proposed parable.
For we know that in the Gospel of Matthew the names of the Apostles are placed together, and immediately after them the manner of their appointment is added.
"These twelve," it says, "the Savior appointed," and He named them Apostles (Mt 10:5; cf. Lk 6:13).
Thus, seeing in the foolish Pharisee an inclination toward authority and a burning desire for the name and work of leadership, He profitably teaches that He Himself is the giver of leadership to anyone and is able to bestow it.
For, being the door of the sacred and divine fold, He will receive the one who is fit, and will close the entrance within to one who is unfit for it.
When the Lord was speaking just now, He said that He is the shepherd, and He said that He is the door.
The door is in the Head, the shepherd in the body. For He says to Peter, on whom alone He builds the Church, "Peter, do you love Me?" (Jn 21:16).
It is as though He said, "What will you give Me, what will you present to Me, because you love Me? If you love Me, feed My sheep. Enter through the door, and not through something else."
Who is the one who enters through the door? The one who enters through Christ.
Who is this? The one who imitates the sufferings of Christ, who knows the humility of Christ.
Though the Lord became man for our sake, man must know that he is not God, but man.
For the one who wishes to appear God while being man does not imitate Him who, being God, became man.
For you are not told, "Be something less than you are," but, "Know yourself."
Let us hear how He explains, after we have already heard how He speaks. "Then Jesus said to them again, Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep."
Behold, He opened the door that had formerly been closed. He Himself is the door. We have learned this. Let us enter, or let us rejoice if we have already entered.
the door through which the sheep enter the heavenly dwellings. No one enters there otherwise than through Jesus Christ, through faith in Him and through His teaching.
Question. How is it that the Son Himself declares Himself a created thing when He says, "I am the door of the sheep" and "I am the way"?
The prophets speak in the same way and declare Him a created thing. Isaiah calls Him a "stone of stumbling" and a "rock of offense." Moses calls Him the pillar of fire.
And the divine singer David compares Him to a worm.
Answer. We must not look at what is written so as to close the divine meaning to ourselves. Rather, we must agree with what was said by the exalted Apostle: "The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life."
Yet, speaking conversely, what is written does not kill those who look straightly, and the Spirit does not give life to those who treat what is written with contempt.
Therefore let us honor the Spirit, so that we may understand what is written.
The Son is called door, way, and stone according to His inner meaning. Other figurative expressions are also applied to Him.
"Way" means that He leads to the understanding of the Father and to the knowledge of divine things.
"Door" means that He is opened, and that good works succeed in entering within when they strike the panel with the hand.
"Pillar" indicates how strong our faith is, for a pillar strengthens and supports everything.
He is a "stone of stumbling" for the unbelieving, and a "rock of offense" for the Jews. For us He is the foundation stone of the Church, which, lying beneath, upholds the whole upper structure.
The stone is the firmness and unbending character of confession, against which the waves of heresies are shattered and dissolve into foam.
"Worm," as the divine singer David said, is for us a sign of the worm's wholeness, for when cut apart it does not perish.
Thus He is born without marriage from the Ever-Virgin Mary, without any co-suffering or bodily union.
But for His opponents He is the worm of torments, gnawing and consuming them without ceasing.
When the hearers did not understand the meaning of the parable, Jesus Christ began to explain it. He does not explain what is self-evident: that by the sheepfold is meant the kingdom of God, the people of Israel (cf. v. 16).
Nor does He explain that by the sheep are meant the members of this kingdom. He directly designates Himself as the door into the sheepfold.
That is, He is the mediator between God and man, the only way into the kingdom of the Messiah and the realm of salvation. Only through faith in Him and submission to Him can one become a member of this kingdom (cf. 14:6).
After this, Jesus Christ says: “All who came before Me” (προ Εμου) “are thieves and robbers.” Earlier He called Himself the only door for the sheep.
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 Pharisees did not understand Jesus. Yet the thought underlying this figurative saying had not yet been fully expressed by Him.
Therefore, continuing His discourse, He said, "Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. Whoever enters through Me will be saved."
Now it became clear that He was speaking about the Kingdom of God founded by Him on earth.
It is the Kingdom of people united by faith in Him and by love for their neighbors.
He likens this Kingdom to a sheepfold. But since one must pass through a door into a fold, and one can enter the Kingdom of God only by believing in Him, He calls Himself that door which leads into this Kingdom.
Then Christ, so as not to give the Pharisees an opportunity to justify themselves by not understanding His rebuke, did not fail to give a further explanation of this parable.
“I see,” He was saying in effect, “that you do not understand, or do not wish to understand, the parable just spoken. Therefore I will explain it. I solemnly declare to you that I am the door for the sheep of God’s flock.”
“Truly, truly,” an assurance of the indisputable truth of His words, “I say.” Because the Pharisees did not understand the Lord’s figurative speech, He explains its essence to them.
“I am the door of the sheep”: the door that leads to the sheep, through which the shepherd passes into the sheepfold.
He is the one true mediator between God and the chosen people, both of the Old Testament and the New. He is the one path for shepherds and for those who are shepherded.
“Amen, amen, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.” In contending with the unbelief and distrust of men, the Savior presents Himself under another image and calls Himself the door.
He is either the door for the sheep, so that they can enter only through Him, as Chrysostom understood it. Or He is the door into the sheepfold, as in v. 4, so that the rulers of the Church can enter only through Him.
But there is no need to separate one meaning from the other here. He is the door both for the sheep and for the shepherds.
St. Hermas wrote: “The Son of God is the new door, because all who are saved will enter the kingdom of God through this door.”
“All who came before Me are thieves and robbers.” Οσοι ηλθον προ εμου. Since the Lord calls Himself the door in the sense of the only Savior, the expression προ εμου in this form must mean “apart from Me,” independently of Me.
The use of προ in the sense of “except” is found in Euripides, and likewise in John 5:7. Teachers acting apart from the chief shepherd, however many there may be and whenever they may come, are thieves and robbers.
However brilliant their gifts may be, and however extensive their knowledge, if they offer teaching about faith not according to the spirit of Jesus, they are predators and destroyers of souls. Such is God’s will concerning this.
“The sheep did not hear them.” The true members of Christ’s Church do not listen to or receive false teachers.
The Savior expresses His thought about His genuine sheep, who know Him and whom He knows (John 10:14-15). They possess spiritual perception, so as to recognize the wolf concealed in sheep’s clothing.
History shows this. It is another matter with those who seek teachers for themselves who are ready to indulge their passions. Whom they seek, they also find (2 Tim 4:3-4).
“Whoever enters by Me will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.” The expression “will go in and out” means a free and blessed occupation in one’s affairs (Ps 120:8; Deut 28:6; Jer 37:4; 2 Chr 1:10).
In other words, he will have strength to carry out his affairs without hindrance. “And he will find pasture,” for himself and for his flock if he is a shepherd.
Or, according to the word of the Apostle in 1 Tim 4:16, he will save both himself and those who hear him.
“The thief comes only to steal, to kill, and to destroy.” The thief approaches the sheepfold in order to climb over the wall like a thief (v. 1) and carry off what belongs to another.
But even this is not enough for him. Since he cannot draw the sheep to himself by kindness, he strikes it and finally slaughters it. Such are the works of false teachers (Matt 23:13, 15; Jer 10:21; Jer 23:1-2).
Christ the Lord came so “that they may have life, and may have it abundantly,” περισσον εχωσι την ζωην. The word περισσον refers not to ζωην, but to εχωσι.
The meaning is this. He came so that all believers might enjoy life in God, and that in full sufficiency. They were to become possessed of complete abundance of strength.
The Old Testament also gave life to its children. It gave consolation to the soul and led it “in paths of righteousness” (Ps 22:3).
But the revelation of Christ gives complete satisfaction to all the best needs of the soul. No Pharisee and no idealist has the right to reproach the teaching of Christ.
They cannot reproach it for errors or obscurity, nor for any deficiency. It is pure truth, lofty truth, all-embracing truth, such as the world has not yet seen. Only folly can replace it with another.
In the first part of the parable (vv. 1-6), the Lord speaks of Himself as both the Door and the Shepherd together. Then the Lord explains each meaning separately.
At the beginning (vv. 7-10), He speaks of the meaning of the Door: “I am the Door.” Below (from vv. 11-16), He speaks of the meaning of the Shepherd: “I am the good Shepherd.”
In relation to the whole Christian world, He is the Door. In relation to each member of Christ’s community, He is the good Shepherd.
“I Myself will seek My sheep,” says the Lord through Ezekiel (Ezek 34:11). He Himself, in the image of a shepherd, spoke of how He seeks the lost sheep in the mountains (Matt 18:12).
At the beginning He commanded the Apostles to go “to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt 10:6).
Now, limiting ourselves exclusively to verses 7-10, we understand that the Lord’s word, “I am the Door,” embraces the whole totality of thoughts and deeds that unite the spiritual world with the earthly and material world.
The Lord is the Door not only into the sheepfold, that is, into communion with the flock of Christ. He is also the Door into the spiritual world in general for each sheep separately.
By the name sheep we also understand the shepherds themselves, appointed by the Lord. A man cannot enter the spiritual world except through the Door, that is, through faith in the Lord and love for Him.
In verse 8 the Lord again points to the thieves and robbers who came before. Concerning this, we observe that the Lord often mentioned the prophets as those who spoke the words of God (Matt 7:12; 11:13; Luke 10:24; 16, and many others).
He is not speaking of them when He says, “All who came before Me are thieves and robbers.” He is speaking of those who “sat on Moses’ seat” (Matt 23), namely the scribes and Pharisees.
Chrysostom speaks of this passage as follows: “Here the Lord does not speak of the prophets, as the heretics claim. For all who believed in Christ listened to them and believed through them.
He speaks instead of Theudas, Judas, and other rebels.” Concerning Theudas and Judas the Galilean, see Acts 5:36-37.
We think that the Lord’s words about all who “came before Me” should be considered still more broadly. With the prophet Malachi, who lived around 420 B.C. in the time of Nehemiah, the manifestation of the prophetic Spirit of God in Israel comes to an end.
Malachi prophesied after Nehemiah’s second arrival in Judea, and after the thirty-second year of the reign of Artaxerxes Longimanus, as Vitringa, Kennicott, Davidson, and others say in references in Smith’s Bible Dictionary.
For four hundred years the people had no prophets. The Lord, as it were, set them as an example to other nations, showing how far the human mind can fall when left to itself and to its own inventions.
It must be remembered that after the Babylonian captivity there is no further case of idolatry in Judea. The people remember the law given to them and strive to keep and fulfill it.
Yet their learned tannaim, not guided by the Spirit of God, cannot rise to the height required by God. They cannot develop the people spiritually and morally.
They become completely mired in barren casuistry and ritualism in Judea. Meanwhile, the Jewish colony in Alexandria falls under the influence of pagan philosophical schools.
See Matter, Gnosticisme et Philo d’Alexandrie. Compare also the very good treatise by the English professor Redford, Four Centuries of Silence, or From Malachi to Christ, London 1885.
But these men, having lost all spiritual understanding of the law, “sat on Moses’ seat.” They began to govern the people for self-serving aims, perverting their spiritual and moral sense.
The Lord Jesus constantly denounced them for the destruction of souls, saying to them: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you travel sea and land to make one proselyte.
And when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of Gehenna as yourselves” (Matt 23:15).
It is precisely of those who governed the people’s thought from the last prophet, Malachi, to the appearance of John the Baptist, the Forerunner of the Lord, that the Lord says: “All who came before Me are thieves and robbers.”
After this the Lord adds: “But the sheep did not hear them.” The influence of the Jewish teachers, though burdensome for the people (Matt 23:4; Luke 11:46, concerning unbearable burdens), could not impose an eternal stamp.
Because of its own emptiness, it could not leave the mark that the Spirit of God leaves. He was manifested in the prophetic sayings, and in these last days spoke in the Son (Heb 1:1-2).
Therefore the Lord also said to them elsewhere: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut the kingdom of heaven before men.
For you yourselves do not enter, and those who are entering you do not allow to enter” (Matt 23:13).
The Lord does not say that the whole people became incapable of entering the kingdom of God. The Lord indicates that they, the thieves and robbers, the Pharisees and scribes, do not allow those who desire to enter.
They wanted to make themselves the only gates through which the Jews had to pass. But these were gates of deception.
Through them, the gates of the Pharisees, one attained earthly glory, the flattery of the crowd, first seats at banquets, and praise of hypocrisy, but not the kingdom of God.
Having taken upon themselves “the key of knowledge” and hindering those who were entering (Luke 11:52), they seized the kingdom of God from others.
Interpreting the law according to the letter and refusing to understand its Spirit, they deprived men of the highest blessedness. They hindered the moral and spiritual development of man.
They committed a crime likened to theft and robbery, for it took from men the best treasure of their life.
“I am the Door,” says the Lord. “If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.”
What is the pasture of the soul if not the Word of God? Of this the Lord said: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matt 4:4; cf. Deut 8:3).
But to find this pasture, one must enter by the Door, which is the Lord Himself. Whoever enters this Door by faith and love receives peace and security, for he “goes in,” and freedom, for he “goes out.”
For “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor 3:17). And the one who enters through this Door will be saved. Such is the promise given by the Lord to believers.
“I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly,” says the Lord (v. 10). In these words He promises not only unending eternal life, but a life of light and joy.
For “He was the true Light, who enlightens every man coming into the world” (John 1:9). In setting Himself against the teachers of Israel, the Lord indicates that their teaching is death and darkness.
“The thief does not come except to steal, to kill, and to destroy.” “I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.”
Passages read together with this verse.
Greek text, 16 words with lemma, transliteration and Strong’s number. Tap to expand.
THEOSIS