Our Lord Jesus fulfills and perfects the Old Testament metaphor of the Lord's people as His sheep, by dying for our sins, and in our place, so that we might be delivered from wrath and judgment.
The Old Testament sheep are described as passively receiving God's temporal blessings, but Christ's sheep are not passive. We hear our Good Shepherd, and we follow our Good Shepherd, and He gives us everlasting life, and not a one of us will perish!
Old Testament sheep were judged, but Christ never describes any faults in His sheep, because He has taken our sins upon Himself and already been judged in our place.
But one question remains: why are Christ's sheep lost, why are they scattered, and why does the Good Shepherd have to find them and gather them into His fold?
Christ admits that His sheep are lost, and must be gathered by Him. He asserts that it is His ministry to find those sheep of His that are lost!
One reason given by Jesus is that sheep are scattered by the wolves that come into the flock, and because the hireling did not protect the sheep.
Ezekiel 34 develops this idea further: the sheep have been driven away by wicked cattle, and evil shepherds, who didn't feed them, protect them, or seek them out when they were lost.
This is a very comfortable explanation for why the sheep are scattered, and Israel liked it very much. It placed no blame on the sheep, portraying them all as helpless and betrayed. Their being scattered was all the fault of other people, or so they thought.
But the truth is, the sheep are scattered because their iniquities have led them astray from God. The Lord Jesus takes away the sin of His sheep, gathering in the lost. |
