Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture." (John 10:7-9 NIV)
In first-century Israel, sheep were kept safe at night in common sheep folds - pens where all the sheep of a village were bedded down for the night, with only one entrance. That gate was guarded by a Porter - a gatekeeper who kept the sheep from escaping and kept predators from entering the fold while the shepherds of the flocks rested. The Porter essentially became the gate for the sheep. He or she was the only way into the fold and the only way out to the pastures.
If the flock was pastured far from the village and the sheep were gathered in a safe area in the wilderness, the shepherd laid his own body down at the opening to become the gate for the sheep. He was their protection in the night.
Jesus said, "Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep...whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture." This I AM statement of Jesus echoes several other places where He claims to give access to God Himself.
"I and the Father are one." (John 10:30)
"Anyone who has seen me, has seen the Father." (John 14:9)
"I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father, except through me." (John 14:6)
Jesus is the gate. Knowing Jesus means knowing the living God. Going through Jesus gives access to eternal life. Trusting Jesus for forgiveness of our sins moves us from a place of separation from God to a place of relationship with God. Jesus opens the way into the life-giving presence of God Himself.
Jesus is the gate. He keeps the wolves from the flock. The Name of Jesus is enough to break the power of demonic forces that would attack us to kill, steal and destroy. His Spirit, living in our hearts, breaks the power of the strongholds of stinking thinking that come from the Accuser to paralyze and discourage us. The shield of faith in Jesus quenches the fiery darts of the evil one.
Jesus is the gate. His coming to our world was not to set up a barrier to keep us from God, but to open the way to God. When Jesus had gone to Zacchaeus' house and heard his commitment to live a Godly life, this was Jesus' reply: Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” He came to seek and to save, not to bar and exclude.
There are others who propose ways to get to God. Those ways have something in common: they pretty much all work by human effort to be good enough to earn our way into God's favor. It's called works righteousness. I do religious things and practice sin management and clean up my life and God will accept me. Jesus says a startling thing here about those teachers. "All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them." No, the way to God, the way to salvation, the way to eternal life is through the gate of relationship with Jesus, not through the works of religion.
Jesus is the gate for the sheep. Reject Him, and we reject the only way to salvation itself. Trust Him and follow Him and love Him and become like Him and we enter the Kingdom of God, with eternity as our inheritance. I asked Jesus into my life when I was 15 years old, and I have been following Him ever since. One day, I will stand with Him in the Father's presence in eternity. That is my hope. What is yours?
Comments