I want to talk to you again this morning about "Understanding Scripture." Let's review what we saw last week. If we are going to understand the Bible, we must have some understanding of Hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is the science of Biblical interpretation. The purpose of Hermeneutics is to establish guidelines and rules for interpreting the Bible. Any written document is subject to misinterpretation, and thus we have developed rules to safeguard us from such misunderstanding. God has spoken, and what He has said is recorded in Scripture. The basic need of Hermeneutics is to ascertain what God meant by what He said.
The primary rule of Hermeneutics is called The Analogy of Faith. This means that Scripture interprets Scripture. No part of Scripture can be interpreted in such a way as to render it in conflict with what is clearly taught elsewhere in Scripture. The Analogy of Faith is a safeguard that should help prevent us from reading into the Scriptures something that is not there.
Using the principle of the Analogy of Faith, I brought up the following principle that I believe is vital in understanding Scripture: The Bible is One Book. This means that we cannot unhitch the Old Testament from our Bibles.
This second rule of Hermeneutics that we looked at last time was Audience Relevance. This means that whatever a passage and the words contained within it meant had direct application to the original intended audience.
My third point last week in understanding Scripture was that it takes a lot of time and hard work to understand the Bible. Yet far too many Christians are lazy and very casual in their approach to Bible study. If we are going to understand the Bible, we need to understand the rules of Hermeneutics and apply them to our study. And we must be willing to devote time and energy to the Bible.
For our study this morning, I want to go back to the principle that we talked about last week, the principle that the Bible is One Book. I think that most Christians ignore or neglect what they call the Old Testament. If you have listened to me for a while, you know that I do not call it the Old Testament. I call it the Tanakh. Tanakh is an acronym that identifies the Hebrew Bible. The acronym is based on the initial Hebrew letters of each of the text's three parts: the Torah, Nevi'im, Ketuvim.
We know that the Tanakh is important because Yeshua said that it spoke of Him.
You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me. John 5:39 ESV
Mention of the "Scriptures" in the New Testament writings is a reference to the Tanakh. It was the only Bible anybody in the New Testament ever had. We see Yeshua throughout the Tanakh ("Scripture…bear witness about Me"). One of many passages that demonstrate the deity of Christ is found in chapter 12 of the Fourth Gospel in which John quotes Isaiah 6,
Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said, "He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them." John 12:39-40 ESV
This is Isaiah 6:10, but we know the context here, don't we?
In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!" Isaiah 6:1-3 ESV
This is a throne room vision. Yahweh is on the throne, and the Divine Counsel is there with Him. Isaiah is given this magnificent vision of the glory of God just to remind him of the fact that though Uzziah passes on and though the great kings of the earth pass on, Yahweh is still on the throne. And it is in Him that our faith is truly to rest.
John goes on to say,
Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him. John 12:41 ESV
He [Isaiah] saw His glory and spoke of Him. "Him" here can hardly refer to Yahweh. It must refer to Yeshua. We learn here for the first time that the vision of God in Isaiah 6 was none other than Christ Himself. This is in itself an affirmation that Yeshua is God for it is clearly God whom Isaiah saw in his vision. The glory of God in that vision, which Isaiah saw and reported, was the glory of Yeshua. The Tanakh bears witness to Christ.
Paul, when standing before King Agrippa, said this:
To this day I have had the help that comes from God, and so I stand here testifying both to small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would come to pass: Acts 26:22 ESV
According to this verse, what was the content of Paul's preaching? It was the Tanakh! Yeshua said that the Tanakh spoke of Him and Paul said that what he was teaching was from the Tanakh. This should tell us just how important the Tanakh is.
Last week I said that apart from understanding the Tanakh, you will never completely understand the New Testament. The writers of the New Testament all supposed that their readers understood the Tanakh. Much of the language of the New Testament is drawn from it.
What I want to do this morning is further illustrate how important it is to know the Tanakh in order to correctly understand and interpret the New Testament. We could do this from most of the New Testament texts, but for this morning, we are going to look at John 10 and Yeshua as the Good Shepherd. I want us to see that what Yeshua says in this text comes from the Tanakh.
In John 10 most of the imagery comes from Ezekiel 34 and 37, but John begins the chapter by using Numbers 27. Before we look at how Yeshua uses these passages from the Tanakh, let's get some context for John 10.
In the first four chapters of the Gospel of John we see very little opposition to Yeshua's teaching. In fact, at that time, He was gaining in popularity. In chapter 5 Yeshua was accused by the Jewish leaders of making himself equal with God. He responded to this accusation by saying that He was equal to Yahweh in every way. When chapter 6 opens, Yeshua's popularity at its height. Large crowds are following Him and wanting to make Him their king. But by the end of the chapter, the crowds have forsaken Him because they could not handle His teaching. Chapter 7 opens with the Jews seeking to kill Him. From here on to the end of the His public ministry, we see a steadily deepening hostility.
In chapter 8, Yeshua gets into another confrontation with the leaders of Israel. "And he said to them, 'You're of your father, the devil.'" That didn't go over so well and at the end of the chapter they responded. "Therefore, they picked up stones to throw at Him. Yeshua hid Himself and went out of the temple."
On His way out of the temple (chapter 9), Yeshua sees a man who had been blind from birth and He stops and heals him. Because it was the Sabbath, the religious leaders were furious that Yeshua healed the man. The fact that he healed a man who had been blind from birth did not affect them at all. They knew that Messiah would heal the blind but they just did not get it.
That brings us to chapter 10. Let me just say that the chapter break here is not helpful because 10:1-21 is really a commentary on the conflict of chapter 9. In chapter 9 we have the healing of the man who was blind from birth. Yeshua healed him physically, and then as a result of the experiences of the blind man with the people, with his neighbors, with his parents, and particularly with the Pharisees, he was brought by Yeshua to the place where he confessed, "Lord, I believe," and he worshiped Yeshua. It's a remarkable picture of a physical healing that led to his spiritual healing.
The healed blind man had been roughly treated by the religious authorities and even thrown out of the synagogue. Today, with our western eyes, we find it hard to grasp the profound impact that being thrown out of synagogue would have had. The harsh reality then was that the person became an outsider, rejected by his or her own community.
Not once did the Jewish religious leaders rejoice over the amazing fact that this man, who was blind from birth, could now see. Rather, they were more concerned that Yeshua had violated their manmade legalistic Sabbath rules than they were about this man who had been miraculously healed. Chapter 9 ends:
Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, "Are we also blind?" Yeshua said to them, "If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, 'We see,' your guilt remains. John 9:40-41 ESV
This exchange makes it clear that the shepherd discourse that follows begins as a polemic against the leaders of Israel. Yeshua says that many thieves and robbers destroy the sheep, (referring to the man who was blind) while the good shepherd leads his own out from the sheep pen and into his own flock. The thematic as well as the linguistic connections of these two chapters is strong.
The discourse of John 10 is the culmination of the controversy over Yeshua's identity in John 7-10. In this chapter, Yeshua makes it clear to the Pharisees who he is by drawing from texts in the Tanakh.
"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. John 10:1-2 ESV
I am sure that you are familiar with this passage. We know that Yeshua is the Shepherd of the sheep. You have probably heard teaching on this passage that deals with the responsibilities of the shepherd and what the sheep were like. And there is nothing wrong with that. But what I want you to see this morning is there is much more here.
As I said earlier that the beginning of John 10 is drawn from Numbers 27. If you were comparing Numbers 27 in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Tanakh) with the Greek of John 10, you would see that there is a lot of shared vocabulary in John 10:1-18 and Numbers 27.
"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. John 10:1-2 ESV
"Let the LORD, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the congregation who shall go out before them and come in before them, who shall lead them out and bring them in, that the congregation of the LORD may not be as sheep that have no shepherd." Numbers 27:16-17 ESV
The Septuagint of Numbers 27 has the same words for "sheep and shepherd" that you find in John 10.
To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. John 10:3 ESV
"Let the LORD, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the congregation who shall go out before them and come in before them, who shall lead them out and bring them in, that the congregation of the LORD may not be as sheep that have no shepherd." Numbers 27:16-17 ESV
You have the same idea of calling to the sheep in Numbers 27 and in John 10. There's a lot of shared vocabulary here.
"He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out"—do you see the doctrine in this analogy? This is divine sovereignty, irresistible grace, and effectual calling. This is all theological. What is our Lord saying here? He is giving us the theology of salvation. The good Shepherd has already chosen His sheep. He has already named them. He knows who they are. He possesses full authority and sole authority to come into Judaism and into the nations of the world and the countries of the world to find His sheep. He knows them. He calls them by name. They recognize His voice. They follow Him. And they will not follow a stranger.
What is the meaning of the verses in Numbers 27 that John alludes to? They are about Moses prayers for a successor. Let's look at the text:
The LORD said to Moses, "Go up into this mountain of Abarim and see the land that I have given to the people of Israel. When you have seen it, you also shall be gathered to your people, as your brother Aaron was, because you rebelled against my word in the wilderness of Zin when the congregation quarreled, failing to uphold me as holy at the waters before their eyes." (These are the waters of Meribah of Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin.) Moses spoke to the LORD, saying, "Let the LORD, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the congregation who shall go out before them and come in before them, who shall lead them out and bring them in, that the congregation of the LORD may not be as sheep that have no shepherd." So the LORD said to Moses, "Take Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay your hand on him. Numbers 27:12-18 ESV
Who is Moses' replacement? It is Joshua. The name "Joshua" is the Hebrew Yehôshûa‛. By using this passage, Yeshua is telling his audience that the new Yeshua, the one Moses prayed for, the new Shepherd of Israel, is here. The sheep and the shepherd language in John 10 actually originates with the change of leadership from Moses to Yehôshûa‛. Yeshua is claiming to be the shepherd alluded to in Numbers 27.
Yeshua then goes from this successor language in Numbers 27 into Ezekiel 34 which is the prophecy of Ezekiel against the shepherds of Israel.
This figure of speech Yeshua used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. John 10:6 ESV
In spite of all their "knowledge" of the Tanakh, the Pharisees do not get it. They cannot hear the voice of the Great Shepherd because they are not his sheep.
In verses 7-18, Yeshua shifts from the third-person ("the one who," "He," "Him," "His") to the first-person singular ("I," "Me"). He makes it very clear from here on that He is speaking of Himself as the Good Shepherd. Yeshua describes Himself in verses 7-10 as the door of the sheep.
So Yeshua again said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. John 10:7-11 ESV
"I am the good shepherd"-Yeshua is here identifying Himself with the significant words: "I AM," ego ami, which reminds us of Yahweh's revelation of Himself to Moses 3 times as "I AM" in Exodus 3:13-14. The Lord Yeshua claims to be the "I Am" of the Tanakh, the One who is the beginning and the end, the One who is the first and the last, the One who is the Alef and the Tav. "I am He." Therefore, when the Jews heard the Lord Yeshua say, "I Am," they could not help but conclude that He was making claims of deity.
He not only says that He is the "I Am." He also says that He is the "Good Shepherd." The shepherd concept was part of God's self-revelation in the Tanakh.
Yeshua's use of sheep imagery in John 10 has a strong background in the Tanakh. Let me say this again: Apart from understanding the Tanakh, you will never completely understand the New Testament. The writers of the New Testament all suppose that their readers understood the Tanakh. If we do not understand the language of the first three quarters of the Bible, we will never understand the last quarter—the New Testament.
Yeshua's use of the imagery of the good shepherd (v. 11) should be understood in the light of the passages in the Tanakh that criticize Israel's shepherds who have failed in their duty. Yeshua was drawing upon Ezekiel 34 in His metaphorical sheep language. The background of Ezekiel 34 is especially important for John 10:1-18. Ezekiel described Israel as God's flock and the rulers as the shepherds. Rather than feeding the sheep, the rulers alternately ignore the flock and actually prey upon them instead of protecting them. As a result, the flock is scattered and devoured by the wild animals. The false shepherds will be removed from their position of leadership, and God will again be the shepherd of His people. He will gather them and lead them to good pasture. He will appoint a shepherd over them from David's line and bring peace to the flock. Ezekiel 34 is a clear description of the way Yeshua portrayed Himself as the good shepherd:
The word of the LORD came to me: "Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy, and say to them, even to the shepherds, Thus says the Lord GOD: Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? Ezekiel 34:1-2 ESV
Here Ezekiel is told to prophesy against the shepherds (priesthood) of Israel.
You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep. The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd, and they became food for all the wild beasts. My sheep were scattered; they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. My sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with none to search or seek for them. Ezekiel 34:3-6 ESV
In other words, the priesthood failed to "feed" the people spiritually, and as a result, the people became weak in their faith, and some were even lost to the Covenant.
"Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD: As I live, declares the Lord GOD, surely because my sheep have become a prey, and my sheep have become food for all the wild beasts, since there was no shepherd, and because my shepherds have not searched for my sheep, but the shepherds have fed themselves, and have not fed my sheep, therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD: Thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require my sheep at their hand and put a stop to their feeding the sheep. No longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, that they may not be food for them. Ezekiel 34:7-10 ESV
In verses 11-16 Yahweh makes three promises to His people. In verse 11, He promises that He will take care of His sheep:
"For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. Ezekiel 34:11-12 ESV
This role in Ezekiel is depicted as fulfilled by Yahweh. In John 10, Yeshua makes the claim that He, as God in flesh, is the one fulfilling it. He was telling those Jews, who knew Psalm 23, that He was Yahweh. "Yahweh is my shepherd." They also knew Psalm 80 in which Yahweh is referred to as the "Shepherd of Israel."
When Yeshua said, "I am the good shepherd"—He announced His absolute Deity. By using the tetragrammaton, the "I am," and by claiming to be the good shepherd, He made a double claim to deity. Both the "I Am" and "shepherd" refer to Yahweh. Yeshua is telling them and us that He is Yahweh in the flesh.
In verse 13 He promised to bring them back from where they have been scattered:
And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country. I will feed them with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord GOD. Ezekiel 34:13-15 ESV
In verse 16 He promised to be a true shepherd to His people.
I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice. Ezekiel 34:16 ESV
Does this verse sound familiar to you? Yeshua quotes this in His comments to Zacchaeus in Luke 19.
For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost." Luke 19:10 ESV
Yahweh said in Ezekiel 34, "I will seek the lost…" then Yeshua came along and said, "the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost." By using this phrase, knowing the people knew the Scripture, Yeshua was claiming to be Yahweh in the flesh, Israel's shepherd savior. This is another strong declaration of Christ's deity, but you will not get it if you do not know the text He is quoting. Back to Ezekiel.
Because you push with side and shoulder, and thrust at all the weak with your horns, till you have scattered them abroad, I will rescue my flock; they shall no longer be a prey. And I will judge between sheep and sheep. And I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd. And I, the LORD, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them. I am the LORD; I have spoken. Ezekiel 34:21-24 ESV
God promised that the day would come when He would raise up the Messiah—"The Branch," from the line of King David, and He would reign as king uniting Israel and Judah. The Old Covenant people understood from this passage that this shepherd chosen by God to be the promised Messiah would come from the family of the great King David.
"I will make with them a covenant of peace and banish wild beasts from the land, so that they may dwell securely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods. And I will make them and the places all around my hill a blessing, and I will send down the showers in their season; they shall be showers of blessing. And the trees of the field shall yield their fruit, and the earth shall yield its increase, and they shall be secure in their land. And they shall know that I am the LORD, when I break the bars of their yoke, and deliver them from the hand of those who enslaved them. They shall no more be a prey to the nations, nor shall the beasts of the land devour them. They shall dwell securely, and none shall make them afraid. And I will provide for them renowned plantations so that they shall no more be consumed with hunger in the land, and no longer suffer the reproach of the nations. And they shall know that I am the LORD their God with them, and that they, the house of Israel, are my people, declares the Lord GOD. And you are my sheep, human sheep of my pasture, and I am your God, declares the Lord GOD." Ezekiel 34:25-31 ESV
This prophecy was perfectly fulfilled in Yeshua of Nazareth, the son of David, the Good Shepherd when all the nations of the world were restored by the redeeming work of Christ on the cross and brought back into God's Covenant family.
Let's jump over to chapter 37:
say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I am about to take the stick of Joseph (that is in the hand of Ephraim) and the tribes of Israel associated with him. And I will join with it the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, that they may be one in my hand. When the sticks on which you write are in your hand before their eyes, then say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, and will gather them from all around, and bring them to their own land. Ezekiel 37:19-21 ESV
This is the end of the Exile, the bringing in of the new covenant and the kingdom, and the uniting of the tribes. John saw these prophecies of the gathering of Israel being fulfilled in the followers of Yeshua.
And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. John 10:16 ESV
This verse refers back to verses 1-5. There the sheep pen represents Judaism. Yeshua called His own sheep out of that fold, thereby constituting his own flock. The sheep that remain in that pen are the unbelieving Jews. If Yeshua has other sheep that are not of this sheep pen, the reference must be to Gentiles. This is an allusion to Isaiah 56:6-8.
"And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD, and to be his servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it, and holds fast my covenant— these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples." The Lord GOD, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares, "I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered." Isaiah 56:6-8 ESV
These "others" are the Gentiles who will be gathered into the Messiah's flock alongside the restored sheep of Israel. This recalls the mission of the Son in John 3:16-17, which was to save the world—not just the nation of Israel.
He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Yeshua would die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. John 11:51-52 ESV
His ministry was not just for the nation Israel but for the gathering all of the children of God.
Yeshua said, "they will become one flock with one shepherd." Sadly, there are far too many Bible teachers who deny this. They claim that there are two distinct purposes of God. One is related to the earth, and the other is related to heaven. The former deals with an earthly people, the nation Israel, while the latter has a heavenly purpose related to the heavenly people (i.e. the church of Yeshua the Christ).
Notice that Yeshua the good Shepherd said, "I have other sheep." He did not say that that he was going to get other sheep. He clearly said that He has other sheep. Who are these sheep that he already has? The Gospel of John makes it very plain that the Father has already given certain individuals to the Son.
All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. John 6:37 ESV
Those who come to Christ come because they have been given to the Son by the Father.
When Yeshua had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, "Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Yeshua the Christ whom you have sent. John 17:1-3 ESV
Christ gives eternal life only to those whom the Father has given him. Yeshua prays to his Father:
"I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. John 17:6 ESV
God had chosen these sheep for Himself ("they were yours") and He gave them to the Son ("and you gave them to me").
When Yeshua said, "I have other sheep, which are not of this fold," He was referring to those who were not in the fold of Judaism. He said that He has them not because they are already believers in him, but because they have been given to Him by the Father. It is an eternal gift of the Father to the Son and that seals the title of the Lord Yeshua to the sheep. The fact that they are given to Him by the Father is the important thing. They will come to Him in history as they hear the gospel and at a particular point respond by believing.
then say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, and will gather them from all around, and bring them to their own land. Ezekiel 37:21 ESV
When was this fulfilled? It was fulfilled in A. D. 70, but the gathering began at Pentecost. They gathered in Jerusalem, they heard the Gospel, and they witnessed the coming of the Spirit which initiated the new covenant. What did they do? They went back home and they shared the Gospel with their hometowns which included the nations.
I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore. My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Then the nations will know that I am the LORD who sanctifies Israel, when my sanctuary is in their midst forevermore." Ezekiel 37:26-28 ESV
How has the promise that Yahweh's sanctuary will be with His people, forever fulfilled in Christ? He is the new Temple. The body of the risen Christ is the spiritual Temple from which the living waters of salvation flow (John 7:37-39; 19:34; Revelation chapter 22). Yeshua Himself and His Body, the Church, are the true Temple! We are sacred space; we are the dwelling place of Yahweh!
In the context of Yeshua's ministry, the thieves and robbers are the religious leaders who are more interested in fleecing the sheep than in guiding, nurturing, and guarding them. Yeshua looks upon the Pharisees before Him as the kind of shepherds Ezekiel condemned.
If you compare the Septuagint of Ezekiel 34 and 37 with the Greek of John 10, you will find over a dozen vocabulary connections among them. In Ezekiel, God rebuked the leaders of Israel. In John that role was fulfilled by Yeshua. In Ezekiel, God led and saved the sheep. But in John, it was Yeshua who said that He would lead and save the sheep.
In conclusion, let me say again that a part from an understanding of the Tanakh, you will never completely understand the New Testament. The writers of the New Testament all supposed that their readers understood the Tanakh. We must also understand the language of the first three quarters of the Bible, or we will never understand the last quarter—the New Testament.