souls. All that come in My stead-who sought an entrance not in My name, spirit, and word, but in their own name—are thieves and robbers; but the sheep-the true members of the Church of God-did not listen to them. I am the door. By Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. The thief cometh not, but to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.' This is the first form of the parable. It is the nocturnal image of the sheep-fold of God. The chief point is the door, and entrance by the door of the fold. The door is Christ; the entrance by the door is entrance in the name of Christ, with reference to His pre-existent and eternal character. The doorkeeper is not here further explained; doubtless it is the Spirit of God. Those who, in Christ's stead, come to the flock, are such as come in their own nameall false prophets, priests, teachers, princes, and popular leaders. They are thieves and robbers: they have no other interest, than to enrich themselves at the expense of the flock; exercise no other influence, than to destroy the flock; and one knows them by this, that the true members of the Church do not follow their call. To these enemies of the flock are placed in strong contrast the true shepherds, who enter by the door. The latter rescue their own soul, by faithfully caring for the flock. They can go in and out into the fold; for the doorkeeper openeth to them, and the sheep know them and follow them. They find the right pasturage for their flock. Also for themselves; for all shepherds besides Christ are under-shepherds, and as such belong themselves also to the flock. Such is the contrast between Christ and the enemy of the flock, the thief. The latter comes only to destroy the flock. Christ, on the contrary, comes for its salvation. He secures its life-as the closed, protecting door, and secures the fulness of it-as the open door to the good pasturage.

In these last words the day picture of the New Testament fold, in its contrast to the night piece, representing the fold of the Old Testament, is already introduced.

'I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. But the hireling, who is not a shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth; and the wolf plundereth them, and scat

tereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep. I am the good shepherdstanding in the very opposite relation to the sheep-and I know mine own, and am known of mine, even as the Father knoweth Me, and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.' Thus is Christ the good shepherd in the true sense, as He is likewise the true vine, the true fountain, the true bread of life. All pastoral faithfulness is only a reflection of His shepherd's care. And this is the token of His pastoral faithfulness, He lays down His life for the sheep. But the hireling, who forms a contrast to the true shepherd, is known by this, that he takes to flight so soon as he sees the wolf, the destroyer of the flock, coming. The thief, who threatens the nocturnal security of the sheep, resolves himself into the twofold form of the hireling and the wolf, who become the source of danger to the flock by day. The hireling is the official teacher and guide of the sheep, without heart for the Lord, and for the flock, appearing oftentimes under the most legalized ecclesiastical form: the wolf is the false teacher, and seducer, and destroyer, who breaks into the fold, bringing desolation with him. The hireling and the wolf stand in intimate mutual relationship: the flight of the one furthers the rapine of the other. The character given of the hireling is, that he does not care for the sheep. The good shepherd, on the contrary, is known by this, that he is devoted to the flock as it is to him. This shepherd is Jesus. As the Father hath known Him with the look of love and faithfulness, and He the Father, so He knows His flock, and the flock know Him.

In this manner did the Lord characterize the Pharisees, ast the shepherds of the people. Their destructive leadership was thus judged, and the fact was explained, why the man that had been blind had not allowed himself to be seduced by them, why he had turned away from them and joined himself to Jesus: a picture of all the elect among the Jewish people.

When the Lord spoke the word, I lay down My life for the sheep, He found it needful to indicate the whole meaning in which He desired this expression to be understood. He therefore proceeded :

'And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold. them also I must bring. And they shall hear My voice.

And

And

This He spoke of the

there shall be one fold, one shepherd.' compass, of the range of the effects of His death. He will not offer Himself for the Jews alone. He has other sheep alsoeven now in His eternal dominion by the Spirit of God, He has other sheep without, far and wide. These He will bring by the power and operation of His death, to unite them with the sheep from among Israel; and they shall give a ready ear to His voice, and follow Him. Thus of the separated sheep there shall be one fold, as there is only one Shepherd, in whom all true under-shepherds dissolve and disappear.

'Therefore doth My Father love Me,' He continues, 'because I lay down My life, that I might take it again.' This is the inward and intensive power of His sacrificial death, in contrast to the range of its influence already spoken of. The love of the Father is, above all, fixed on His joyful self-sacrifice, on His absolute resignation or priestly spirit. What, however, makes this priestly spirit to appear in all its truth and glory before the eyes of God, is the perfect assurance of His resurrection in this willingness to die; the courageous anticipation of life in the intrepidity of this death; the undaunted, kingly spirit in this priestly spirit; the absolute trust in God in this absolute resignation to God.

From this characteristic of His sacrificial death, it follows that it was entirely voluntary, and yet also a perfect act of obedience. This He expresses in the words:

'No one taketh it (My life) from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of My Father.' This is the law for the guidance of His life: full power and authority to die as a sacrifice for the world, full power and authority to rise again from the dead. In this way His choice is one with the appointment of the Father, as His hope of life is one with His courage in death.

The Lord was, in the first instance, led to this reference to His death by the persecutions which the man that received his sight had undergone for His sake. He took the part of the excommunicated man, and received him faithfully into communion with Himself; although this again increased the hatred of the Pharisees against Him. He declared to them, that if they,

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as hirelings and wolves, sought to destroy the sheep, He, as the faithful Shepherd, would become security for them with His life.

And again there arose a division among the Jews for these sayings. And many of them said, 'He hath a devil, and is mad : why hear ye him?' Others said, "These are not the words of one that hath a devil. Can a devil open the eyes of the

blind?'

Manifestly, the powerful fermentation and commencing separation between the elements and children of light, and the elements and children of darkness, is the fundamental feature of the whole section. The section begins with the delineation of a threatening collision (chap. vii. 11–13); it closes with the outbreak of an already far advanced and strongly manifested division (chap. x. 19-21). This fermentation progressing towards separation, meets us in the Sanhedrim, as also among the people. Its strongest manifestation is the great fluctuation from unbelief to faith, and again from faith to unbelief, even in the same hearers. The most pointed expression for it is found in the reference of Jesus to the fact, that now they who see are made blind, and the blind receive their sight.

Here also, again, a further development of the ideal relationships in the life of Jesus, and of the transformation of the world towards its ideal end, discovers itself through the light of His life. In the first place, we learn the ideal rabbinical dignity of the Lord in contrast to the rabbinical dignity among the Jews, and His true exaltation of origin in contrast to the high birth which the residents of Jerusalem bring into competition with it. To the temple police Jesus discovers Himself in regal freedom, as one who can neither be touched nor hindered when He chooses publicly to appear, and equally as one who can neither be reached nor found when He hastens away (absolutely free, alike when He keeps His ground, and when He becomes a fugitive). To the Diaspora of the Jews among the Greeks He presents the image of a higher Diaspora in the other world, to which He thinks of retiring before His persecutors. The fountain of Siloah is turned by Him into a symbol of the spiritual fulness of His own life; the joyous drawing of water into a symbol of the communication of the Spirit, to be dispensed by Him to believers. In passing, we then see a bright ray fall on

the coarseness with which an antichristian conclave can curse and revile in its excitement against Him; and again a bright ray on the falsifications of history, into which antichristian scribes can fall in the violence of their passion, or which they can even allow themselves to make; a reproach from which all the efforts of a learning of a kindred spirit in our days in vain strive to purge the Sanhedrim. But Christ proceeds further, and makes us see in the festive illumination of the temple (thus indirectly also in the pillar of fire in the desert) a symbol of His soul-enlightening character and operations as the light of the world. His present farewell to the temple is, in His view, a sign of His speedy farewell to His people Israel. In the misapprehension of the Jews, who seem to be brought to believe in Him, whilst in truth they have removed themselves further from Him than before, He brings to light the poisonous nature of the inward unbelief, which lay hid in their worldly Messianic hopes and opinions, taking for the moment, as the basis of His conversation, the supposition common to both parties through this misunderstanding, that He was the Messiah. He then places the image of true freedom over against their chiliastic, fanatical, and demagogical notion of freedom, or also over against their real Jewish bondage. Thereupon the relation of Abraham and his true children to the life of Jesus is exhibited in its higher light; and, on the other hand, the Lord throws a strong beam of light on the preexistence of the devil, his dark operations amongst mankind, his kingdom: we are made acquainted with the essential characteristics of the satanic spirit, both in the father of lies and in his children. We see the earthly life of Abraham and of the prophets, as well as their life in the other world, in the light of the character of Christ: the coming into being of the children of God in its contrast to the eternal existence of Christ. A bright though isolated ray of light falls even on the inward condition of the demoniacally possessed. Thereafter a new symbolical relation of the water of Siloam to the life of Christ is illustrated: the pool of Siloam is a symbol of the healing virtue of Christ; but at the same time a sign of the co-operation of Jehovah, to whom the temple of Israel is dedicated, with the miraculous act of Jesus on the Sabbath-day. To this is attached an illustration of the blind receiving sight in Israel and in all the world, in contrast to the seeing, who become blind, as exhibited in the