John 10:27
τὰ πρόβατα τὰ ἐμὰ τῆς φωνῆς μου ἀκούουσιν, κἀγὼ γινώσκω αὐτά, καὶ ἀκολουθοῦσίν μοι
“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”
I am sure you recognised the passage from the title of this post. John 10:27 sums up a great deal of what Jesus has said in his dialogue with the Jews (meaning here the Pharisees) in the first part of chapter 10, where He identifies Himself as the Good Shepherd who sets down His life for, or even over (as a covering against the wolf), the sheep.
There is a recurrent theme in the first part of John 10 – His sheep hear and listen to Him, they won’t listen to a stranger, He knows them, they know Him, and He leads them out, and they follow.
He even goes on to reveal that He has other sheep, not from this courtyard (αὐλή is a courtyard before a house, whether that is a general purpose courtyard or a cattle yard surrounded by walls and farm buildings; and this matters because the temple had multiple courtyards also – for priests and Levites, Jewish men, Jewish women and children; and even (previously clogged with traders) a courtyard for Gentiles); and they too will listen to Him and follow Him, so that there will be one Flock, one Shepherd.
Easy then to miss that the first half of John 10 follows on directly from John 9. The NIV recognises this by adding in the word Pharisees in John 10:1 – they are making the point that the conversation is continuous across the (always artificial and not original to the text) chapter division. Jesus is still talking to the Pharisees who said to Him, “What, are we blind too?”
I mention this only because the main subject of John 9 – the man born blind – gives us a perfect example of what Jesus summarises in John 10:27. Starting from John 9:1 we read that:
- Jesus saw the man born blind (he wasn’t brought to Jesus, nor did he call out to him);
- The disciples asked a question which they presumably thought showed theological insight – “whose fault is this, his or his parents?”
- Jesus told them it was neither, it was so the works of God might be seen, and that they all needed to get on with those works while He, the light of the world, was still present;
- He spat on the ground, made mud and put it on the man’s eyes.
- He told him to go to the Pool of Siloam and wash.
- The man went, washed and came home seeing.
To summarise the story so far from the blind man’s point of view: a complete stranger rubs mud in his eyes and tells him to go and wash in a specific Pool. He does so and comes home seeing. At this point he has never seen Jesus; but he heard His voice telling him what to do, and obeyed.
There is a gathering uproar over the fact that the blind man now sees, hingeing on the fact that someone has broken the Sabbath and made mud to rub in the blind man’s eyes. The Pharisees are divided even as they try to nail Jesus for Sabbath mud-making – some at least asked, “how can a sinner do such signs?” They call in the parents of the man to grill them – they are afraid of being put out of the Temple so push everything back on their son. He in turn, having answered respectfully to begin with, becomes pretty sparky when he sees that the Pharisees aren’t actually interested in the facts, leading to “how dare you lecture us!” and his ejection (presumably from the Temple).
Jesus hears that he has been thrown out, so finds him and asks “Do you trust (the primary meaning of πιστεύω) in the Son of Man?”
Stop a moment. This man has received astonishing healing today, but he has had to put up with some serious trials with it. Someone, uninvited, rubs mud in his eyes, he gets dragged before the religious leaders of his nation, and ends up being exceedingly rude to them (I am not saying they didn’t deserve it), and thrown out on his ear; so it would have been entirely reasonable if he had said to Jesus, “Enough of the stupid questions, already!”
So why doesn’t he? He doesn’t know Jesus by sight (a faculty he only received for the first time after he left Jesus earlier). Did he literally recognise Jesus’ voice from one sentence spoken earlier? Quite possible. But even when he had never heard that voice before, he obeyed it. So now, instead of a snappy answer, he says “and who is He, Lord, in order that I might trust in Him?” Jesus replies, “You have seen Him; the one speaking with you, that’s Him.”
And the man says “Lord, I trust” and worships Him.
Jesus then says, “for a verdict (or decree or resolution) I have come into this world, in order that those not seeing may see, and those who see may become blind” – which leads to the Pharisees’ indignant question, “what, are we blind too?”
And everything Jesus says in the first part of John 10 is in answer to this question: sheep demonstrate their identity by who they are listening to and following; and they are known and know. The man born blind illustrates this perfectly; he hears Jesus and follows what he says and receives healing AND the knowledge of who Jesus is. His increasingly angry theological debate with the leaders gets him, and them, nowhere.
The proof of the sheep is in the listening.
Seeing the Kingdom 