Jesus as Lamb Shepherd and Gatekeeper

Introduction

One of the stumbling blocks for those coming to faith is the role that Jesus plays in their salvation. The fact that Jesus has a dual nature as God and Man is perhaps the largest stumbling block, for it is a mystery that one can sense through interaction with the biblical record of events, but the mystery remains something that can only be accepted through faith. To assist in the development of that faith, the Gospel of John shows us that Jesus has another dual nature that can help man see Him more clearly: that is, Jesus as both Shepherd and Lamb.

Thesis Statement

This paper will use John 1:29-34; 10:1-21; and 19:31-37 to show how Jesus is both Shepherd and Lamb and why understanding Our Lord in this manner can help us to develop our faith more fully so that we can come to Him for salvation.

Research Question

How does John present Jesus as both Shepherd and Lamb in the Fourth Gospel and what does this mean for us today?

Methodology

The primary method here is to employ hermeneutical principles to discover the values and truth of the Bible. The principles employed here will be the synchronic approach, i.e., discovering the world within the text; the diachronic approach, i.e., discovering the world behind the text; theological synthesis, critical exegesis, and the existential approach. The biblical methods employed will be literal, moral, allegorical, and anagogical.

Outline

The paper will begin with a discussion of the text using the synchronic approach so as to establish the world conveyed within the text. This will be followed by an explanation of the world behind the text using the diachronic approach. Biblical theology will then be used to establish theological synthesis of ideas conveyed in the text. A critical exegesis will then be presented in the fourth section, followed by the application of the existential approach to show how the text links with contemporary issues relevant to the Church, society and the world. A conclusion ends the paper in which a summary and critical reflection completes the examination of the text.

Synchronic Approach

As Gorman notes, the Bible was written for real people at a real point in history, who had real lives at the time of its writing.[footnoteRef:1] The text itself is filled with contextual clues that can increase understanding. To understand Jesus as both Shepherd and Lamb in the Fourth Gospel using John 1:29-34; 10:1-21; 19:31-37, it is imperative to understand the literary context of the text. [1: Michael Gorman, Elements of Biblical Exegesis (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2020), 76.]

John uses a “poetic format” and a “uniquely solemn pattern…that some would call semi-poetic” to convey certain truths that transcend man’s understanding.[footnoteRef:2] The opening of the Fourth Gospel touches on Christ’s beginning in eternity. John 1:29-34 conveys the first days of Jesus’ public life as Man, when he was being asked by the Jews and Levites, “Who are you?”[footnoteRef:3]. It is a fair question, but not altogether an honest one, for the Jews were not willing to accept that their Messiah should be One of such earthly humility. His way was being prepared by John the Baptist, who was preaching repentance. John the Baptist is the first to declare who Christ is in John 1:29-34, and it occurs in the wider context of the Jews seeking to know who He is. John the Baptist declares: “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel” (John 1:29-31). This is a significant event because the Baptist has already attracted a great deal of attention for his preaching and his lifestyle. He is very ascetic and close to the spirit of God. [2: Raymond Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010), 333.] [3: Francis Moloney, The Gospel of John (Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 1998), 48. ]

The wider structure of the first chapter of the Fourth Gospel is built around this very question of Christ’s identity. John begins the Gospel by declaring that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made” (John 1:1-3). Then the Gospel states: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John1:14). These verses show that Christ was God from the beginning, but that He also became Man; and then there is a description of the Baptist and who he was in relation to God: “There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light” (John 1:6-8). This provides the context of the relationship between John the Baptist and Christ and why the Baptist is able to recognize Him when He comes.

The Baptist describes Christ as the Lamb and as “God’s Chosen One,” meaning the One Who will lead the Jews—the Shepherd. These terms have great significance, which will be expounded upon in the next section. The effect of this introduction, however, is epic in that it puts Christ squarely in a celestial cosmology that announces His divinity right off. Had the Jews paid attention to the Baptist they would have understood that Christ was indeed God.

Diachronic Approach

As Kostenberger points out, there is great significance behind the use of the term shepherd in the Old Testament: it has a pastoral meaning that the ancient world would have understood.[footnoteRef:4] Duncan and Dekrett (1973) also explain the significance of the good shepherd used in the Bible as an image meant to appeal to the Jewish Haggadah.[footnoteRef:5] However, whereas the Jews believed in the Law, Christ wanted them to believe in Him as their savior. That is why He is also described as the Lamb, because the Lamb is also part of that Haggadah story about the Exodus and the use of the sacrificial lamb, whose blood was spread on the doors to prevent the Angel of Death from taking the first born. The blood was a sign of faith. Christ comes to shed His blood as an act of redemption. [4: Andreas J. Köstenberger, “Jesus the good shepherd who will also bring other sheep (John 10: 16): the OldTestament background of a familiar metaphor,” Bulletin for Biblical Research (2002), 67.] [5: J. Duncan and M. Dekrett, “The Good Shepherd: St. John's Use of Jewish Halakah and Haggadah,” Studiatheologica 27, no. 1 (1973), 48.]

Jesus tells the parable of the Good Shepherd in John 10:1-21, and He equates Himself to this Shepherd, saying, “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me” (John 10:14). He is specific with His imagery because of the Jewish traditions associated with the pastoral image of the shepherd and the Haggadah. There is also in-group and out-group connotations that can be drawn from John’s use of “light” and “dark” in the opening of the Fourth Gospel.[footnoteRef:6] This tension creates a sense of a need to belong to the in-group, the group of light, and Christ sets Himself as the Way and the “door” to this group. [6: Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Gospel of John (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002), 47.]

And again the Passover is referenced in John 19:31-37, wherein Christ is going to celebrate the Passover (Matthew 26:17-30; Luke 22:7-23). In the Synoptic Gospels it is clear that Christ is announcing Himself as the New Lamb Who will take away sin, which is the real death because it is the loss of God’s grace in the soul. Natural death is nothing in comparison. In John 19:31-37, Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is the completion of the New Sabbath meal, wherein His flesh and blood are consumed in an unbloody manner. John is specific in stating that Christ’s bones are not broken, and this connects to the Old Testament prophecies: “These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken,” and, as another scripture says, “They will look on the one they have pierced” (John 19:36-37). The Old Testament verses referenced here are Exodus 12:46, Numbers 9:12, Psalm 34:20 and Zechariah 12:10. John references these Old Testament verses specifically so as to again point out to the Jews that Christ is the One foretold in the Bible. Thus, what can be learned from history is that the Jews had great esteem for the lamb as a symbol, and so when Christ assumed that symbology in His own discourse, He set Himself up as their Shepherd and Lamb to connect the Passover theme with His sacrifice for them on the cross.

Biblical Theology/Theological Synthesis

The main theological insights that can be drawn from this research are that Christ’s identity as Lamb and Shepherd conveys both His dual nature as God and Man (God=Shepherd, Man=Lamb), so as to be the sacrifice intended to pay for man’s sin and to be the Truth that will enable man to live a life that is pleasing to God so as to be with Him in Heaven at the end of time. Jesus is the “door” to Heaven and the “good shepherd” who will guide men to their heavenly home if they believe in Him.[footnoteRef:7] As the “lamb” there is also connection between the lamb supplied in the place of Isaac (Genesis 22:8, 13), as Daly-Denton points out.[footnoteRef:8] Christ is come in place of the Paschal Lamb, and He will now from the time of the Last Supper onward be consumed in place of the bread/wine that was used before. The bread/wine is transubstantiated into Christ’s flesh and blood. This new sacrifice is the “door” and Christ is the “lamb” and God is the Good Shepherd guiding the Church. As Martin and Wright note, “The gatekeeper opens the door for the shepherd.”[footnoteRef:9] In this sense, Christ can be seen as the One Who opens the door for the Church, which will be guided by the Holy Ghost, at the time of Pentecost and from that point on (Acts 2:1-13). [7: Craig Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2003), 797.] [8: Margaret Daly-Denton, John: An Earth Bible Commentary (New York, NY: T&T Clark, 2017), 50.] [9: Francis Martin and William Wright. The Gospel of John (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2015), 187.]

What can be learned about Christology from this exegesis of Jesus’ identity is that He is not pigeon-holed into one label. He is God; One with the Holy Trinity. Thus, He can be Lamb, Shepherd and Gatekeeper all at once, while also being the Word, as John describes Him before He takes flesh. He is always with God and always God—and that is the greater mystery of faith.

The theology of discipleship and the journey to faith in Jesus depends upon one embracing this mystery and accepting it with joy rather than spurning it because it transcends man’s reason. The Jews rejected Christ and turned to hate. But Christ is Love, and those who want to embrace Love must make an act of faith and follow Him to the reward He promises by living as He wants them to live, with love in their hearts for God and for all other people.

Critical Exegesis

We may assume that because we are not told specifically how to think of God in any one way other than as the Way (John 14:6) that we are not under any compulsion to view Him according to one symbol, whether as Lamb, Shepherd or even Gatekeeper. Christ is the Truth (John 14:6) and thus we can think of Him as all the ways in which He identifies Himself because the point is that He is God and we need Him. He is inviting us to come to Him to live in Him and through Him and with Him. The truth that John tells in the Fourth Gospel is above man’s reason, but Christ knows this and reaches out to man in ways that man will understand, which is why Jesus uses images like the shepherd and the lamb and the gatekeeper, and why John uses words like light and dark—it is all to convey the Truth in a manner that men’s minds can easily grasp. The mystery of Who God Is remains above men’s minds, but the reality of Christ is evident, from the Baptist’s assertions through to the parable of the good shepherd to the death of Christ on the cross, all of which is captured in John 1:29-34; 10:1-21; and 19:31-37. These texts help to connect Christ’s identity and mission with the themes of the Old Testament—sin, the Passover, and redemption—to what Jesus is actually doing on Earth.

As one of the Fathers of the Church, St. Ambrose states, God uses mystery to show His glory, and he wants us to embrace the mystery rather than shun it like the unbelieving Jews, who wanted something on their own level that they themselves could control and lead. The unbelieving Jews wanted to be the shepherd—they rejected Christ as the Way—but Ambrose reminds us that we must not do this. Instead, Ambrose encourage us: “Open, then, your ears, inhale the good savour of eternal life which has been breathed upon you by the grace of the sacraments; which was signified to you by us, when, celebrating the mystery of the opening, we said, Epphatha, which is, Be opened, Mark 7:34 that whosoever was coming in quest of peace might know what he was asked, and be bound to remember what he answered.”[footnoteRef:10] If we come in peace to God, accepting His mystery as God, we can find forgiveness for our sins in His sacrifice as the New Lamb, and we can find hope, love and salvation in His example as the Good Shepherd. [10: Church Fathers: Ambrose. Accessed March 19, 2021. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3405.htm]

Existential Approach

Today, many people are without faith because they do not see a need for Christ’s sacrifice or His offering in their lives. They are unaware of their fallen nature and they see Christ as something from the Old World that serves no purpose in the progressive, liberalized world of today. The Church is buffeted by so many liberal winds and forces that it hardly knows which way to turn anymore. At one moment it is talking about secularisms and coronaviruses as though these were of the height of utmost importance. At another moment, it is attempting to weigh in on controversies such as gay marriage but barely backing its “condemnations” up with any real force. The Church has been in a poor position of authority since being co-opted by intelligence agencies during WW2, and it has never recovered from this engagement with the covert forces of the new world order that prevailed at Potsdam following the war.[footnoteRef:11] [11: Paul L. Williams, Operation Gladio (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2015), 47.]

The Church has to some degree abandoned its spiritual authority, i.e., the Holy Ghost, the Third Person of the Holy Trinity and the Shepherd of the Church for Whom Jesus was the Gatekeeper and the Lamb and also the Shepherd prior to Pentecost, as seen in Holy Scripture. The Church desperately needs to return to God, yet on all sides finds itself overwhelmed by partisan politics and scheming, scandals and corruption within the clergy, none of which bode well for solidifying the floundering faith of its members. Christians today have secular notions of justice that do not correspond with God’s commandments. Moreover, they have pushed aside the sense of redemption, like the unbelieving Jews, and see only a need for political solutions to the problems of society and the world.

Yet, Jesus does not come offering political solutions to spiritual problems. He comes offering spiritual solutions to all problems—within the Church, within society and within the world. It is up to the Church to recognize this and once more to proclaim Christ as King, so that His glory can be realized by all sinners and so that all sinners can turn to Him to have their sins washed away in His blood, and to have the path of salvation opened up to them by His hand.

The application of a hermeneutical principle can shed light on this issue because it opens up to the modern person the reality of the identity of Jesus. It is that identity that these verses from the Fourth Gospel focus on. Indeed, the whole of the Fourth Gospel is an examination and celebration of that Identity, for it is a celebration of Jesus the Redeemer of mankind. To come to this understanding is absolutely necessary for salvation, for it is through faith in Christ that one obtains the promise of redemption. The ransom paid by Christ on the cross was made for once and for all, and two sinners were on either side of Him at that moment—yet only one was saved because only the one made the requisite act of faith. To humble ourselves is necessary, and it is like the good thief on Christ’s side that we must strive to be, crucified together with Christ, in our passions, our desires, our needs and wants—because it is only in union with Him that we see Him as our Shepherd and we ourselves as His sheep.