of the ninth chapter. Our Lord is still speaking to the hostile Pharisees who asked, " Are we blind also? " and got the answer, " Ye say, We see ; therefore your sin reraaineth." — It is to them that He goes on to say, " I say unto you, He that entereth not in by the door is a thief and a robber." He is not so much com- forting His disciples now, as rebuking and exposing His enemies.
(b) For another thing, the passage is entirely a parable, or alle- gory. (See sixth verse.) In interpreting it, like almost all our Lord's parables, the one great lesson should be kept in view, which is the key-note to the whole. We must not press every detail and little point too far, and try to attach a spiritual mean- ing to the lesser parts of the picture. Those who do so always run aground in their exposition, and get into difficulties. To this parable, if any, the old quaint sayings are applicable : " No parable stands on four legs." — "Squeeze parables too far, and you will draw blood from them, and not milk."
Calvin remarks wisely : " It is useless to scrutinize too closely every part of this parable. Let us rest satisfied with this gen- eral view, that as Christ states a resemblance between the Church and a fold, (a sheepfold, in which God assembles all His people,) so He compares Himself to a door, because there is no other en- trance into the Church but by Himself. Then it follows that they are good shepherds, who lead men straight to Christ; and that they are truly gathered into Christ's fold, so as to belong to His flock, who devote themselves to Christ alone."
(c) For another thing, the object that our Lord had in view, in speaking this parable, must be kept steadily before our eyes. That object was to show the entire unfitness of the Pharisees to be pastors and teachers of the Jews, because they had not ta- ken up their office in the right spirit, and with a right under- standing of the work they had to do. He is not iu this part speaking of Himself as "the Shepherd," but as "the Door:" only as the Door. What Christ is as a " Shepherd " comes after- ward ; what Christ is as "the Door " is the one point of the first nine verses.
The "progressive" character of our Lord's discourses record- ed in St. John, is strikingly illustrated in this chapter. Start- ing from a very simple statement, our Lord goes on to speak of the highest truths. We see the same in the fourth, fifth, and sixth chapters.
This is one of the twenty-four places in St. John's Gospel, where the double " verily" comes in. Here, as elsewhere, it al- ways prefaces some statement of more than ordinary importance and solemnity.
[Ife that entereth not, etc.'] Our Lord here appeals to the com- mon experience of His hearers. They all knew well that any one who was seen entering a sheepfold by climbing over the wall or fence of euclosure, and not by going through the door,