[And "know my sheep, and am known of mine.'] These words express the close and intimate union there is between Christ and all His believing people, a union understood fully by those alone who feel it, but to the world foolishness. Our Lord, like a good earthly shepherd, knows every one of his people, — knows them with a special knowledge of love and approval; knows where they dwell and all about them, their weaknesses, trials, and temptations, and knows exactly what each one needs from clay to day. His people, on the other hand, know Him with the knowledge of faith and confidence, and feel in Him a loving trust of which an unbeliever can form no idea. They know Him as their own sure Friend and Saviour, and rest on the knowledge. The devils know that Christ is a Saviour. The sheep know and feel that He is their Saviour.
I fancy the fulness of this verse would be far more plain to Jews accustomed to Oriental shepherds and their flocks, to the care of a good shepherd and the confidence of a flock, than it is to us in this Northern climate. At any rate it teaches indirectly the duty of every Christ-like pastor to be personally acquainted with all his people, just as a good shepherd knows each one of his sheep.
Musculus points out the strong contrast between "I know ray sheep," and the solemn saying to the virgins, " I know you not," and to the false professors, " I never knew you," in Matt. xxv. 7 ; vii. 23.
Besser remarks that " ' I am known of mine ' is a sharp re- buke to those doubters who in voluntary humility refuse to be sure of their salvation."
15. — [As the Father... me... I the Father.] I believe this sentence ought to be read in close connection with the last verse, and without any full stop between. There is nothing in the Greek against this view. The sense would then be, "I know my sheep and am known of mine, even as the Father knoweth Me and I know the Father." The meaning will then be that the mutual knowledge of Christ and His sheep is like the mutual knowledge of the Father and the Son, — a knowledge so high, so deep, so intimate, so ineffable, that no words can fully con- vey it. The full nature of that knowledge which the first Person of the Trinity has of the Second, and the Second has of the First, is something far beyond finite man's understanding. It is in short a deep mystery. Yet the mutual knowledge and com- munion of Christ and believers is something so deep and won- derful that it can only be compared, though at a vast distance, to that which exists between the Father and the Son.
To understand this knowledge a little, we should read care- fully the language used in Proverbs viii. 22 — 30.
[And I lay doivn my life for the sheep.] Our Lord, to show how truly He is the Good Shepherd, declares that like a good