Jesus continues His analogy of sheep, the Shepherd, and the sheepfold.
Jesus has more sheep
Jesus has more sheep than just this one man who was born blind. He has more sheep than just His few disciples. The elect of God is a multitude which no man can number (Revelation 7:9).
These sheep are from a different sheepfold
The meaning of this is twofold. First, Jesus is leaving the people of this synagogue to go get the rest of His sheep. In other words, He is done here because He has already retrieved all of His sheep. Secondly, Jesus is speaking of an untold multitude of Gentiles from every nation, people group, language, and ethnicity that are His elect. The people of God is not bound to those who are born Jews. God’s people are comprised of those who have been born again from every people group in the entire world.
Jesus is gathering His sheep
The purpose of Christ’s coming was to seek out and gather His sheep. He then sends His disciples into all the earth to gather His elect and bring them into the sheepfold. Notice that the mark of a true sheep is that they hear and follow Jesus’ voice. As the Gospel is proclaimed, the true sheep will repent and believe in Christ.
There is only one sheepfold and One Shepherd
Although the people of God is composed of people from all over the earth from many different cultures, the Church of Jesus Christ is One. There is only one sheepfold. How can so many different people and cultures come together and get along? For one, they are true sheep not wolves or goats. Two, they are unified around the Shepherd. There is only one people of God. They are marked by their unified obedience to Jesus Christ, the One True Shepherd.
Application
We should be filled with the fear of God. God can easily move on from us as Jesus moved on from the people of this synagogue. We should be filled with humility. God has chosen to call us to Himself when He could have easily passed us by. We should be unified. Jesus Christ is the source of all true unity. We must unify around Him and nothing else. We should be filled with hope. Jesus has an untold number of sheep that will come if we will take the Gospel to them. He is still gathering His sheep.
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