10:22-23 "At that time"(NASB) is a general reference to the proximity of the feast of Dedication and the events narrated in the previous pericope. It does not mean that the events in the preceding section occurred exactly before that feast. The NIV "Then came"gives the sense better.
The eight-day feast of Dedication, now called Chanukah (or Hanukkah), the feast of Lights, was not one of the feasts prescribed in the Mosaic Law. The Jews instituted it during the inter-testamental period (cf. 1 Macc. 4:36-59; 2 Macc. 1:9, 18; 10:1-8).
"Christ's testimony at Hanukkah, and its place in the Gospel of John, which stresses the theme of light, is a testimony to Christians that Hanukkah emphasizes His great work of providing salvation to a spiritually blind world."365
It commemorated the purification and rededication of the temple by Judas Maccabeus ("Judas the Hammer") on the 25th of Chislev (modern late December and early January), 164 B.C. The Syrian invader Antiochus IV (Epiphanes) had profaned the temple three years earlier by replacing the brazen altar with a pagan one on which he offered a pig as a sacrifice to Jupiter. Antiochus attempted to Hellenize Judea, but the Jewish patriot Judas Maccabeus was able to lead a guerilla revolt that has borne his name ever since. After three years he defeated the Syrians and liberated the Jews.
"It was the last great deliverance that the Jews had known, and therefore it must have been in people's minds a symbol of their hope that God would again deliver his people."366
In warmer weather Jesus would have taught in one of the open-air courtyards of the temple. Because it was winter He taught what follows in Solomon's colonnade on the temple courtyard's eastern side. Perhaps John mentioned this detail because it was in Solomon's colonnade that the first Christians gathered regularly (Acts 3:11; 5:12).
10:24 Jesus had often hinted at being the Messiah when He spoke publicly to the Jews. Still He had not plainly claimed to be the Messiah as He had when conversing with the Samaritan woman (4:26). The reason the Jews wanted Jesus to make His claim clear here appears to have been so they could accuse and eventually kill Him. This motivation is more apparent when we notice how Jesus responded to their request than it is when we examine what they said. Jesus did not give them the unambiguous answer that they requested. Jesus had made clear claims about His identity, and many of the Jews had believed on Him. It was His critics' determined unbelief that made His claims obscure to them, not His inability or unwillingness to reveal Himself. Furthermore for Jesus to have claimed to be the Jews' Messiah publicly would have encouraged a political movement that He did not want to stimulate.
10:25-26 Jesus did not mean that He had claimed publicly to be the Messiah. He had not. He meant that He had told the Jews that He was the Messiah by His works (cf. 5:16-47; 6:32-59; 7:14-30). His miracles proved who He was, namely God's Son sent to fulfill the Father's prophesied will, but the Jews generally rejected that testimony because they wanted a different type of Messiah. The ultimate reason they did not understand Jesus was that they were not of the sheep the Father had given to the Son (cf. vv. 1-18; 6:37). This condition did not excuse their unbelief, but it explained it.
"From the human standpoint, we become His sheep by believing; but from the divine standpoint, we believe because we are His sheep. . . .
"In the Bible, divine election and human responsibility are perfectly balanced; and what God has joined together, we must not put asunder."367
10:27-28 Verse 27 repeats revelation Jesus had previously given (vv. 3-5, 14). The eternal life that Jesus gives is His own life. Consequently it is impossible for His sheep ever to perish. Their ultimate security rests with the Good Shepherd who promised here that no one would be able to snatch them out of His hand--no thief (v. 10), no robber (v. 8), no wolf (v. 12), no one (cf. Rom. 8:35-39). The construction of the Greek clause "they shall never perish"(ou me apolontai eis ton aiona) stresses the impossibility strongly (cf. 3:16). Jesus had previously said that part of the task that the Father had given Him to do was to preserve all those whom the Father gave Him (6:37-40). Thus we can see that it is impossible even for one of the sheep to wriggle out of the Good Shepherd's grasp.
"We should notice that the teaching of this verse is not that believers will be saved from all earthly disaster, but that they will be saved, no matter what earthly disaster may befall them."368
This is one of the clearest promises of the eternal security of the believer that God has given us in His Word. It is also a clear statement of the fact that eternal life comes to us as a gift, not as wages (cf. Eph. 2:8-9).
10:29 Jesus heightened this promise of security. He reminded His hearers that because what He did was simply execute the Father's will it was the Father as well as Himself that would keep His sheep secure (cf. 17:12). No one can steal from God. No one has superior strength or wisdom to overpower or outwit Him (cf. Col. 3:3). No one willsnatch them from God (v. 28), and no one cando so either.
10:30 Jesus did not mean that He and the Father were the same person of the Godhead. If He had meant that, He would have used the masculine form of the word translated "one"(Gr. heis). Instead He used the neuter form of the word (Gr. hen). He meant that He and the Father were one in their action. This explanation also harmonized with the context since Jesus had said that He would keep His sheep safe (v. 28) and His Father would keep them safe (v. 29).
This verse has been at the center of serious discussions about Jesus' nature that have taken place over the centuries. Those who believe that Jesus was fully God and fully man (the orthodox) and those who believe that Jesus was not fully God (Arians) have appealed to it to support their positions. Therefore we need to look at it carefully.
First, Jesus' claim to oneness does not in itself prove the Son's unity in essence with the Father. In 17:22, Jesus prayed that His disciples might be one as He and the Father were one, namely in their purpose and beliefs. Second, other passages in the Gospel declare that the Father and the Son are one in more than just their purpose and beliefs (cf. 1, 18; 8:58; 12:41; 20:28). Third, the context of this verse also implies that Jesus did everythingHis Father did (cf. 5:19) and that Jesus and the Father united in fulfilling a divinewill and a divinetask. Fourth, this Gospel has consistently presented Jesus as a uniqueSon of God, not one of many sons. Fifth, 17:55 uses the Father Son unity as the basis for the disciple disciple unity in the analogy, not the other way around, implying that the former is the more fundamental unity.369
In short, this verse does not say that Jesus was claiming to be of the same essence as God. Here He claimed to function in union with the Father. However the context and other statements in this Gospel show that His unity with the Father extended beyond a functional unity and did involve essential metaphysical unity.
The Jews had asked Jesus for a plain statement about His messiahship. Jesus gave them far more, a claim that He fully and completely carried out the Father's will that strongly hinted at Jesus' deity. This statement is the climax of the preceding discussion (vv. 22-29; cf. 5:18; 8:59).
