The present section of the fourth Gospel is strongly Christological and focuses on Jesus' identity. In this subdivision of the text Jesus presented Himself as the Messiah (vv. 22-30) and as the Son of God (vv. 31-39). This resulted in the climax of hostility against Him.
"It becomes clear that people must either recognize that Jesus stands in such a relation to the Father as no one else ever did, or else reject him entirely."364
The final few verses are transitional and describe Jesus' withdrawal from Jerusalem and the fact that many people believed on Him (vv. 40-42).
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).
10:31-33 Clearly the Jews understood Jesus to be claiming more than simple agreement with God in thought and purpose but equality with the Father as deity. They prepared to stone Him for blasphemy.370They believed Jesus was blaspheming because He was claiming to be God (cf. 5:18; 8:59). Before they could act Jesus asked them for which of His many noble, beautiful works (Gr. erga kala) they were stoning Him. This question confronted them with the incongruity of executing a man for restoring people who had suffered from handicaps. Jesus' miracles testified that He was doing divine work. However the Jews did not think this through but responded that it was not for His works but for His words that they were going to kill Him. The reader should realize by now that Jesus was exactly who He claimed to be, one with the Father and more than a mere mortal. A man was not making Himself out to be God, but God had made Himself a man (1:1, 14, 18).
If Jesus did not really claim to be God, He could easily have corrected the Jews' misunderstanding here. The fact that He did not is further proof that the Jews correctly understood that He was claiming to be God.
10:34 Jesus proceeded to point out that the Jews' authoritative revelation, the Old Testament, proved His claim. He cited Psalm 82:6 to show that the Old Testament used the word "god"(Heb. elohim) to refer to persons other than God Himself. If God spoke of people as "gods,"why should the Jews object if Jesus implied that He was a god?
The identity of the people whom God addressed as gods in Psalm 82:6 is debatable. The most popular and probable view is that they were Israel's judges who were functioning as God's representatives and so were in that sense little gods (Ps. 82:1-4; cf. Exod. 21:6; 22:8).371Another view is that these gods were angels.372This seems unlikely since the contrast in view in the psalm is between God and mere man, not angels. A third view is that God was addressing the whole nation of Israel when He gave them the Law. He spoke to the people as His sons and in this sense meant that they were gods.373However the contrast between God as the true Judge (Ps. 82:1, 8) and the people whom He rebuked for judging falsely (Ps. 82:2-7) seems to favor the first view.
10:35-36 The clause "the Scripture cannot be broken"means that man cannot annul it, set it aside, or prove it false.
"It means that Scripture cannot be emptied of its force by being shown to be erroneous."374
Jesus' statement affirms the unity, authority, and inerrancy of Scripture. Jesus held a very high view of Scripture. His point was that it was inconsistent for the Jews to claim the Old Testament as their authority (v. 34) and then to disregard something that it said because they did not agree with it. It was inconsistent for them specifically to stone Jesus for claiming to be God and the Son of God when the Old Testament spoke of humans as gods and as God's sons.
"In the singular he grapheusually means a single passage of Scripture, and the verb translated broken(luo) is used in v. 18 of disregarding the letter of the law. The meaning here is this passage of Scripture cannot be set aside as irrelevant to the matter under discussion'."375
Jesus did not use this argument to claim that He was God. He used it to stall His critics. He wanted them to see that the divine terms that He was using to describe Himself were terms that the Old Testament itself also used of human beings. They could not logically accuse Him of blasphemy because the Father had set Him aside and sent Him into the world with a special mission. He was a legitimate Son of God for this reason.
As the Jews had sanctified their temple after its desecration by Antiochus Epiphanies, so God had sanctified His Son. The Jews celebrated the sanctification of their physical temple with the feast of Dedication, but they were unwilling to accept the spiritual temple that replaced it, namely Jesus.
10:37-38 Jesus next identified the evidence that His critics should consider, namely His works, including His miracles (cf. v. 25). He acknowledged that verbal claims were not sufficient in themselves. The Jews should learn from them and continue to learn from them that He was doing the same kinds of good works that God did. Jesus manifested divine compassion and divine power in His works. These traits also marked God's works.
10:39 Jesus' critics correctly understood His latest words (v. 38) as a claim to equality with the Father. Therefore they again tried to seize Him. Jesus eluded them again because it was not yet time for His passion (cf. 7:30; 8:20). This act was the climax of official antagonism during this period of Jesus' ministry so far.
10:40 John presented Jesus' departure from Jerusalem as the result of official rejection of Him. The event had symbolic significance that the evangelist probably intended. Jesus withdrew the opportunity for salvation from the people there because they refused to accept His gracious offer of salvation. Evidently Jesus went from Jerusalem back to Bethany in Perea on the east side of the Jordan River where the Jewish rulers had no authority to pursue Him (cf. 1:28).
10:41-42 John the Baptist was by this time dead. However many people from Perea recognized that Jesus fulfilled what John the Baptist had predicted of Messiah. Their attitude contrasts with the hatred and unbelief of many in Jerusalem. They accepted John the Baptist's testimony about Jesus because it proved to be true so far, not because the forerunner had performed signs. He had not. The witness of John the Baptist continued to bear fruit even after his death because he pointed people to Jesus, and Jesus did not disappoint them.
John probably identified Jesus' destination as he did to imply the ending of Jesus' public ministry that John the Baptist introduced. References to John the Baptist form an inclusiothat brackets the record of Jesus' public ministry to the multitudes in this Gospel (1:19-10:42).
