Other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and there shall be one flock and one Shepherd.' Striking as these words are in themselves, they are still more striking when we notice their connection; for they follow immediately upon His utterance about laying down His life for the sheep. So, then, this was a work beyond the Cross, and whatever it was, it was to be done after He had died.
I need not point out to you how far afield Christ's vision goes out into the dim, waste places, where on the dark mountains the straying sheep are torn and frightened and starving. I need not dwell upon how far ahead in the future His glance travels, or how magnificent and how rebuking to our petty narrowness this great word is. There shall be one flock' (not fold); and they shall be one, not because they are within the hounds of any visible fold,' but because they are gathered round the one Shepherd, and in their common relation to Him are knit together in unity.
But what sort of a Man is this who considers that His widest work is to be done by Him after He is dead? Them also I must bring.' Thou? how? when? Surely such words as these, side by side with a clear prevision of the death that was so soon to come, are either meaningless or the utterance of an arrogance bordering on insanity, or they anticipate what an Evangelist declares did take place--that the Lord was taken up into heaven and sat at the right hand of God,' whilst His servants went everywhere preaching the Word, the Lord also working with them and confirming the Word' with the signs He wrought.
Them also I must bring.' That is not merely a necessity rooted in the nature of God and the wants of men. It is not merely a necessity springing from Christ's filial obedience and sense of a mission; but it is a must' of destiny, a must' which recognises the sure results of His passion; a must' which implies the power of the Cross to be the reconciliation of the world. And so for all pessimistic thoughts to-day, or at any time, and when Christian men's hearts may be trembling for the Ark of God--although, perhaps, there may be little reason for the tremor--and in the face of all blatant antagonisms and of proud Goliaths despising the ,foolishness of preaching,' we fall back upon Christ's great' must"It is written in the councils of Heaven more unchangeably than the heavens; it is guaranteed by the power of the Cross; it is certain, by the eternal life of the crucified Saviour, that He will one day be the King of humanity, and must bring His wandering sheep to couch in peace, one flock round one Shepherd.
