26 January 2025

JESUS – THE DOOR TO SALVATION

(The Names Of God: TNOG 26)

Jesus said, "Most assuredly, I say to you, I AM the Door of the sheep. I AM the Door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture”. (John 10:7,9- NKJV). This is the third “I AM” claim regarding His Deity. By saying this He claims to be the only Way of salvation and that that He is “the Door,” not “a door.” He is the only Door by which we may enter and be saved (v.9). Jesus is the only means we have of receiving eternal life (John 3:16). There is no other way to be saved from our sins and judgment..

To understand the meaning of what “the Door” means, we need to understand the culture of those days, especially of sheep and shepherding. Of all domesticated animals, sheep are the most helpless. They often become lost. But sheep have no “homing instinct” as other animals do. They are totally incapable of finding their way to their sheepfold even when it is in plain sight. Isaiah compares humans to lost sheep: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way” (53:6). By our own, we can never find our way back to God. That is why Jesus the Shepherd had to come and find us. Jesus said, “The Son of Man has come to seek and save those who are lost” (Luke 19:10).

There were two kinds of sheepfolds or pens. One kind was a public sheepfold found in the villages. It would be large enough to hold several flocks of sheep. This sheep pen would be in the care of a porter or doorkeeper, whose duty it was to guard the door to the sheep pen during the night and to admit the shepherd in the morning. “To him the doorkeeper opens and the sheep hear his voice…and leads them out” (Jn 10:3).

The second kind of sheep pen was in the countryside, which was nothing more than a rough circle of rocks piled into a wall with a small open space to enter. Through it the shepherd would drive the sheep at nightfall. Since there was no gate to close—just an opening—the shepherd would keep the sheep in and wild animals out by lying across the opening. He would sleep there, in this case literally becoming the door to the sheep. This is what Jesus meant when He said,“I AM the Door of the sheep. I AM the Door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture”. (John 10:7,9).

As the Son of God and the Saviour, Jesus is the only Door by which all men can be saved. “There is no other Name under Heaven given among men by which we must be saved… Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved” (Acts 4:12; 16:31). Jesus also said that “all who ever came before Me are thieves and robbers” who came “to steal, to kill and to destroy; but I have come that they might have life and may have it more abundantly” (Jn 10:8, 10). Through Jesus the Door, we will “go in and out and find pasture” (v.9). The pasture is where the sheep find fresh grass, eat, rest and be contented. Let us come to Him and find rest for our souls by trusting and acknowledging Him as our Shepherd and Lord.

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