John 10:17-18. Christ’s self-delineation as the Good Shepherd is finished. Jesus now further bears testimony to that which filled His heart, while setting forth this great vocation, which was only to be fulfilled by dying and rising again, namely, the love of His Father, which rests upon Him just because of that which He has declared concerning Himself as the good shepherd.

διὰ τοῦτο … ὅτι] is to be taken as in all the passages where it occurs in John (John 5:16; John 5:18, John 8:47, John 12:18; John 12:39; 1 John 3:1): therefore—because, namely, διὰ τοῦτο referring to what had preceded, and ὅτι introducing a more precise explication of διὰ τοῦτο. The sense consequently is: therefore, because of this my relationship as Shepherd, of which I have spoken down to John 10:16, my Father loves me, because, namely, I (ἐγώ; no other does so or can do so) lay down my life, in order to take it again. Note in particular: (1) The explanation ὅτι … μου is pragmatically correct, because it is just the readiness to sacrifice His life which is the main characteristic of the good shepherd (John 10:11; John 10:15). (2) ἵνα πάλ. λάβω αὐτήν do not belong to ἀγαπ., but express the intention or design of τίθ. τ. ψ. μου (not merely its result, as Theodore of Mopsuestia, Euth. Zigabenus, Grotius, and many suppose; or its condition, as Calvin, De Wette, and several others maintain); for the ground of the love of God lies not merely in the sacrifice considered by itself, but in the fact that the Good Shepherd, when He gives up His life, is resolved to take it again, in order that He may continue to fulfil His pastoral office till the final goal is reached, when all mankind shall constitute His flock. Indeed, only on the condition of His taking His life again, could He fulfil the office of Shepherd unto the final completion contemplated in the divine decree, and referred to in John 10:16. For this reason, also, ἵνα cannot be regarded as introducing the divine intention (Tholuck), because the ground of the Father’s love must lie in the volition of Jesus,—which volition, it is true, corresponds to the Father’s will, though this is not here expressly declared, but first in John 10:18.

John 10:18. It must be, however, not an unwilling, but a voluntary self-sacrifice, if it is to form the ground of the love of the Father to Him; hence the words οὐδεὶς … ἀπʼ ἐμαυτοῦ (mea ipsius sponte). Nor must He proceed to effect this voluntary sacrifice of His own authority; but must receive a warrant thereto, as also for that which He had in view in so doing, viz. the resumption of His life; hence the words: ἐξουσίαν … λαβεῖν αὐτήν. Nay, more; even this very thing which He purposed to do, namely, the surrender and resumption of His life, must have come to Him as a commission from God; hence the expression: ταύτην τ. ἐντολὴν … πατρός μου, in which ταύτην (this and not something different) is emphatic, and τὴν ἐντολὴν is correlate to the idea of ἐξουσία, as this latter is grounded in the divine mandate. Notice further: (1) The ἐξουσία, the power conferred (so also in John 19:10 f., not power generally), lies in the relation of subordination to God, of whom the Son is the commissioned representative, and to whom He submits Himself voluntarily, i.e. from no compulsion exerted by a power outside of Himself, but with self-determined obedience to the Father (John 14:30 f.; Matthew 26:53). Equality of nature (Olshausen) is the presupposition of this moral harmony. (2) The view which pervades the New Testament, that Christ did not raise Himself from the dead, but was raised by the Father, is not affected by this passage, inasmuch as the taking again of His life, for which the divine-human Christ had received authorization, implies the giving again of the life, to wit, the re-awakening activity of the Father. This giving again on the part of God, by which Christ becomes ζωοποιηθεὶς πνεύματι (see 1 Peter 3:19, and Huther on the passage), and that ἐξουσία, which Christ receives from God, are the two factors of the resurrection—the former being the causa efficiens, whilst the latter, the ἐξουσία of Christ, is the causa apprehendens. Compare Constitutiones Apostol. 5. 7. 8 : ἑαυτὸν προστάγματι τοῦ πατρὸς διὰ τριῶν ἡμερῶν ἀνεγείρας.—(3) ταύτην τὴν ἐντολ. embraces the aforementioned twofold ἐξουσία; justly so, inasmuch as the authorization to die and to rise again was only formally divided according to its two aspects. Chrysostom and several others erroneously refer ταύτην to the dying alone.

John 10:17. At this point the exposition of the functions of the good shepherd terminates; but as a note or appendix Jesus adds διὰ τοῦτο, “on this account,” i.e., because I lay down my life for the sheep (John 10:15 and following clause) does my Father love me. The expressed ἐγώ serves to bring out the spontaneity of the surrender. And this free sacrifice or death is justified by the object, ἵνα πάλιν λάβω αὐτήν. He dies, not to remain in death and so leave the sheep defenceless, but to live again, to resume life in pursuance of the object for which He had given it. The freedom of the sacrifice is proved by His taking His life again. He was not compelled to die.

17. Therefore] Better, On this account, or, For this cause (John 12:18; John 12:27). See on John 7:22 and John 8:47, and comp. John 5:16; John 5:18, John 6:65. The Father’s love for the incarnate Son is intensified by the self-sacrifice of the Son.

that I might take it again] literally, in order that I may take it again. This clause is closely connected with the preceding one: ‘that’ depends upon ‘because.’ Only because Christ was to take His human life again was His death such as the Father could have approved. Had the Son returned to heaven at the Crucifixion leaving His humanity on the Cross, the salvation of mankind would not have been won, the sentence of death would not have been reversed, we should be ‘yet in our sins’ (1 Corinthians 15:17). Morever, in that case He would have ceased to be the Good Shepherd: He would have become like the hireling, casting aside his duty before it was completed. The office of the True Shepherd is not finished until all mankind become His flock; and this work continues from the Resurrection to the Day of Judgment.

John 10:17. Ἀγαπᾷ) loveth Me, and lovingly enjoins this on Me,—lovingly as it were persuades Me, and I, although I must lay down My life, remain sure of His love; for I lay it down, that I may take it up again: moreover the Father, in love to Me, gives Me the sheep as my peculiar portion; because I keep His commandment concerning the laying down of My life; John 10:18, “No man taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of My Father.” Love is intimated as coming over and above [supervenient. Coming as an extraneous addition]. The love of the Father is to be kept in sight, in the passion of Christ, not only towards us, but also towards Christ: we are not to look merely to His avenging severity [stern justice].

Verse 17. - Therefore doth the Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. The διὰ τοῦτο points to the whole of the previous statement, and ὅτι to a more complete exposition of the precise point in it on which the Divine Father's love (ἀγαπή) rests. The "I" and "me" refer to the incarnate Son, i.e. to the Divine-human Personality of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Father loveth me, because, not merely that I lay down my life, for such might be the consequence of helplessness in the presence of victorious and desperate foes. The love which merely "laid down life" would be a Buddha-like self-sacrifice, producing certain moral effects upon the minds of the onlookers, and revealing a large and loving sense of the need of others. Yet in such expression of his sacrificial love he would have relinquished his undertaking. There would have been no more that he could do for his flock, this Shepherd-functions would, in the consummating act, cease, he would be a beautiful Memory, not a living Energy; a glorious Example, not the Author of eternal salvation. He would cease to be the great Shepherd of the sheep. Now the Father's love contemplated more than this, viz. the Lord's own purpose to take up again that life which he was prepared voluntarily to lay down for the sheep. Thus he would indeed die, that he might be more of a Shepherd to them than he had ever been before. How otherwise would he personally bring the other sheep into his flock, or be known of them, as the Father was known by him? Christ declares that after his death he would still exercise royal rights, be as much a Divine-human Personality as ever. Christ, as a sinless Man, the sinless One, might indeed, after the victory over the tempter in the wilderness, or from the Mount of Transfiguration, have returned to the spiritual world without accomplishing an exodus on Golgotha, but he chose, he willed, to lay down his life. Having done this much, he might have joined the great majority, and been their Head and Chief, and left his work to be commented on by others. But such a consummation would have fallen far short of the true and sufficing object of the Father's love. Christ declares that the very end of his death was his resurrection from death. In retaking his life, he is able to continue, on perfectly different terms, the shepherding of his people he becomes in the highest sense, the great Shepherd, the good Shepherd, the archetypal, and the veritable Shepherd of the flock of God. John 10:17John 10:17 Interlinear
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