Jesus as the shepherd = Jesus as God (part 2)

Cousin,

Sunday we covered another passage in the New Testament (Revelation 7) that refers to Jesus as the shepherd:

¹³ Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” ¹⁴ I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

¹⁵ “Therefore they are before the throne of God,
    and serve him day and night in his temple;
    and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.
¹⁶  They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore;
     the sun shall not strike them,
    nor any scorching heat.
¹⁷ For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd,
    and he will guide them to springs of living water,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

And there's also 1 Peter 2:

²⁴  He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. ²⁵ For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

 And Hebrews 13:

 ²⁰ Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep...

I think I said it before, but the doctrine of the Trinity, rather than being a problem, makes sense of passages like these. Without it, you're stuck with all sorts of blasphemous New Testament passages that attribute God's identifying characteristics to Jesus.

Jesus as the shepherd = Jesus as God

Cousin,

This week in church we read the following passage from Ezekiel 34 regarding YHWH being the shepherd of His people.

¹¹ “For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. ¹² As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. ¹³ And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country. ¹⁴  I will feed them with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. ¹⁵  I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord God. ¹⁶  I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice.

Along that same theme, Psalm 23 reads:

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
²     He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
³     He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
    for his name's sake.

⁴ Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
    I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
    your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me.

These passages are clues to Jesus' identity as YHWH, for in John 10, Jesus teaches:

¹¹ I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. ¹² He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. ¹³ He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. ¹⁴  I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, ¹⁵  just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. ¹⁶ And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.

To his Jewish audience, Jesus' words would have been understood as blasphemy. Later in verses 19 and 20, John reports, "A division occurred again among the Jews because of these words. Many of them were saying, 'He has a demon and is insane. Why do you listen to Him?'"

They knew the implication of what Jesus was saying.

Notice how in Ezekiel 34:12 and 15, the sheep are identified as belonging to the Lord God. And in John 20:12-14, Jesus makes the deliberate point that the sheep are "[his] own," not those of some hired hand. He is the ultimate owner, which is why he cares enough about them to lay down his life for their welfare.

Also worth noting is how in verse 16, Jesus says there is only one shepherd.

These passages are another reason Christians believe Jesus is YHWH.