John 10:17-18

“ Therefore does my Father love me: because I give my life that I may take it again; 18 no one takes it away from me, but I give it of myself; I have power to give, and I have power to take it again: this commandment I received of my Father. ”

Διὰ τοῦτο, for this reason, refers ordinarily in John to a previously expressed idea, but one which is about to be taken up and developed in the following clause, beginning with ὅτι (because). The same is the case here. It is because of His voluntary devotion to this great work (John 10:15-16) that His Father loves Him; that is to say, He adds, because He sacrifices His life to it, and this not in order absolutely to give it up, but with the express intention of recovering it, and thus of finishing the work of which He only makes a beginning here on the earth. No doubt, the Father eternally loves the Son; but, when once made man, the Son cannot be approved and loved by Him except on condition of perfectly realizing the new law of His existence, as Son of man. Now this law, which results for Him from the solidarity in which He is bound together with a fallen race, is that of saving it by the gift of His life; and the constant disposition of the Son to accept this obligation of love, is the object of the infinite satisfaction (of the ἀγαπᾷν) of the Father. It is in this sense that St. Paul calls the death of Jesus “an offering of a sweet smell” (Ephesians 5:2). The last words serve to complete the preceding idea: “because I give my life, and because I give it that I may take it again.” The self-devotion of the Son who consents to give His life is infinitely pleasing to the Father, but on one condition; that this gift be not the abandoning of humanity and of the work begun in it, which would be at the same time the forgetting of the glory of the Father. In other terms, the devotion to death would be of an evil sort if it had not for its end the return among men by means of the resurrection. As Luthardt with perfect correctness remarks: “Jesus must wish to resume His life again in order to continue, as glorified, His ministry of shepherd to the Church, especially to the Gentiles whom He has the mission to gather together (Ephesians 2:17).” The supreme end indicated in John 10:16 requires not only His death, but also His resurrection. It appears from the words: that I may take it again, that Jesus raises Himself from the dead.

And this is true, for if it is in the Father that the power lies which gives Him life, it is Himself who by His free will and His prayer calls upon His person the display of this power. John 10:18 is the emphatic reaffirmation of this character of freedom in the work of the Son, which alone makes it the object of the Father's satisfaction. Hence the asyndeton. It is not through powerlessness that the shepherd will succumb to the hostile power; there will come a moment when He will Himself consent to His defeat (John 14:31). The word οὐδείς, no one, includes every creature; we may include in it God Himself, since if, in dying, the Son obeys the decree of the Father, He yet does it freely; God neither imposes on Him death nor resurrection. The words ἐξουσίαν ἔχω, I have the power (the competency, the authority), are repeated with a marked emphasis; Jesus had no obligation to die, not only because, not having sinned, He had the right to keep His holy life, but also because, even at the last moment, He could have asked for twelve legions of angels, who would have wrested Him from the hands of His enemies. In the same way, in giving up His life, it depended on Himself to demand it again or not to reclaim it. As Luthardt says: “In these two acts, the action of the Son comes before the action of the Father.” The last words: I have received this commandment, are ordinarily referred to the commandment to die and rise again which had been given to Him by the Father. But would not such an idea tend to weaken all that Jesus had just developed? The true movement of the passage is the affirming of the full independence of the Lord. This is the reason why it seems to me that it is better to apply the term τὴν ἐντολήν, this command, to the commission with which Jesus has come to the earth and which gives Him the right to make free use of His own person, to die and to revive at will. The tenor of this commission, when the Father sent Him, was this: “Thou canst die or not die, rise again or not rise again, according to the free aspirations of thy love.” Jesus calls it a command in order to cover with the veil of humility this incomparable prerogative.