This verse should look familiar. It is amazing how many commentaries may be found on this single verse (don’t worry I will not re-post all of them). Today’s perspective is from one of my favorites A. W. Pink. These words truly are solemn and I pray we submit ourselves to His message and He guides each of us in our individual journeys.
Extra Credit: Today’s is from Donald Fortner a pastor from KY. Touching on the same topic I may have posted this as the extra credit before but it fits today as well Some Believed and some not why?
Jhn 10:26 But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.
- Why did they not believe?
Unspeakably solemn was this word. They were reprobates, and now that their characters were fully manifested the Lord did not hesitate to tell them so. The force of this awful statement is definite and clear, though men in their unbelief have done their best to befog it. Almost all the commentators have expounded this verse as though its clauses had been reversed. They simply make Christ to say here to these Jews that they were unbelievers. But the truth is that the Lord said far more than that. The commentators understand "the sheep" to be nothing more than a synonym for born-again and justified persons, whereas in fact it is equivalent to God’s elect, as the sixteenth verse of this chapter clearly shows. The Lord did not say "Because ye are not of my sheep ye believe not," but, "Ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep." Man always turns the things of God upside down. When he comes to something in the Word which is peculiarly distasteful, instead of meekly submitting to it and receiving it in simple faith because God says it, he resorts to every imaginable device to make it mean something else. Here Christ is not only charging these Jews with unbelief, but He also explains why faith had not been granted to them—they were not "of his sheep": they were not among the favored number of God’s elect. If further proof be required for the correctness of this interpretation, it is furnished below. A man does not have to believe to become one of Christ’s "sheep": he "believes" because he is one of His sheep. By A. W. Pink
