What Jesus Admitted

Jesus found himself again in the midst of controversy with his enemies. In John 10 he makes an unusual admission. He said in verse sixteen, “other sheep I have, which are not of this fold… “

Have we not all been under the same assumption that Jesus first presented himself as the Messiah to the Jews? This unusual statement causes us to wonder what else he is talking about. A prominent cult takes this verse out of context to say that he was speaking of the Native American Indians as his followers; meaning that Jesus appeared on American soil long before the New World was discovered. Certainly, this is not the context Jesus meant.

Frequently Jesus told others and his disciples to only go to the Jews for evangelistic purposes. Granted, he did speak to the woman in Samaria, but this is a unique case. Also, the Samaritans were  half Jews.

To understand what Jesus meant we must go back millennium even to the book of Genesis. In chapter 12 verse three God told Abram ( Abraham ), “indeed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” Again, in Genesis 22 verse eighteen God said to Abraham, “thy seed shall all the nations be blessed.” By these and other verses we can see God’s intention was that the Jews were to be the evangelists to the world.

God never intended for the Jews to be  exclusive to  his kingdom. In fact, Jesus became very frustrated with the established and deformed religion against the Jews of his day.  In  Matthew 16 verse eighteen Jesus stated that on Peter’s confession of faith he would build his church. In other words, the faith Peter had was given to him by the Heavenly Father; it was itself a foundation for the church. Jesus did not say the synagogue. He did not say the temple. He did not say a revisable of the Jewish law. He said it was on faith that he would build his church. The Greek word for church is called out ones. Therefore, through faith all are called out.

This complements the earlier verses cited. We have a trail of God’s intentions for salvation to all believers. He came to the Jews first but was rejected. Then through his disciples and the apostle Paul he expanded his efforts to include all Gentiles who would believe in him. This means that Jesus truly did have other sheep that were not of the Jewish fold. Later in that same chapter Jesus criticized the Jewish leaders because they did not believe and were therefore not of his sheepfold. It was God’s intention all along to bring Jew and the Gentile into his church.