`Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you

overseers, to feed the church of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood. For I know this, that after

my departure shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock'.

If Paul could use the word `flock' in its diminutive sense for the church as constituted in Acts 20, the Lord could

use the words, `one flock' of a company composed of the gathered sheep of the house of Israel, and of the `other

sheep' who, though not of Israel's fold, would, nevertheless, under the one great Shepherd, constitute one flock.

While this is far removed from the unity expressed by the One Body, with the Lord as Head, it nevertheless is in

consonance with that blessing which must necessarily take its character from the present position of the ascended

*

Lord, and while not being in the full blaze of that central glory, nevertheless basks, as it were, in its penumbra.

Peter was definitely commissioned to feed the Lord's sheep and lambs, but his curiosity was not satisfied when,

concerning John, he asked: `And what shall this man do?' Peter and John are associated very closely in their early

ministry with the Lord and the twelve, and it looks as though both were to be under-shepherds, though tending

different folds. Galatians 2:9 indicates that John, like Peter, had a ministry to the circumcision, but we are not

thereby justified in concluding that God could not send John to another company - such a conjecture is beyond our

right or ken.

We know that Paul had a twofold ministry. Why, then, should not John be similarly commissioned? In the same

way there is no more difficulty in believing that Gentile believers may be called `other sheep' than that they are

likened to a `wild olive'. And if Gentiles could be grafted on to the stock of Israel, there is nothing to render it

impossible that they should form part of that great `flock', though never of the `fold of Israel'.

Partakers of the true bread. - None but those who came out of Egypt ate the manna in the wilderness:

`Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat' (John 6:31).

The Lord, when replying to this, and declaring Himself to be the true bread that came down from heaven, speaks

of the world as recipients:

`For the bread of God is He which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world' (John 6:33).

`The bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world' (John 6:51).

Here then are three relationships in which, we hold, believing Gentiles stand today who are outside the sphere of

the dispensation of the mystery. They are associated with the Bride, they are associated with the Flock, and they

partake of the Living Bread, and so of a common life.

* * * * *

Charles H. Welch wrote the above as the fourth of a series of five articles under the heading The Dispensational

Place of John's Gospel which are printed in volume 20 of The Berean Expositor.

See also Life Through His Name by the same author:

Chapter 4, section, Judaea: - The Bride and the Bridegroom.

Chapter 9, section, The Other Sheep.

Or listen to cassette recordings W 357 to W 365, which have as their theme John's Gospel and its relation to the

mystery.

*

Penumbra - faint or partial shadow.