the truant sheep
to have dreaded punishment when it was overtaken by the injured
shepherd; but his look and his act when he came must have immediately
dispelled the helpless creature's fears. The Lord has held up this
picture before us that in it we may behold his love, and that the sight
of his love may at length discharge from our hearts their inborn
obdurate suspiciousness.

5. The shepherd lays the sheep upon his shoulders. This feature of the
picture affords no ground for the doctrine which has sometimes been
founded on it, that the Saviour is burdened with the sinners whom he
saves. His suffering lies in another direction, and is not in any form
represented here. He weeps when the sinful remain distant and refuse to
throw their weight on him; he never complains of having too much of
this work in hand. The parable here points to his power and victory, not
to his pain and weariness.

The representation that the shepherd bore the strayed sheep home upon
his shoulder, instead of going before and calling on it to follow, is
significant in respect both to this parable and its counterpart and
complement, the Prodigal Son. In as far as the saving of the lost is
portrayed in this similitude, the work is done by the Saviour alone.
First and last the sinner does nothing but destroy himself: all the
saving work is done for him, none of it by him. This is one side of
salvation, and it is the only side that is represented here. It seems
hard to conceive how any converted man can be troubled by doubt or
difficulty concerning this doctrine. Every one whom Christ has sought
and found, and borne to the fold, feels and confesses that, if the
Shepherd had not come to the sheep, the sheep would not have come to the
Shepherd. If any wanderer still hesitates on the question, Who brought
him home? it is time that he should begin to entertain another question,
Whether he has yet been brought home at all? The acknowledgment of this
fundamental truth, that salvation is begun, carried on, and completed by
the Saviour alone, does not, of course, come into collision with another
fundamental truth, which expatiates on another sphere, and is
represented in another parable, that except the sinful do themselves
repent, and come to the Father, they shall perish in their sins.

6. Far from being oppressed by the burden of his strayed sheep, the
shepherd rejoices when he feels its weight upon his shoulder. His joy
begins not when the work is over