He saw best; and when He laid it down He did so freely. It was
not that He succumbed to the wolf, to any power stronger than His own
will and His own discernment of what was right. We may resign ourselves
to death or choose it; but even though we did not, we could not escape
it. Christ could. He "laid down" His life; and He did so, moreover, that
He might "take it again." His sheep were not to be left defenceless,
shepherdless: on the contrary, He died that He might free them from all
danger and become to them an ever-living, omnipresent Shepherd. In these
words the figure is lost in the reality.

In the words themselves, indeed, there is no direct suggestion that the
penalty of sin is that which chiefly threatens Christ's sheep, but
Christ could hardly use the words, and His people can hardly read them,
without having this idea suggested. It was by interposing between us and
sin that our Shepherd was slain. At first sight, indeed, we seem to be
exposed to the very danger that slew the Shepherd: the wolf seems to be
alive even after slaying Him. In spite of His death, we also die. What
then is the danger from which He by His death has saved us?

The danger which threatened us was not bodily death, for from that we
are not delivered. But it was something with which the death of the body
is intimately connected. Bodily death is as it were the symptom, but not
the disease itself. It is that which reveals the presence of the
pestilence, but is not itself the real danger. It is like the
plague-spot that causes the beholder to shudder, though the spot itself
is only slightly painful. Now a skilful physician does not treat
symptoms, does not apply his skill to allay superficial distresses, but
endeavours to remove the radical disease. If the eye becomes bloodshot
he does not treat the eye, but the general system. If an eruption comes
out on the skin, he does not treat the skin, but alters the condition of
the blood; and it is a small matter whether the symptom goes on to its
natural issue, if thereby the eradication of the disease is rather
helped than hindered. So it is with death: it is not our danger; no man
can suppose that the mere transference from this state to another is
injurious; only, death is in our case the symptom of a deep disease, of
a real, fatal ailment of soul. We know death not as a mere transference
from one world to another, but as our transference from probation to
judgment, which sin makes us dread; an