Therefore does my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.
John 3:25 Then there arose a question between some of John's disciples and the Jews about purifying.
John 15:9,10 As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love…
John 17:4,5,24-26 I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do…
is that I lay down My life
Here, Jesus speaks of His voluntary sacrifice. The laying down of His life is a reference to His impending crucifixion, which is central to the Christian understanding of atonement. This act is not forced upon Him but is a willing submission to the Father’s will, as seen in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:39). The sacrificial nature of Jesus’ death fulfills Old Testament prophecies and typologies, such as the Passover lamb (Exodus 12) and the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53. It also reflects the cultural understanding of sacrifice in the Jewish tradition, where the shedding of blood was necessary for the atonement of sins.
in order to take it up again
This phrase points to the resurrection, a cornerstone of Christian faith. Jesus’ authority over life and death is affirmed here, as He not only lays down His life but also has the power to take it up again. This demonstrates His divinity and fulfills His own predictions of His resurrection (John 2:19-21). The resurrection is a pivotal event that confirms Jesus as the Messiah and the Son of God, as prophesied in the Old Testament (Psalm 16:10) and affirmed in the New Testament (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). It assures believers of their future resurrection and eternal life, as Jesus is the "firstfruits" of those who have fallen asleep (1 Corinthians 15:20).
• The Father’s love for the Son is perfect and eternal (John 3:35; 17:24), yet here Jesus highlights a specific aspect of that love: the Father delights in the Son’s willing obedience.
• At Jesus’ baptism the Father declared, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). That pleasure is not sentimental; it is rooted in the Son’s flawless alignment with the Father’s will.
• Jesus is not earning the Father’s affection; He is revealing it. His self‐giving mission displays the very heart of God (John 14:9).
• The Father’s love and the Son’s obedience are inseparable, showing us that true love expresses itself in action (John 15:10).
• Jesus’ sacrifice is voluntary: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep” (John 10:11). No external force coerces Him; He chooses the cross (Philippians 2:8).
• Laying down His life fulfills prophecy (Isaiah 53:6) and establishes the new covenant (Hebrews 10:10).
• The phrase underscores substitution: He dies in our place so we might live (2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Peter 3:18).
• By tying the Father’s love to this act, Jesus shows that redemption was not a contingency plan but the Father’s eternal purpose (Revelation 13:8).
• Jesus’ death is not defeat; it is the doorway to resurrection. He affirms, “No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again” (John 10:18).
• The resurrection vindicates His identity (Romans 1:4) and guarantees our justification (Romans 4:25).
• Jesus foretold this victory: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19). He kept that promise (Acts 2:24).
• Because He lives, believers share His life now and forever (1 Corinthians 15:20–22; Revelation 1:18).
John 10:17 reveals the beautiful harmony within the Trinity: the Father loves the Son, the Son willingly lays down His life, and the purpose of that sacrifice is resurrection and eternal life for all who believe. Jesus’ voluntary death and triumphant resurrection demonstrate both divine love and divine power, inviting us to trust the Good Shepherd who gave everything—and then conquered death—to secure our salvation.
(17) Therefore doth my Father love me . . . For the meaning of this difficult verse, comp. Notes on John 5:17 et seq., and on Philippians 2:8-9. The thought is that in the relation between the Father and the human nature of Christ, the reason of the Father's love is based upon the self-devotion of the Son. He who so loved the world that he gave His only-begotten Son to die for it, loves the Son who of His own will gives Himself to die. It is, if we might presume so to speak, as though the salvation of mankind had called forth a new relation of love between the Father and the Son.That I might take it again.--This is given as part of the reason of the Father's love; and the words admit of no other construction. At first sight they seem to us paradoxical, beyond and against common feeling. In acts of sacrifice, the fact that that which is lost will be certainly regained, seems to us to take away all value from the act; but here the fact that Christ will lay down His life, is stated to be in order that He may take it again; and this is the foundation of the Father's love! The key to the meaning is in the truth that for Christ the taking again of human life is itself a further sacrifice, and that this is necessary for the completion of the Great Shepherd's work. The scattered sheep during the whole of the world's existence are to be gathered in by Him whose continued union with human nature makes Him at once the Shepherd who gives His life for the sheep, and the Door by whom we ever have access to the Father.
Verse 17. - Therefore doth the Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. The διὰ τοῦτο points to the whole of the previous statement, and ὅτι to a more complete exposition of the precise point in it on which the Divine Father's love (ἀγαπή) rests. The "I" and "me" refer to the incarnate Son, i.e. to the Divine-human Personality of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Father loveth me, because, not merely that I lay down my life, for such might be the consequence of helplessness in the presence of victorious and desperate foes. The love which merely "laid down life" would be a Buddha-like self-sacrifice, producing certain moral effects upon the minds of the onlookers, and revealing a large and loving sense of the need of others. Yet in such expression of his sacrificial love he would have relinquished his undertaking. There would have been no more that he could do for his flock, this Shepherd-functions would, in the consummating act, cease, he would be a beautiful Memory, not a living Energy; a glorious Example, not the Author of eternal salvation. He would cease to be the great Shepherd of the sheep. Now the Father's love contemplated more than this, viz. the Lord's own purpose to take up again that life which he was prepared voluntarily to lay down for the sheep. Thus he would indeed die, that he might be more of a Shepherd to them than he had ever been before. How otherwise would he personally bring the other sheep into his flock, or be known of them, as the Father was known by him? Christ declares that after his death he would still exercise royal rights, be as much a Divine-human Personality as ever. Christ, as a sinless Man, the sinless One, might indeed, after the victory over the tempter in the wilderness, or from the Mount of Transfiguration, have returned to the spiritual world without accomplishing an exodus on Golgotha, but he chose, he willed, to lay down his life. Having done this much, he might have joined the great majority, and been their Head and Chief, and left his work to be commented on by others. But such a consummation would have fallen far short of the true and sufficing object of the Father's love. Christ declares that the very end of his death was his resurrection from death. In retaking his life, he is able to continue, on perfectly different terms, the shepherding of his people he becomes in the highest sense, the great Shepherd, the good Shepherd, the archetypal, and the veritable Shepherd of the flock of God.