In John 10:16 Jesus made a bold statement:
16 And other sheep I have,
which are not of this fold:
them also I must bring,
and they shall hear my voice;
and there shall be one fold,
and one shepherd.
Most Christians have interpreted this passage to be the Savior's declaration that He will bring the Gentiles into the fold.
In The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, the Resurrected Savior visits His covenant people whom The Father had led to the hemisphere we now know as the Americas. Here The Savior declares that this branch of Israel is part of the sheep He was to visit. 3 Nephi 15:21-23.
21 And verily I say unto you,
that ye are they of whom I said:
Other sheep I have which are not of this fold;
them also I must bring,
and they shall hear my voice;
and there shall be one fold,
and one shepherd.
22 And they understood me not,
for they supposed it had been the Gentiles;
for they understood not
that the Gentiles should be converted
through their preaching.
23 And they understood me not
that I said they shall hear my voice;
and they understood me not
that the Gentiles should not at any time hear my voice—
that I should not manifest myself unto them
save it were by the Holy Ghost.
One impression the reader receives when studying The New Testament is how often the Disciples misunderstood Jesus' words. For example, when He spoke to them of being weary of the "leaven of the Pharisees", meaning 'beware of their (false) doctrines', the Disciples said among themselves, "It is because we have brought no bread." Matthew 16:6-12
In The Book of Mormon Jesus says that His disciples misunderstood this statement as well believing Him to be saying that He was going to visit the Gentiles. If the statement of Jesus in 3 Nephi 15:21-23 is authentic, then the interpretation of "Gentiles as the other sheep" would be the longest running misinterpretation by His disciples, over two thousand years and running. Clearly, however, for anyone to believe that John 10:16 is properly clarified by Jesus in 3 Nephi 15:21-23, one would need to believe that The Book of Mormon is true. Herein lies the issue: Most Christians tenaciously hold to the very old "Gentiles as the other sheep" interpretation, and this leads them to claim that the passage in 3 Nephi 15:21-23 is a contradiction between The Book of Mormon and The Holy Bible, an error in The Book of Mormon that is incompatible with Biblical teaching.
One Error, All Erroneous
A common tool used to scrutinize The Book of Mormon is "if there is one error, then the whole is erroneous." Regardless of whether there is validity to this all-or-nothing approach to evaluating the truthfulness of The Book of Mormon, the converse never seems to be true among the same critics, namely, "if there be one truth, then the whole is true." When the same critics are confronted with what may appear to be errors or inconsistencies in The Bible, the very same critics merely stipulate, "One or another detail being off is of no consequence", forgetting their normal stance of all or nothing.
My comment on the average person's rather extremist form of textual criticism aside, I ask the question, is it true that Jesus' statement in John 10:16 was a reference to the Gentiles rather than to the House of Israel?
Sheep as the House of Israel
For many centuries prior to Jesus the House of Israel were referred to as sheep and The Lord as the Shepherd.
2 Samuel 24:17
17 And David spake unto the Lord
when he saw the angel that smote the people,
and said, Lo, I have sinned,
and I have done wickedly:
but these sheep,
what have they done?
let thine hand, I pray thee,
be against me, and against my father’s house.
Psalm 23:1
The LORD is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
The imagery is of the covenant people being innocent, prone to being preyed upon, but gathered together under the protection of a shepherd, The Lord and His servants.
Jesus made use of these symbols as well. When Jesus first organized His Twelve Apostles He sent them out to only the "lost sheep of the House of Israel."
Matthew 10:5-7
5 These twelve Jesus sent forth,
and commanded them, saying,
Go not into the way of the Gentiles,
and into any city of the Samaritans
enter ye not:
enter ye not:
6 But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
7 And as ye go, preach, saying,
The kingdom of heaven is at hand.
We see here that Jesus drew a distinction between the Gentiles along with those who had the blood of Israel yet were outside the covenant of Abraham, the Samaritans, and contrasted them to those who were within the covenant. These latter He called "the lost sheep of the House of Israel."
At this point it is clear that Jesus not only did not send His Twelve to outsiders, He even forbade His Twelve from going to preach to anyone outside of the lost sheep of Israel.
Jesus even stated that He Himself had not been sent to anyone but the lost sheep of the House of Israel.
Matthew 15:24
But he answered and said,
I am not sent
but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
Thus at this stage in the mission of the Messiah He was sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel, and He likewise sent His Twelve only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
Change Was Afoot
However, change was coming. After His resurrection and during His ascension into heaven Jesus gave a new commission to His Disciples:
Matthew 28:19-20
19 Go ye therefore,
and teach all nations,
baptizing them
in the name of the Father,
and of the Son,
and of the Holy Ghost:
20 Teaching them
to observe all things
whatsoever I have commanded you:
and, lo, I am with you alway,
even unto the end of the world. Amen.
Here Jesus gives the glorious news that He is now sending out His Disciples, the Eleven (soon to be Twelve again), to all the world, no more distinction between Israelite and non-Israelite or between Israelite within the covenant and Israelite without the covenant being made.
Jesus had actually foreshadowed this great expansion of His work of gathering.
Matthew 8:11
And I say unto you,
That many shall come from the east and west,
and shall sit down with Abraham,
and Isaac, and Jacob,
in the kingdom of heaven.
Although Jesus had initially imposed a ban on allowing Gentiles to enter His Kingdom, His Church, and even forbade preaching to them, Jesus also foreshadowed the end of that ban (roughly some three and a half years later He lifted the ban), and then He commanded His Disciples to go unto the Gentiles, "the nations". Jesus even promised to be with them always, a promise that recalls His promise not to leave them "comfortless."
John 14:18-19
18 I will not leave you comfortless:
I will come to you.
19 Yet a little while,
and the world seeth me no more;
but ye see me:
because I live,
ye shall live also.
It is interesting to note that in Jesus' preface to His promise to send the Comforter to His Apostles, Jesus says "the world seeth me no longer". Many Gentiles living in Judea saw Jesus during His mortal ministry. Jesus here said that the "world" would no longer see Him, presumably after His death and resurrection.
Still, as regards the glorious declaration in Matthew 28:19-20, we also know that here too the Disciples misunderstood. They most likely believed that Jesus was sending them out to the world to fish out scattered Jews living among the Gentile nations. For this reason the earlier prohibition on preaching to non-Israelites continued in rigor until Acts 10:9-16 when The Lord commands Peter in symbolic terms to bring the non-Israelites into the Church.
The Real Question
The real question is not whether Jesus was to allow the Gentiles to enter His Church as members with full fellowship. Jesus made it clear that initially Gentiles were not allowed, but then on two occasions Jesus made it clear that, having overcome death and sin, He was sending His Apostles out to the world, to Jew and Gentile alike.
The real question is, therefore, whether Jesus Himself was to go to the Gentiles in person. Let us briefly review the issue as we have covered it thus far:
- Jesus forbade preaching to the Gentiles. Matthew 10:5-7
- Jesus foreshadowed the entry of Gentiles into His Kingdom. Matthew 8:11
- Jesus commanded His Apostles to go to all the world and to baptize all who will desire to enter. Matthew 28:19-20 and Acts 10:9-16
- Jesus says the world which was seeing Him (during His mortality) was soon no longer to see Him. John 14:19
- Jesus said He had other sheep to visit who were not of the fold (in Judea). John 10:16
The above-cited Scriptures narrow the question to a very sharp issue: Did Jesus really go visit the Gentiles in person, such that they would actually hear His voice, or did He go visit the other members of the House of Israel? A second matter is strongly implicit in the answer to the first: If Jesus did go visit others, then their witnesses most likely would have recorded the visit and used that witness testimony for preaching and instruction.
Prophecy Fulfilled
The power of studying Scripture is that The Lord will, if we ask Him to, guide us and reveal His workings to our mind.
I ask the readers, Were you aware that there was a prophecy that The Lord would gather "the strangers" unto Him and be the Head of the Gentiles?
Psalm 18:43-46
43 Thou hast delivered me
from the strivings of the people;
and thou hast made me the head of the heathen: [Heb. Head of the Gentiles]
a people whom I have not known shall serve me.
44 As soon as they hear of me,
they shall obey me:
the strangers shall submit themselves unto me.
45 The strangers shall fade away,
and be afraid out of their close places.
46 The Lord liveth;
and blessed be my rock;
and let the God of my salvation be exalted.
This is a much-overlooked prophecy of the Messiah's great gathering of the "heathen" (Heb. "Gentiles"). Did you notice that curious detail the Psalmist added under inspiration: "As soon as they hear of me"?
Have you realized the great import of those words? The "strangers" were to "hear of Jesus", not "hear from Jesus". The prophecy describes the "strangers" being taught about Jesus and obeying, serving and submitting themselves to Him even though He did not know them.
Therefore, in John 10:16 when Jesus says, "and they shall hear my voice", He is not referring to the Gentiles somehow "symbolically hearing His voice" through the preaching of His disciples, for that preaching was fulfilled and is being fulfilled when the strangers hear "of Him" and believe.
The words of Jesus as recorded in 3 Nephi 15:21-23 are acutely accurate and concord with both Testaments, Old and New, linking the teachings of The Old and New Testaments harmoniously to the "Other Testament of Jesus Christ".
The popular notion that John 10:16 has to do with the Apostles preaching to the Gentiles is another case of disciples of Jesus misunderstanding His words (as with "the leaven of the Pharisees"), curiously enough, just as Jesus says in 3 Nephi 15:22-23:
22 And they understood me not,
for they supposed it had been the Gentiles;
for they understood not
that the Gentiles should be converted
through their preaching.
23 And they understood me not
that I said they shall hear my voice;
and they understood me not
that the Gentiles should not at any time hear my voice—
that I should not manifest myself unto them
save it were by the Holy Ghost.
Conclusion
Many Christians believe that in John 10:16 Jesus prophesied His bringing the Gentiles into His fold, and it is this long-running interpretation that leads them to see 3 Nephi 15:21-23 as contradicting The Holy Bible by affirming that Jesus prophesied of His personal ministration to the scattered tribes of Israel, the Gentiles being reached by the preaching of His disciples. The Old and New Testaments, however, concur: Jesus was not sent to the Gentiles directly, and it was only during His mortality that Gentiles who lived among the Jews of Judea were able to see Him, and that after His resurrection His servants would preach to Gentiles, but Jesus Himself would visit scattered Israel. The bringing in of Gentiles through preaching "hearing of the Messiah" would happen, but through the means of His disciples.
Inasmuch as The New Testament demonstrates that special witnesses of the ministry of Jesus Christ record that experience and use that Scripture to preach and instruct, the most likely conclusion to draw from John 10:16 is that there has to be a written account of Jesus' ministry to other sheep of the House of Israel. Whether one is ready to put The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ to the test of sincere study and sincere inquiry of Heavenly Father in the name of Jesus Christ with reliance on the witness of the Holy Ghost, or whether the readers would rather defer the matter, one must admit, at the very least, The Book of Mormon really does fill the expectation of additional witness testimony of the ministry of Jesus Christ among His other sheep.
In conclusion, what looked like a contradiction between The Holy Bible and The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, turned out to be astonishing harmony at an acutely deep level. The interpretation of John 10:16 as being a reference to the Gentiles originated with the disciples between AD 30-33, and curiously enough, is perhaps the longest running such misunderstanding among Christian believers.
Clearly readers are at liberty to conclude what they will from the evidence, and I would expect nothing less. However, as always, I ask only that what I have shared here be taken for what it is: Teachings that are actually textual.
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