Promise in the Prophets 299: One Shepherd

299. One Shepherd

Ezekiel 34:23 And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David; he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd.

The Lord promises us a Shepherd. The Lord is the Shepherd. Jesus is the Lord. Jesus is the Shepherd. Jesus is the servant David, the son of David’s line and the fulfillment of the covenant promise to David that one of his descendants will rule on the throne of God’s people forever. Jesus is the promised King. This King is the Shepherd. Jesus says: “I am (=Yahweh, the Lord, the I AM) the Good Shepherd.”

Jesus is the promised King of the Kingdom of God. Jesus is the Shepherd-King, who is the Son of God and the Son of David. “The Lord (Yahweh) is my shepherd.” Jesus is Lord, King, God, and Shepherd all rolled into one. He is one with the Father God, and the Father and the Son, as one, is the one shepherd. This One God, One Shepherd, has placed the One Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, into the heart of the believer. This is where the Kingdom is. God rules our life, today and forever.

The promise is a metaphor: Jesus is the Shepherd. God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as One, is the Shepherd. All that the Shepherd does for His Sheep God does for us: the Father plans it, the Son carries it out, and the Spirit works it out in real life. Who lives and rules in the heart? Father, Son, or Spirit? Well, all three, as one, for where one is there the other two are. What one does the other two do also.

The promise is also a simile. Jesus is like the Shepherd. That is, God does what a shepherd does: He rules as a king, He feeds, guards, He provides, He protects, He gives everything the sheep, like us, need for spiritual life and health. Specifically, the Lord promises in this verse that the Shepherd will feed us. He feeds us through the Gospel in Word and Sacraments. We make the promise personally our own by placing ourselves, by the Spirit’s guidance, under the ministry of the Gospel. This means we go to church and Bible study and spend time alone with God. This is how the Lord shepherds and feeds.