15-18. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father--What claim to absolute equality with the Father could exceed this? (See on Mt 11:27).
      and I lay down my life for the sheep--How sublime this, immediately following the lofty claim of the preceding clause! It is the riches and the poverty of "the Word made flesh"--one glorious Person reaching at once up to the Throne and down even to the dust of death, "that we might live through Him." A candid interpretation of the words, "for the sheep," ought to go far to establish the special relation of the vicarious death of Christ to the Church.

JFB.