Saying 107
The kingdom is like a shepherd here the shepherd and the kingdom are the same thing for in the gospels Jesus is the good shepherd and in saying 82 Jesus is the kingdom the ninety-nine sheep are the Pharisees those who think they do not need to be saved
the lost sheep are those who the Pharisees were objecting to in the gospels—the sinners. They are the lost sheep—(all were, in fact, for all had sinned, but all did not recognise the fact)—Jesus had come to seek and save them. It was with this view he humbled himself to their society. He did not associate with them as sinners, but as sinners willing to be saved, which is a very different class of sinners from those of whom David speaks when he says: “Blessed is the man that standeth not in the way of sinners” (Psa. 1:1). Jesus did not associate with sinners to entertain them, or to take part with them in their pleasures or their sins. He humbled himself to them that he might teach them the way of righteousness: and if they would not listen to this, he turned away from them, and they from him. If they listened to him, and conformed to the Father’s requirements as made known by him, then he received them gladly, and could say of such to the Pharisees,
I love you more then the ninety-nine or as in the gospels “The publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.” Nay, he not only thus received them: what said he in finishing his parables? “There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.” “More than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance.” there are men on the right hand and left of the Lord, one rejected, the other gloriously accepted. “When the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory. And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats; and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.” To the sheep he says, “Come, ye blessed;” and to the goats, “Depart, ye cursed;” First, let us ask who are to be understood by the sheep, and who by the goats, and who by “my brethren” to whom the king alludes in his speech to both. Some think “my brethren” means the Jewish race, and the sheep those nations that have treated the Jews well, and the goats those nations that have treated them badly. The only thing that favours this idea is the use of the phrase “all nations” in describing those gathered before the king for judgment. If the idea were right, all parts of the parable would be in harmony with it. That this is not the case must be evident from the words addressed by the king to “them on his right hand.” “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”
In the Roman system of counting on the fingers, one to ninety-nine were counting on the lift hand, and the number one hundred entailed switching to the right hand. In Valentinian thought, those of the right are psychical people, as opposed to those of the life, who are material people. In general right was considered fortunate and left unfortunate in ancient thought.
107)## Jesus said, "The Kingdom is like a shepherd who had a hundred sheep [demonstrating the numerous denominations of "Christianity" that exist]. One of them, the largest [the one that subverted the early true Christians to form the universal church of Rome which stands to this day], went astray [looking for the sheep not of this fold "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."]. He left the ninety-nine [small] sheep and looked for that one [large sheep] until he found it. When he had gone to such trouble, he said to the sheep, 'I care for you more than the ninety-nine [because this one restored them back to the original number].'"
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