Commentaries:
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown
Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, etc.—As the highest act of the Son's love to the Father was the laying down of His life for the sheep at His "commandment," so the Father's love to Him as His incarnate Son reaches its consummation, and finds its highest justification, in that sublimest and most affecting of all acts.
that I might take it again—His resurrection-life being indispensable to the accomplishment of the fruit of His death.
As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father—What claim to absolute equality with the Father could exceed this? (See on Matthew 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.
Other Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown entries containing John 10:17:
Romans 6:9-11
Ephesians 1:20
Philippians 2:9
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