The thief cometh not, but that he may steal, and kill, and destroy: I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.
The thief's sole aim is to steal the sheep from Christ and subject them to himself, as Absalom stole hearts from David; his false doctrines are poison that eat like cancer and slay souls. Christ came to give life, spiritual and eternal, to His elect, who by nature are dead in sin and bound for death; His sheep cannot be destroyed by these false shepherds.
AI summary
False teachers come only to plunder and aggrandize themselves, nothing more. Christ gives not bare life but abundant life, all those superadded blessings that make existence eminently happy: eternal joy, peace, the society of the blessed, and all the exalted means of felicity prepared in glory.
AI summary
advance tlie honour of his justice hy pardoning the believing soul more than in damning the impenitent sinner. And surely God had no less design in the gospel covenant than this, that he would not the death of a sinner, but to vindi- cate his justice.
Commenting on Ephesians 6:10-20