Pastor Melinda Song
26 & 27 March 2022
This morning we are continuing our journey through the book of Nehemiah. Two weeks ago we looked at Nehemiah Chapter 1 where we learned some great lessons on how to pray like Nehemiah. We will skip Chapter 2 where God worked in a miraculous way for Nehemiah to request a leave of absence King Artaxerxes so that he might return and rebuild Jerusalem (Neh 2:1-5). The primary focus in Chapter 3 is on repairing the gates of the city.
A gate is a movable structure controlling entrance or exit through an opening in a fence or wall or any means of entrance.
With walls surrounding the city, gates allow for movement into and out of the city at different points. At the same time, the gates are where the walls are most vulnerable, where enemies attacking the city had the best opportunity to breakthrough. Thus restoring the gates was critical in rebuilding the walls and securing the city.
Ten gates are mentioned in chapter 3, proceeding counterclockwise from the north wall of the Temple. They are:
Nehemiah 3:1–32 (ESV)
3 Then Eliashib the high priest rose up with his brothers the priests, and they built the Sheep Gate. They consecrated it and set its doors. They consecrated it as far as the Tower of the Hundred, as far as the Tower of Hananel. 3 The sons of Hassenaah built the Fish Gate. They laid its beams and set its doors, its bolts, and its bars.
6 Joiada the son of Paseah and Meshullam the son of Besodeiah repaired the Gate of Yeshanah [Old Gate]. They laid its beams and set its doors, its bolts, and its bars.
13 Hanun and the inhabitants of Zanoah repaired the Valley Gate. They rebuilt it and set its doors, its bolts, and its bars, and repaired a thousand cubits of the wall, as far as the Dung Gate.
14 Malchijah the son of Rechab, ruler of the district of Beth-haccherem, repaired the Dung Gate. He rebuilt it and set its doors, its bolts, and its bars.
15 And Shallum the son of Col-hozeh, ruler of the district of Mizpah, repaired the Fountain Gate. He rebuilt it and covered it and set its doors, its bolts, and its bars.
26 and the temple servants living on Ophel repaired to a point opposite the Water Gate on the east and the projecting tower.
28 Above the Horse Gate the priests repaired, each one opposite his own house. 29 After them Zadok the son of Immer repaired opposite his own house. After him Shemaiah the son of Shecaniah, the keeper of the East Gate, repaired.
31 After him Malchijah, one of the goldsmiths, repaired as far as the house of the temple servants and of the merchants, opposite the Muster Gate, and to the upper chamber of the corner. 32 And between the upper chamber of the corner and the Sheep Gate the goldsmiths and the merchants repaired.
Nehemiah Chapter 3 gives great attention to the people, their cooperation and teamwork in building the wall but our focus today and over the next few weeks is on the gates.
Twelve gates surrounded Jerusalem at that time but only ten were mentioned in this chapter (see Nehemiah 12:39). Nothing is said of the Ephraim or Prison gate. Either no work was required or the labour was not documented.
There is great significance in the gates as the wall was built and repaired around the gates. Each gate has its own practical function. They also have a spiritual significance as each is a symbol representing an aspect of our Christian walk.
The gates are mentioned and described in counter-clockwise order around the city, beginning with the Sheep Gate in the northeast corner. God is a God of order and the order and the names of the gates also tell the story of salvation that would come through Christ some 500 years later.
Jesus told two disciples on the Road to Emmaus, that in all the Scriptures were things concerning Himself. So for the next few weeks, as we take a tour around the walls of Jerusalem, we shall take a closer look at each gate to give us a better understanding of who Jesus is and what He has done for us.
Today we will start with the Sheep Gate.
Then Eliashib the high priest rose up with his brothers the priests, and they built the Sheep Gate. (v 1a)
THE PRACTICAL FUNCTION OF THE GATE
The Sheep Gate was so named because sheep were led through it to the Temple. It was near the market where sheep were sold and close to the Sheep Pool where the Temple sacrifices were washed. The Sheep Gate was also near the Pool of Bethesda (Jn. 5:2).
The heart of life in Jerusalem is the worship of God. By repairing the Sheep Gate first, Nehemiah and his team are setting the tone for the entire work. They are stating that their first priority is the worship of God. This is a lesson for us as well: our worship of God has to remain in sight through all the work we do for Him.
We are told that after the Sheep Gate was rebuilt it was consecrated. This is the only gate where the writer speaks of dedication. There was something very special about this gate!
Hundreds of years later, it is believed that Jesus always entered Jerusalem via the Sheep Gate, except for the Triumphal Entry. This was also the gate Jesus went through as He carried His cross to Golgotha to be crucified.
THE SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE GATE
An important foundation to give us a better understanding of the profound significance of this gate is found in Revelation 13:8 “the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” which reveals that man’s salvation was planned before creation.
Jesus our Saviour is the Lamb whose Sacrifice paid the penalty for our Sin and bought us our Salvation.
God first introduced animal sacrifices in the Garden of Eden because of sin. Although Scripture does not offer specific details, God sacrificed an animal as an act of mercy to cover Adam and Eve’s nakedness before banishing them from the Garden and his presence (Genesis 3:21).
Sin in Hebrew simply means “to miss the mark,” that mark being God’s holy standard of righteousness. God’s solution is through a symbolic ritual he designed and called Atonement – or kaphar in Hebrew. Kaphar literally means “to cover over.” It allowed God’s anger, caused by sin, to be pacified and allowed him to look at his people favourably.
How atonement works is best explained by God himself in . . .
| Leviticus 17:11 (NLT) For the life of the body is in its blood. I have given you the blood on the altar to purify you, making you right with the LORD. It is the blood, given in exchange for a life, that makes purification possible |
In short, animal sacrifices represented the transference of the sins of the people to an innocent animal that would be sacrificed in the place of the sinner. This symbolic substitution satisfied God’s justice and wrath.
For Christ, as Saviour, to make an eternal, once and for all, atonement on behalf of all mankind, he would have to embody and restore all four elements of a fully functional Sheep Gate:
- The GATE through which the animal for atonement entered
- A HIGH PRIEST, the person designated by God allowed to offer the atoning sacrifice
- A TEMPLE, where the atoning sacrifice was offered, and
- The SACRIFICE, an animal acceptable and suitable to make atonement for the people.
Let’s see if the Scriptures support this idea.
Jesus is the GATE. In John 10:7, Christ revealed that he was “the gate of the sheep” (NIV).
Jesus is the HIGH PRIEST In the seventh chapter of Hebrews, Christ is affirmed as a High Priest after the order of Melchizedek. God ordained this same Jesus, foreshadowed by Eliashib, the High Priest in Nehemiah, to rebuild this spiritual Sheep Gate. Acting as the High Priest, the Messiah was able to offer the atoning sacrifice that allowed man to be reconciled to God.
Jesus is the TEMPLE When the Jewish leaders demanded a sign from Christ that proved he had the right to drive out the money changers from the Temple, he said, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up…” (John 2:19). What he referred to as the temple was his body (John 2:21) and the disciples remembered Christ saying this after he rose from the dead (v. 22).
Jesus is the SACRIFICE When John the Baptist recognized Jesus at the Jordan River, he loudly called out to those present to come to see “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:20, NKJV). All the sacrifices offered up to this point, only foreshadowed the death of Christ, God’s sacrificial lamb.
Christ confirmed His fulfilment of all these by his resurrection and ascension!
The Sheep Gate represents the experience of salvation made available through the cross. The first gate to be restored is the first spiritual gate to be built in our lives.
During his earthly ministry, Jesus sought to communicate this message through his teachings and embedded it through his acts and healings. We find one example in the healing of the paralytic, by the pool of Bethesda, located near the Sheep Gate. Interestingly, this is the only place in the New Testament where the Sheep Gate is mentioned.
| John 5:1–15 (ESV)5 After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. 3 In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. 5 One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” 7 The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” 8 Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” 9 And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath. |
On the surface, this may seem to be a simple healing miracle but on a deeper level, God wishes to illustrate his heart and intention to bring salvation to the world.
First, let us look at “sheep” as it pertains to the Sheep Gate. In Greek, the word is probatikos, relating to sheep, i.e. a gate through which they were led into Jerusalem. Probatikos comes from the word probaton, meaning “something that walks forward on four legs, especially sheep.” And probaton is derived from probaino, meaning “to walk forward, i.e. advance.”
These meanings help us understand that the Sheep Gate operated as a place where sheep moved forward and advanced – it was the place of advancement!
Symbolically, the Temple represented the presence of God and the place of close communion with him, as literally, the Temple functioned as one of the few designated places intended for God to meet with a man after Adam’s fall in the garden. Unfortunately, advancement proved to be difficult for the great number of disabled people gathered around the pool Bethesda whose conditions prevented them from moving forward.
Just as the sicknesses and defects of the people prevented them from entering the temple so likewise sin has kept humanity spiritually blind, lame, and paralyzed preventing us from advancing into the presence of God.
Like this man, who continuously failed to get into the waters because of his own infirmity, Israel, and humanity, were met with constant disappointment and failed attempts to live out God’s law blamelessly. This was because our sinful nature proved too strong to overcome in order to achieve God’s standard of righteousness, no matter how hard we tried.
Aware of this man’s failed efforts and decades of constant let-downs, Jesus initiated contact with the man who had lain there for thirty-eight years and asked him a rather interesting question: “Do you want to be healed?” A peculiar question since Jesus had never inquired this of any other person he had healed. Why this man?
The Greek word for “want” in this verse translates to “thelo,” meaning “to desire” or “wanting what is best because someone is ready and willing to act.” In this case, Christ didn’t care about the stirring of the waters nor did it matter to him that only the first one in would receive their healing.
The only thing that concerned Christ-centred on whether the man still wanted to be made well. Essentially, Christ had made himself available and willing to act and help the man become well, but the paralytic had to determine if he wanted it.
Christ is introducing a new way of obtaining salvation and righteousness – grace. In the new covenant that God would establish through the blood of his sacrificed son, what matters is the person’s desire to be made whole as opposed to their ability to do what it takes to become whole.
Incidentally in Aramaic, Bethesda means “House of Kindness” or “House of Grace.” Here God reminds us of his willingness to stoop down, show humanity kindness, and be a gracious giver. This would come in the form of grace that God would bestow on us to restore us back to him.
Grace is both an act and an empowering virtue. You see, this gracious act took place in this scenario when Jesus approached the man, unsolicited. He offered him healing and the virtue of a grace that empowered him to do what he couldn’t do before!
This explains why Christ questioned the man about his readiness to be healed. The Father never imposes his will on anyone and would only bestow his gracious act on the individual if he truly desired it and, by their own free will, allowed it.
This new way of being healed promises the right-standing with God so many long for; something they couldn’t attain on their own! The grace of Jesus was then manifested in the paralytic’s actions – he was empowered to rise up, retrieve his mat, and start walking.
Grace will provide us with the power to do the will of God – what we certainly couldn’t do before. It symbolizes our ability to walk upright or live righteously before God – again, what we couldn’t do before.9
Verse 14 says, “Afterward Jesus found him in the temple . . .” At long last, the man finally made it to the Temple! Remember, the goal of all sheep intended for sacrifice involved advancing through the Sheep Gate to get to the Temple. There, provided the sheep had no defects, the priests offered them to God as a holy sacrifice.
The moment we surrender to God because Christ died for our sins, we are both declared holy by God (positionally) and also called to live a lifestyle of holiness, which reflects our relationship to God.
Finding the man at the temple, Jesus said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.”
Salvation is the gateway to life with God. Once you’re saved, you have to be willing to be changed by the Spirit’s power and grace. This process goes like this:, first, you became willing to change, and then you accepted that change. Now you have to start to live that change.
However, the question remained, “When would this promised grace be available to mankind?” The key is found in Nehemiah 3:1: Then Eliashib the high priest rose up with his brothers the priests, and they built the Sheep Gate.”
Work on the Sheep Gate commenced when the High Priest rose up. This also indicated the full restoration of the spiritual Sheep Gate after our High Priest, Jesus Christ, rose from the dead.
Nehemiah chose to start and end the report with the Sheep Gate. A reminder that salvation begins and ends at the cross and Christ, “the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world” (Jn. 1:29). Referring to the walls of the New Jerusalem God says: “…you will call your walls Salvation…” (Isaiah 60:18) When we get saved and receive Jesus as our Lord, He promises to become also our walls of salvation and protection, much like the walls surrounding the city of Jerusalem. Mankind is described as wayward sheep (Isa. 53:6) and the only way in for us is through the Sheep Gate.
This is also the only gate of which it is recorded that it was sanctified, that is, dedicated, set apart to God in a special way. There are not many paths to God, only one. Jesus is the only way. Our salvation and our new life begins at this very gate. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by Me.”
The gateway to life is through the Sheep Gate. That’s where we must acknowledge our sin and trust in Jesus Christ the Lamb of God who died in our place.
Nothing is said about the gate’s locks and bars, for the way is never closed to the lost sinner who wants to come to the Saviour.
| John 6:37 (ESV)All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. |
He welcomes us with open arms.
CONCLUSION
The Sheep Gate is the Gateway to Life. Today God wants to address 2 issues in our lives.
1. Question: “Do you want to be healed?”
2. Reminder: “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.”
Christ died not merely to liberate us from the penalty of sin, but also to purify us and to transform us into Christlikeness.
By grace, we step through the gateway to life. Let us by grace walk in holiness.
LOGOS 