My Father which gave [them] me
So the sheep came to be Christ's, and to be in his hand; the
Father gave them to him, put them into his hands, and made them
his care and charge:
is greater than all;
than all gods, than all beings, than all creatures, angels and
men, and than all the enemies of his people; this must be
allowed: the Vulgate Latin version, and so some of the ancients
read, "what my Father gave to me, is greater than all"; meaning,
that the church given to him, and built on him, is stronger than
all its enemies:
and none is able to pluck [them] out of my Father's
hand;
so that these sheep have a double security; they are in the hands
of Christ, and they are in the hands of the Father of Christ;
wherefore could it be thought, which ought not to be, that they
could be plucked out of Christ's hands, yet it can never be
imagined, that any can pluck them out of the hands of God the
Father; and there is no more reason to think that they can be
plucked out of the hands of the one, than there is that they can
be plucked out of the hands of the other, as is clear from what
follows in ( John 10:30 ) ; see the
Apocrypha: ``But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of
God, and there shall no torment touch them.'' (Wisdom 3:1)