These verses evidently refer to the second coming of Christ. Having gone to Calvary as the great Shepherd of the sheep, He will retain His shepherd character when He returns. While the sheep was always slain for the shepherd in the Old Testament, in the New Testament the Shepherd was slain for the sheep. As the hymn writer put it: When blood from a victim must flow, This Shepherd, by pity, was led To stand between us and the foe, And willingly died in our stead.[3] And