INTRODUCTION
Jesus and His disciples had concluded the meeting in the upper room in Jerusalem where they celebrated the Passover. Apparently, they had just left that event and were making their way eastward toward the garden of Gethsemane situated on the western slope of the Mt. of Olives, John 14:31 / John 18:1.
Undoubtedly, the disciples were exceedingly anxious, John 14:1, and perplexed as to what loomed ahead. Jesus now speaks to them about the vine.
THE GRAPEVINE
The grapevine is the symbol of Israel as the rose is of England and the thistle of Scotland, it was very common in the early Christian days to have a vineyard on your property, and almost every village had a press. The use of the vine is very fitting because it was so common and well known.
Vines grow very quickly under incorrect conditions, planted deep, they give off one shoot, then lots of branches from that one shoot. If the plant isn’t carefully tended, it will quickly run riot, producing lots of branches and useless wood, but no grapes.
It needs lots of cutting back, each branch needs tending, even each bunch of grapes needs individual care, it will only be productive if it is well trained and strictly cut back, otherwise it will return to a wild state producing no fruit.
Jesus may have made this speech as He walked through a vineyard on the way to the garden of Gethsemane. Many grow in the area surrounding Jerusalem, He had just instituted the Lord’s Supper, with wine a vital component in that feast. In Jeremiah 2:21 and Isaiah 5:1-7, Israel is compared to a vine to demonstrate the vital teaching of Jesus.
As they left Jerusalem they would have passed through the ‘Beautiful Gate’, Acts 3:2 / Acts 3:10, on the east side of the city, which was decorated with a huge golden vine, with bunches of grapes made from Jewels and precious stones.
Then they would have walked by the vineyards on the slopes of the Mount of Olives, so either the vineyards or the gates could have sparked off this conversation.
Josephus in describing Herod’s Temple in Jesus’ day says the following.
‘Under the crown–work was spread out a golden vine, with its branches hanging down from a great height, the largeness and the workmanship of which were an astonishing sight to the spectators’. Antiquities of the Jews, 5.5.4.
Why did Jesus use this metaphor? There are a couple of ideas, some suggest because of the fruit of the vine used in the Last Supper. Others suggest that tendrils of the vine were an over-hanging window in Upper Room, some suggest that He could see vines on Mount of Olives and He could see fires where dead branches were being burned, still others suggest that He was actually passing the temple and used the great golden vines on its gates as an example.
The truth is we simply, don’t know because the Bible doesn’t say. A metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action that it doesn’t literally denote, in order to imply a resemblance, for example, ‘he is a lion in battle’.
In Old Testament times, the vine was a symbol of God’s nation and often it shows Israel lacking in something, Isaiah 5:1-7 / Mark 12:1-10 / Psalm 80:8-16 / Isaiah 5:1-7 / Jeremiah 2:21 / Hosea 10:1. Under Maccabees, 163-142 B.C. made a national symbol of Israel used on coins.
I AM THE VINE
‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” John 15:1-8
I AM
There are 16 signs recorded in John’s gospel, 8 are things which Jesus did and 8 were things which Jesus said. John is basically saying that the ‘I AM’ claims of Jesus are signs, selected from many other signs.
And he says these signs are selected with a purpose in mind and that purpose is that you believe that Jesus Christ is who He claimed to be, John 20:30-31.
Here we find the last of Jesus’ I AM’ claims, John 6:35 / John 8:12 / John 8:58 / John 10:9 / John 10:11 / John 11:25 / John 14:6 / John 15:1. Each of His ‘I AM’ claims are claims that He is God, EGO EIMI, is the Greek equivalent of YHWH, Exodus 3:13-14 / John 5:18. He is Eternal, Psalm 135:13, and self-existent, Psalm 88:6-7.
When we come to the ‘I AM’ claims of Jesus, we need to remember that Jesus was not giving Himself a Name or a title, but was asserting His Deity. In other words every ‘I AM’ reveals some aspect of His nature and purpose.
THE CHARACTERS IN THE ILLUSTRATION
There are four characters in the Lord’s illustration.
1. There is the ‘vine,’ John 15:1
The vine, Ezekiel 15:1-6 / Ezekiel 19:10-14, deal with the vine. The vine has only one purpose and that’s to bear fruit. Notice the gradually progression of the fruit in John 15:1-6, it will bear fruit, more fruit, much fruit. The purpose of the vine was to produce fruit.
Psalm 80:14-18 / Jeremiah 2:12 / Isaiah 5 / Exodus 13 / Hosea 10:1ff, all talk about the vine. Maybe the disciples remember what He said a couple of days before concerning the parable of the vineyard worker and owner, Matthew 20:1-16.
I picture in my mind the Hebrew prophet Isaiah walking through the marketplace in Jerusalem. People are busy hawking their wares, vegetables and wool. As he walks along he sees a vendor selling stringed instruments.
The prophet picks up an instrument and begins to chant a song for my ‘well–beloved’ concerning His vineyard. The LORD God Jehovah is the ‘well–beloved’ and His vineyard is the nation of Israel, Isaiah 5:1-7.
Isaiah closes his song with a play on words. Israel is a degenerate vine. God looked for justice but found bloodshed. He looked for “righteousness” but He found ‘a cry of distress.’
The vineyard failed to produce righteousness. God chose the vine and planted it. The Hebrew poet describes it this way: Psalm 80:8–9. He concluded with a prayer, ‘O God of hosts, turn again now, we beseech Thee; look down from heaven and see, and take care of this vine’. Psalm 80:14.
Moreover, the prophet Jeremiah picked up the same lament as Isaiah in Jeremiah 2:21. The prophet Ezekiel reminds us that the vine is good for nothing except to bear fruit, Ezekiel 15:1-6. The vine was a symbol of the spiritual relationship between God and Israel. The fruit of righteousness was to honour and glorify God.
The crooked, dwarf is worthless wood as fuel because it flames up like paper and is gone instantly. You could not use it to make furniture. It was too soft and no good for lumber.
You cannot use it as a tent peg because it crumbles or flexes when you hit it. It fulfils only one purpose by bearing rich, delicious fruit. Israel was a wild, rotten grape. Ezekiel tells us she was ripe for the great winepress of the wrath of God. Ezekiel 15:1-6 / Ezekiel 19:10-14.
THE TRUE VINE
Jesus and the eleven remaining disciples left Jerusalem and went down into the Kidron Valley and up the slope of the Mount of Olives to the Garden of Gethsemane. As they walk along the trail Jesus and the disciples pass through the vineyards that surround the city. Along the trail are gnarled grapevines that showed the scars from recent pruning.
They can see in the distance ‘the Temple at Jerusalem, above and around the gate, seventy cubits high, which led from the porch to the holy place, a richly carved vine was extended as a border and decoration.
The branches, tendrils, and leaves were of finest gold; the stalks of the bunches were of the length of the human form, and the bunches hanging upon them were of costly jewels, this vine must have had an uncommon importance and a sacred meaning in the eyes of the Jews. With what majestic splendour must it likewise have appeared in the evening.’
Jesus picked up a cutting and turned to His disciples. ‘You know how Israel is pictured as a vine which is to produce refreshing fruit. Well, she failed.
I am the authentic Vine. I am the true and genuine Vine as opposed to a mere copy or symbol. I am the fulfilment of all that this symbol suggests. I am the Vine, the true One.’ Jesus is the giver of life, the vine is the central component of the plant, giving food and water to the branches.
The true Vine is Jesus who is the source of life for the branches. It provides the water and nutrients by which the grapes are produced. Without the vine, no fruit could ever result. Branches are utterly dependent upon the vine.
John 15 uses the word, ‘remain’ which is ‘meno’ and means to remain, to live. It shouldn’t be an effort to stay where we are. If we stay in Christ we should naturally grow, Galatians 5:22-23. This is how we glorify God.
Without Christ, of course, there is no spiritual life or hope of eternal reward, John 14:6 / Acts 4:11-12. Interestingly, Christ designates Himself as the ‘true’ vine. The Greek term denotes that which is genuine; the word stands in contrast to that which is fictitious, counterfeit, imaginary, simulated or pretentious.
Inasmuch as the Israelite nation was portrayed on occasion as a ‘vine’ by the Old Testament prophets, Isaiah 5:1-7 / Matthew 21:33ff, one can scarcely avoid thinking that this is a rebuke aimed at a considerable segment of the Hebrew family; the nation largely had failed in its mission and was on the precipice of murdering its Messiah, John 10:7ff.
The word ‘true’ is also used for that which is the ultimate realisation. Jesus is the fullest realization of the hope of Israel, of her expectations, of what God intended her to be. Israel as a vine never achieved her goal. She was a failure. However, the Lord Jesus Christ Who came as the True Vine accomplished all that God intended His Messiah to do.
The branches are totally dependent on the vine, God is the gardener. Just as branches depend wholly on the main stem for life, so vital union must be maintained between the disciples and the Lord, this is essential to spiritual life and growth. Jesus drew a sharp contrast between the degenerate vine of Israel and Himself. He transferred the privileges and responsibilities from the Hebrew people to Himself.
2. There is also the ‘gardener,’ John 15:1.
This term is rather obscure in our modern culture. ‘Husbandman’ KJV, does not signify a ‘husband,’ but rather a tiller of the ground, a vinedresser, or, in our vernacular, a farmer.
He is the one in charge of the vines and to whom ultimate accountability is to be rendered. He does everything within his power to see that the plant bears fruit. If it does not, the fault is not his. Jesus identifies the ‘gardener ’ as ‘my Father,’ i.e., God, the Father.
We who name the name of Jesus Christ are God’s great vineyard. God expects us to produce His fruit in His vineyard, John 15:2. Jesus describes two kinds of branches, one is fruitless, so it’s taken away, another bears fruit, so it’s pruned that it might produce more fruit.
This is an exact parallel to the disciple’s relationship with Jesus. If the vine is to produce good fruit, the branches need to be cared for by the gardener.
Just as the viticulturist must cleanse the vine, our heavenly Father must cleanse us so we will bear more fruit. He finds a branch that is producing fruit and He begins to cut it back so it will bear more of the likeness of Christ.
His goal is to cleanse the branches that remain, in order to produce fruitfulness. The whole emphasis is ‘fruit,’ ‘more fruit,’ ‘much fruit’ again ‘much fruit.’ He won’t stop until He sees fruit!
The purpose of the vine is to bring forth fruit, John 15:2. The whole emphasis of the allegory of the vine is fruit-bearing. God expected Israel to produce luscious, beautiful, rich choice grapes of righteousness.
She produced sour, rotten, stinking, tasteless grapes. God was looking for justice and righteousness; instead, he found oppression, cruelty, and exploitation of men. Jesus said the purpose of the vine was ‘that it may keep on bearing more and more fruit.’ The vine has only one purpose, to bear fruit, Ezekiel 15:1-3, the vine bearing no fruit is useless.
We produce fruit naturally, it’s not forced. A healthy tree will produce fruit. Notice the spiritual growth and its progression in John 15:2 / John 15:5, ‘bear fruit’, ‘bear more fruit’ ‘bear much fruit’.
It’s wrong to think that by ‘bearing fruit’ Jesus is referring to disciples making other disciples. He’s talking about individual spiritual growth, Galatians 5:22-23.
The fruit of the vine will be the natural outflow of the life of the vine. Jesus is the Vine. When we are united with Him, we are identified with Him. We produce His wine. We reproduce Christ. He works in us what He produces.
God expects the fruit of the Holy Spirit produced in our lives. Only Jesus living in us can produce the fruit of the Spirit. God expects to see a likeness to Jesus Christ. The fruit is Christ-likeness. The fruit is the righteousness of God in the heart. It is the likeness of Christ.
To produce fruit, we must stay in the vine, to stay in the vine we must produce fruit. Thus, the other factor, the gardener must be allowed to be active in our lives, He will ensure that we are in the best condition to produce the best fruit and receive the best care.
God cuts away the deadwood, diseased and rotten portion of our lives. Sometimes we feel that His methods seem cruel. He does it so we will produce the righteousness of Jesus.
I have often observed that from those who have endured intense suffering there comes forth the radiant beauty of the Lord Jesus. This pruning process is a cleansing process.
He will do whatever cleansing is necessary to produce His kind of fruit, John 15:8. Our heavenly Father finds a branch that is beginning to bear fruit, beginning to produce the likeness of Christ, and He cuts it back, trims offshoots, so we will bear more fruit.
The Father employs the circumstances and situations in our lives to make us heed and hear His Word, John 15:3. He uses the Scriptures to confront our carnality and selfishness. The word, ‘clean’, ‘prunes’ and ‘cleans’ is the same word in Greek.
Slowly and surely God’s Word is at work in our hearts pruning and cleansing and causing us to bear fruit. The Father’s pruning knife cuts off the sucker shoots of our old life within us so that we become more Christ-like.
Those that produce fruit are carefully trimmed to produce even more. God always demands the very best, and He trains us until we are in a state that allows us to produce the best we can and so, we receive pressure on us to do better all the time.
3. The ‘branches’ are identified explicitly as the Lord’s ‘disciples.’ John 15:8.
How anyone can possibly contend that Christ is the vine, and various denominational churches are the branches?
4. Finally, there is that ambiguous ‘they,’ to which reference is made in John 15:6.
These will be responsible for gathering the withered/pruned branches and committing them to fire for burning. One might surmise that these individuals correspond to the ‘reapers’ mentioned in the parable of the tares, Matthew 13:24-30, identified later as the Lord’s ‘angels’, John 15:39. They will ‘gather out’ of God’s kingdom those who cause others to stumble, and who themselves practise iniquity, John 15:41.
John 15:1-3 relate to our position in the Vine and John 15:4–8 speak of our practice as branches in the Vine. Jesus looks for His own life reproduced in us. He wants to reproduce the life of the Vine in the branches. He tells us the secret in John 15:4-5.
The single most important thing in your life is an intimate, abiding love relationship with Jesus Christ. This is our responsibility in our position in Christ.
Notice the words, ‘You in Me, and I in you, John 15:5.’ That was the kind of life Jesus had with the Father while He was here on the earth. It is an intimate love relationship with Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit who lives within us.
In John 15:4-7 we see the verb ‘remain’ which occurs 7 times, the only difference between the branch broken off and the branch retained, one bears fruit and the other doesn’t. Each begins as a branch in the vine, John 15:2, literally says, ‘Every branch in me that bears no fruit’.
The Apostle Paul used the expression ‘in’ Christ to communicate this same vital connection that exists between Christ and the believer, Galatians 3:26-27 / Ephesians 1:5 / Ephesians 2:10 / 2 Corinthians 5:17. The basic relationship is already established by the coming of the Holy Spirit into the believer’s life.
Two things stand out in John 15:4-5. There is an activity that is to be done, and there is a passivity that is to be acknowledged. We are to remain in Christ. That is active, something we do. We are also to let Him remain in us which is passive.
It is something we allow Him to do in us. Both of these relationships are absolutely essential if we are to live the Christian life. The ‘fruit’ God is looking for in the Christian is the likeness of Jesus. It is the ‘fruit of the Spirit’ in Galatians 5:22-23. This is the proof of discipleship.
Jesus said ‘remain’ in Me,’ John 15:4-5. To ‘remain’ means ‘to remain in union, maintain a living communion, to maintain unbroken fellowship with another’. This is our responsibility in Christ.
John uses the word ‘remain’ over fifty times in his writings and eleven times in John 15. When I am abiding I am believing, reckoning on and persevering. The ‘filling of the Spirit’ and the ‘abiding’ are one and the same. ‘Walking in the Spirit’ keeps us abiding in Christ, Galatians 5:16.
Noting the condition by which union with Christ maintained, ‘remain in me’, John 15:4. ‘Remain in me’, ‘Remain united to me’, these all speak of the responsibility for maintaining the relationship as the disciples. The Lord will never randomly end it, He will only cut off the one who ‘doesn’t remain’ in Him.
In John 15:5-8 we see the idea of the vine is taken further and the believers are confirmed as the branches. We are totally useless without Jesus, He is the creator of all life.
As Christians, we are totally dependent on Him for our spiritual well-being, if our relationship with Him is good, so is our spiritual state. To ever accomplish anything in Christ, we must remain as a part of the vine.
The vine feeds the branches, the branches are dependent on the vine, and the horror of being found lacking is revealed. If we fail each year to produce fruit, we are cut off and thrown into the fire. There we die a terrible death separated from the Father and the Son, again the promise made in verse seven is made to the disciples only.
A vine branch is lifeless and useless unless it remains attached to the vine, John 15:6-7. It can produce grapes only as it remains attached. The moment it is severed it begins to die and becomes fruitless.
Believers in Christ can produce the fruit of the Spirit only as they remain attached to Jesus and draw their life in the Spirit from Him. The Apostle Paul expressed the same truth in Galatians 2:20.
John 15:6 gives us the consequences of not abiding in the vine. The branch finally burned was formerly ‘in him’ exactly as was the fruit-bearing branch.
We have to remember that a person may be ‘in Christ’ but may be removed by the Lord, Romans 11:11 / Galatians 5:4 / 2 Peter 2:21-22.
In John 15:7-8, we have the promise of prayer. The condition of the promise is that we remain and that we will produce His fruit. The sap, nutrients, and energy must come from Him, Philippians 4:13.
We must bear fruit, not so the vine can benefit, but so the whole of man can. The branches merely bear the fruit for the benefit of others, that they can give the glory to the Father.
This fruit will be displayed, and those displaying fruit will be recognised as Christians, ‘they will know you are Christians by your love’, John 13:35.
