Introduction
Three trees are used in the NT to illustrate
divine teaching—the olive, the fig, and the vine.
The olive tree is
taken up by the Apostle Paul in Rom. 11: 16–24 to demonstrate how
the Gentiles enter into the promises made to Abraham. The Jews by
natural birth belonged to the root of the tree, and Israel appeared
as “a green olive–tree, fair, of goodly fruit” (Jer. 11: 16), though
in the course of time the nation’s branches would be “broken out
through unbelief” (Rom. 11: 20). The Gentiles had no such connection
to the root and, like branches of “a wild olive tree”, needed to be
grafted in so that they might “become a fellow–partaker” (v17).
The fig tree is taken
up by the Lord in Luke 13: 6–9 to illustrate the folly of mere
outward profession. A fig tree might have plenty of leaves, and yet
be destitute of fruit. As we learn on some of the earliest pages of
Scripture, sewing fig–leaves together (see Gen. 3: 7) may give us
respectability in our own eyes, but it leaves us naked before God.
This leaves
the vine to be considered.
The teaching on the vine forms part of the
Lord’s final ministry to His disciples before He went to the cross.
He had already set out the necessity of feet–washing, given them a
new commandment that they love one another, spoken of preparing them
a place in the Father’s house, and revealed that another Comforter
would be sent
(John 13: 4–17, 34; 14: 2, 3, 16). All
this, and more, were essential in the new order of things into which
they were to be introduced during His absence. The teaching of the
vine therefore forms an equally important part of what is needed in
the current day—and how it is needed! If one could characterise
Western Christianity today it is Corinthian—low on morality and high
on spiritual manifestations. Yet the teaching of the vine is that
everything depends on abiding
in Christ—recorded for us, significantly, by one who leant
“on the breast of Jesus” (John 13: 25). “Without me” the Lord says,
“ye can do nothing” (John 15: 5).
Israel, God’s
Vine
Scripture
tells us that the vine is not fit for anything but bringing “forth
grapes” (Is. 5: 2). As the prophet asks, “shall wood be taken
thereof to do any work? or will [men] take a pin of it to hang any
vessel thereon? Behold, it is given to the fire for fuel” (Ezek. 15:
3, 4). Now Israel in the OT is likened to a vine: “For the vineyard
of Jehovah of hosts is the house of Israel … Thou broughtest a vine
out of Egypt; thou didst cast out the nations, and plant it” (Is. 5:
7; Ps. 80: 8). Yet the nation soon forgot their calling and brought
“forth wild grapes” (Is. 5: 4). Israel became “an unpruned vine” who
produced “fruit unto himself” (Hos. 10: 1), and though planted as “a
noble vine”, turned “into the degenerate shoots of a strange vine”
(Jer. 2: 21). Judgment was to swiftly follow (see Ps. 80: 12, 13;
Is. 5: 5, 6; Joel 1: 7). Similar teaching is found in the parable of
the vineyard (see Luke 20: 9–19), but though this clearly has links
to the passage in Is. 5: 1–7, the emphasis is now on the husbandmen
rather than the vine. This seems to make the condemnation much more
personal, and the priests, as the responsible element in the Lord’s
day, felt the edge of His words.
In the light of these things, it is no wonder
that the Psalmist is dismayed: “O God of hosts, return, we beseech
thee; look down from the heavens, and behold, and visit this vine;
Even the stock which thy right hand hath planted, and the young
plant thou madest strong for thyself. It is burned with fire, it is
cut down” (Ps. 80: 14–16). To this plea a remarkable answer is
given: “Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, upon the son
of man whom thou hast made strong for thyself” (v17). The imagery is
clearly millennial—a branch of the vine typified the royal house,
from which eventually King David’s greater Son would come,
delivering the people and setting up the kingdom in glory and power.
The Lord Jesus is that Man.
This, however, is not the teaching of John 15.
There the Lord presents Himself not as Messiah, the Man of God’s
right hand—a Branch (see Jer. 33: 15)—but as
the true vine—the stem
and root. In this context, it was the disciples that were the
branches, while He was “the true vine”, and His Father “the
husbandman” (John 15: 1).
The True Vine
In John’s Gospel, Christ is rejected from the
beginning (see John 1: 11), and consequently there is no sense in
which Israel
nationally could any longer bring forth fruit to God. All
depended now on vital connection with Christ. This is entirely in
keeping with John’s presentation whose purpose in writing was “that
ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that
believing ye might have life in his name” (John 20: 31). Christ is
not merely a fruitful branch where all others were unfruitful. Nor
is He the topmost branch above the rest.
He is the vine itself.
Now the disciples knew how the OT spoke of Israel as the vine, and
they would therefore feel the force of what the Lord was saying in a
way that we may not. God had turned His face away from the
nation—Christ alone was “the
true vine” (John 15: 1, my emphasis). Thus those who view
Christianity merely as a system of belief have missed the point
entirely:
Christianity is Christ.
It is all about Him, and everything depends upon Him. It is not mere
religion, for God Himself is the husbandman, and He must have Christ
reproduced in the fruit. Nor is Christ a vine among vines, as
ecumenical religious thought would teach: He is the vine. There is
no other source of spiritual life.
The vine is a dependent plant and as such
reminds us of Christ as Man, the One who never uttered a word or
moved a step without a word from His Father: “He wakeneth morning by
morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the instructed” (Is. 50:
4). It is against this significant background that the dependence of
the branches on the stem and root is introduced. It is what is
implied in the very nature of a branch—apart from Christ we can do
nothing (see John 15: 5). Just as Christ brought forth fruit to God
as the dependent Man, so those who take His name are to also produce
fruit by abiding in the true vine.
Of course there cannot be any breakdown on His
part, but we, sadly, often fail in dependence and confidence—hence
the Lord’s word “abide in me” (v4). As Christians we come to rely on
many things—other people, previous experience, our gifts and
abilities, our intellect and knowledge—but such confidence is
misplaced. Only as abiding in Christ will we be preserved as truly
fruitful. Again, it is easy to mistake being ‘active’ with
fruitfulness, but this is only so where Christ is the source of the
action, and His glory the result. True service, as epitomised by the
Lord, is where every thought, step and deed is because the Father
has commanded it.
The Branches
“[As to]
every branch in me not bearing fruit, he takes it away; and [as to]
every one bearing fruit, he purges it that it may bring forth more
fruit” (John 15: 2). Here we are introduced to the two–fold labour
of the divine husbandman. Now anyone in the least acquainted with
vine culture knows how much pruning the plant requires in order to
bear fruit—not just the cutting away of diseased and dying leaves,
but the removal of even healthy shoots as these steal away the
vitality. All is to be geared to the one great aim of fruit
production, and even what seems fair on the surface must be
subordinated to that one objective. As to the branches not bearing
fruit, these are to be removed, ruthlessly and without sentiment. As
to those bearing fruit, the husbandman will not rest satisfied:
these are to be purged in order to bear more. Just as the natural
vine needs the constant labour of the earthly husbandman, so the
branches of the true vine receive the untiring attention of the
Father. The spiritual lessons are simple but profound.
The Fruitless
Branches
In the
picture that the Lord presents, there is no difference among the
branches of the vine except in one feature only: “[As to] every
branch in me not bearing fruit, he takes it away” (John 15: 2). The
apparent growth of foliage is irrelevant: all that the husbandman is
interested in is that the branch bears fruit. If it does not bear
fruit, then it will be excised. Thus Judas, as numbered among the
Twelve, appeared as a branch in the vine, but proving unfruitful, he
was taken away. The branch therefore is outward profession, valuable
in as much as it is that which has the apparent potential to bear
fruit. Reality, however, is seen in the actual fruit–bearing. Too
many say they are ‘Christian’ without displaying the accompanying
fruit of Christian character. As the Lord said elsewhere in another
context “By their fruits ye shall know them” (Matt. 7: 16). Here, if
there is no fruit, then the sap of the root has never circulated in
the branch, and it is to be broken off. With such there never was
any living link with Christ.
The Lord reiterates the teaching a little
later: “Unless anyone abide in me he is cast out as the branch, and
is dried up; and they gather them and cast them into the fire, and
they are burned” (John 15: 6). However, we should observe the change
in His language here. In verses 3, 4, and 5, He has been addressing
the disciples as true branches of the vine (Judas having gone out).
He will address them again as such in verses 7 and 8. But in verse
6, He changes His language from “ye” to “any one”. Scripture, as
ever, is precise. Can a real believer fail so badly that he is
excised forever from Christ, and cast, at the end, into the fire—a
child of God today, a lost soul tomorrow? The language makes this
impossible. All eleven disciples failed grievously (see Mark 14:
50), but, as the Lord told them, they had been chosen out of the
world, “that ye should go and [that] ye should bear fruit, and
[that] your fruit should abide” (John 15: 16). The same applies to
all true believers: they bear fruit, and their fruit, as nourished
by the sap of the true vine is of lasting value.
Purging the
Fruitful
Not only
would the Father remove any unfruitful branch, but He purges the
fruitful branches in order that they might be even more productive:
“[as to] every one bearing fruit, he purges it that it may bring
forth more fruit” (v2). The connection is lost in English, but
kaqairw,
the Greek word for
purge, is derived from
kaqaroς,
the word the Lord uses for
clean in v3: “ye are
already
clean by reason of the
word which I have spoken to you” (John 15: 3, my emphasis). As far
as their sins were concerned, the disciples were already purged or
clean, but at the same time there was the need of an
ongoing purging with a
view to being more fruitful in their walk down here. Those
acquainted with vine–culture know how necessary this cleansing is.
If the sap is allowed to go into excessive shoot generation, then
there will be a correspondingly negative effect on fruit production.
Thus the Father, in His wisdom, may see fit to remove many a
seemingly harmless distraction in our lives that is nonetheless
hindering the production of fruit for Himself. And it may go
further, for “whom [the] Lord loves he chastens, and scourges every
son whom he receives” (Heb. 12: 6). The language is very strong, but
the inflicted pain (and it is from the Father who loves us) is “for
profit” (v10). The point of any trial is not to seek to escape it,
but to learn what the Father would teach us in it. Certainly “no
chastening at the time seems to be [matter] of joy, but of grief”
but it “afterwards yields [the] peaceful
fruit of righteousness
to those exercised by it” (v11, my emphasis). Too many seem to think
that the troubles of life hit them by chance, without ever
considering that God is actually forming their character through
circumstances for His pleasure. There is no doubt the Lord was here
preparing the disciples themselves for what they might be called to
pass through when He had left the earth.
Abide in Me
So how can fruitfulness be assured? “Abide in
me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it
abide in the vine, thus neither [can] ye unless ye abide in me. I am
the vine, ye [are] the branches. He that abides in me and I in him,
he bears much fruit” (vs. 4, 5). The branch draws its life, its
strength, and its nourishment from the vine, and is entirely
dependent on it for all that is needed in order to be fruitful. In
the same way, believers are utterly dependent on Christ to bring
forth fruit for God. “Without me” says the Lord, “ye can do nothing”
(v5). If we abide
in Christ, then as the sap of the root and stem flows in the
branches, so will Christ abide
in us. Our lives will
then be in accord with His will in a very practical way: “If ye
abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will
and it shall come to pass to you. In this is my Father glorified,
that ye bear much fruit, and ye shall become disciples of mine” (vs.
7, 8). Of course the eleven already were His disciples, but
discipleship is here put on a new and higher footing. With Christ’s
words abiding in them, the desire of their hearts would be in unison
with the thoughts of the Master, and their prayers would be in
accordance with His will. What would be the result? “In this is my
Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit” (v8) and they would thus
be proved as disciples of Christ.
Sometimes fruit is thought of only in terms of
works. Works are acts. Fruit, however, is more than this. This can
be seen in the way that the Lord goes on to speak about love. Love
is expressed through its works, but the love itself is something
deeper and more profound. “As the Father has loved me, I also have
loved you: abide in my love. If ye shall keep my commandments, ye
shall abide in my love, as I have kept my Father’s commandments and
abide in his love” (vs. 9, 10). The Lord here speaks of that which
He had proved as a man upon earth—His Father’s love as the obedient
One walking here for the divine pleasure. He would now have His
disciples tread a similar pathway—subject to His commandments and so
conscious in the fullest way of Christ’s love and pleasure. The
world would be hostile to them, and they would be bereft of His
physical presence, but as abiding in His love they would have an
inner joy that none could touch: “I have spoken these things to you
that my joy may be in you, and your joy be full” (v11). What do we
know of these things?
Conclusion
Christianity
is the reproduction of Christ down here in His people. Some think
only of the Gospel, some only of the Assembly, but both are wrong. I
will never be truly effective in the Gospel, and never truly
responsive in the Assembly, unless Christ practically abides in me,
and I in Him. Entirely given over to the will of Another, having an
inner joy untroubled by the trials of this scene, I will bear much
fruit, and the Father will be glorified in my life. May it truly be
so for each one of us!
