Verse 1. “I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman.” John 13 we had the subject of feet-washing, practical holiness in view of having part with Christ. In John 14, keeping Jesus commandments, when one had them, was the measure of the saint’s love to Jesus, and drew forth the manifestation of Jesus love to him; for the ground here is Christian responsibility. It is not in this place, “We love him, because he first loved us”; here the principle is, “If a man love Me, he will keep My word: and My Father will love him, and We will come unto Him, and make Our abode with him.” Would any one learn the precious secret of obedience, in love and perfect liberty, “to Jesus commandments, His word having the force of commandment, he will find it in the knowledge of Jesus Himself. Blessed such knowledge, and blessed the results! See John 10:17-1817Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. 18No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father. (John 10:17‑18), “Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I might take it again.” “No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of My Father”: But here, chapter 15, the subject is fruitfulness Godward. “Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit?”
How beautiful these thoughts are, as we see them in the mind, and word of Jesus!
1:The washing of our feet that we might have part with Him in glory:
2. Obedience; in love, to His commands, that, with His Father, He might come and take up His abode with us; and,
3, the purging of the branches, that there might be more fruit, no measure here. The Father is glorified in this, and in so doing we become Jesus disciples.
The secret of this fruit-bearing that glorifies the Father, is learned in Jesus alone; fruitfulness proves us to be His disciples. What sweet and holy thoughts these are!. How adorable is the One who is the Source of them all! What a Teacher is He, and what disciples are we!
But fruit for God there is none amongst men, neither testimony nor service, apart from Christ; therefore He calls Himself the true Vine, as elsewhere He presents Himself as the true Servant and true Witness. He was the true Son out of Egypt, and the Second Man. He takes up in grace, and establishes in His own Person, in power, all that had perished in the weak hands of man. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away, “for the subject here is profession and responsibility. The true Vine and the branches were all upon earth.
A body, the members of which are on earth while the Head is in heaven, is a wholly different subject; here the union is vital and eternal, and by the Holy Ghost. Who shall separate? The members are nourished and cherished, not taken away, for we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. The figure of the Vine and its branches is used to test profession, and show wherein true discipleship consists.
Verse 3. The disciples were clean through the word which He had spoken; the word had already wrought in their consciences as far as it had reached them. It was the washing of water by the word. But what a deeply important truth and testimony, from the Lord Himself, as to the cleansing power of the word! He had known that power Himself, in His wondrous, lowly way, saying in spirit, By the word of Thy lips I have kept Me from the paths of the destroyer.” This was as “concerning the works of men” (Psa. 17). The works of men cast up the paths of the destroyer.
But without Him, He tells us, we can do nothing, a truth acknowledged by all the saints, how oft forgotten that day will tell! The great truth here is, He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. May we realize this! What a word it is, “Abide,” like that other word that He spoke to all, “Watch.”
And now He reveals the secret of power with God in all its measureless range, “Ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you” (vs. 7). And what, then, is the secret.? The word reveals it, communion with Himself — If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you.” How few of the countless prayers which are continually offered up — and often sincerely, too — spring from a well so deep and pure! We are invited to make our requests known to God, whatever the burdened heart is conscious of how great is His grace! But prayer to God is necessarily connected with communion, the state of the heart before Him: “If our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God.” How often it groans, yet not to Him! “They have not cried unto Me with their heart, when they howled upon their beds” (Hos. 7:1414And they have not cried unto me with their heart, when they howled upon their beds: they assemble themselves for corn and wine, and they rebel against me. (Hosea 7:14)). “Thou wilt prepare their heart, Thou wilt cause Thine ear to hear.” Fruitfulness to God, and the promise of all prayer being answered, are inseparably connected with abiding in Him.
Verse 9. “As the Father hath loved. Me, so have I loved you: continue ye in My love.” The subject changes a little here. The source and fullness of all holy affections in man are in Himself, and are only realized by us as we abide in Him. Thus fruit for God, and answers from God, as well as also the enjoyment of His love, are all dependent on the soul’s abiding in Him, that His love should be our portion.
Abiding in Him was not the whole thought in this passage: His joy also was to be ours, and that joy should be full. Thus spake the Man of sorrows, “that My joy” [what He had realized] “may be” in them. The spirit of man makes no progress here, a mystery by him unfathomable bars the way, yet all is simple and precious to those who have the secret of God; on the hearts of such it is all engraved with an eternal pen.
Next, in beautiful order, having spoken of the way of realizing His love by keeping His commandments, and of His joy being our portion, He commands us to love one another, and here the measure reaches even unto death (for thus He had loved His own); as fruitbearing had its only measure in the glorification of the Father, as He said of Himself, “I have glorified thee on the earth.” We have seen how His love and His joy are known by abiding in Him; it is thus also that His peace is enjoyed.
But here we have a new privilege, we become His friends in practicing what He commands. We are constituted His friends through the communication of His Father’s mind, “For all things which I have heard of My Father I have made known unto you.” We have seen already how, in glorifying the Father, the position of disciples of Jesus becomes ours (vs. 8). Another might say, “I have kept the faith”; but One alone has said, “I have glorified Thee on the earth.” We see now what the then revealed rule of life was, that it was found in the realization of Jesus love, His peace, His joy, and His obedience; the glorifying of the Father as He had glorified Him; the loving one another as He had loved them; and that this realization was through abiding in Him.
But now that redemption is accomplished, and the Holy Ghost present, now that we walk in the light as He is in the light, the whole truth revealed, we can say the life itself and its rule are the same, even Christ Himself — Christ become our life. “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory.” What a pleasure it is, sweet and sacred, to see the truth expanding to its full proportions in Christ! I do not mean what some call “new truth,” but simply to find, as we go on with scripture, that Jesus Himself is the substance and fullness of all the blessedness God has given, or will yet give, to His people.
How little the disciples understood the underlying depths of these precious communications! We might have been, oh how happy! in searching into them. But slighted privileges and unhappy souls go together; our tastes are vitiated, our simplicity lost! I speak of the general state, we know it but too well. But many are awaking from the long sleep and arising from among the dead; to find Christ Himself shining upon them. But what a thing this is! Christ Himself shining upon me, after the slumber among the dead. Is not this indeed the light of life, and glory, too, in its very sweetest form? Shall we not walk in it? Will the grace of it keep us from slumbering again? He knows our weakness when He says, “Watch”; “Abide in Me.”
As to their relations on the world’s side, they should share the reproaches that fell upon Him, and partake of His rejection. With regard to the Jews, their root was now laid bare, the innermost thought of, the evil heart laid bare, and detected in the light, even before that great day when God should judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ — they had both seen and hated both the Son and the Father. They were now morally the world, and “the world has not known thee,” Jesus said to the “righteous Father.” And we know what this means, they would be judged in the world’s judgment, as He said afterwards to a fallen assembly (Sardis) “I will come upon thee as a thief,” (as He comes upon the world) “if thou shalt not, watch.”