Verses 1, 2. The parable of the True Vine is a beautiful and important lesson on fruit bearing. Israel had been planted as a vine to bear fruit for Jehovah (Psa. 80:8), but Israel in the flesh failed, and became a degenerate plant (Jer. 2:21), and was judged (Ezek. 15:6). The Lord, while here on earth, says of Himself, “I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman.” He too came out of Egypt (Matt. 2:15). Many branches were attached to Him—some real, who felt their need of Him and couldn’t go away; others could go away when anything offended them. (Compare John 2:23-25 with Chapt. 6:66-70.) Those who brought forth fruit were born again, and are purged to bring forth more fruit.
Verses 3-5. Those He was speaking to, He recognizes as truly His own, and were clean through His word which He had spoken unto them. It was needful for them to abide in Him, and He in them. As a branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more could they except by abiding in Him. He again in Verse 5 avers, “I am the vine, ye are the branches.” Without Him they could do nothing, but abiding in Him and He in them, they would bring forth much fruit.
Verse 6. “If a man abide not in Me”—here He speaks of those who externally associated themselves with Him, yet were not really His. Judgment was their portion at the last.
Verses 7, 8. “If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” The will of the disciple is completely resigned to the Lord’s will. He wants nothing but what is for the Lord’s glory, and herein is the Father glorified, that they thus bear much fruit, and show the reality of being followers of their Lord. But the Lord is not on earth now, He is glorified at the Father’s right hand. Every believer now is united to Him by the Holy Spirit, as a member of His body. This is Paul’s line of teaching the Spirit (Rom. 12:4, 5; 1 Cor. 12:12-27; Eph. 4:4). John’s Gospel and Epistles give us oneness of life with Him, but not union. Instead of speaking of ourselves as branches of the vine, we speak of being members of His body. Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19), and we say now, “Abba, Father” (Rom. 8; Gal. 4), taking our place in full assurance as children of God, the Father, and having eternal life (1 John 3:1). It is, therefore, in the light of our new relationships with Christ in glory, that we apply to ourselves the truth of this parable—relationships that were not possible till Christ was glorified (John 7:39), giving us, as possessing them, the sense of God’s eternal love and faithfulness, and also the sense of our eternal security, but it is true that constant dependence is needed to bear fruit. It is true now, as then, “Without Me ye can do nothing.” It was a hard lesson for Paul to learn, but when learned, what a joy it was to his heart (2 Cor. 12:9) to do everything by the power of Christ. And again, “I have strength for all things in Him who gives me power” (Phil. 4:13, new translation). There are also professors now, who don’t possess life in Christ, and who are passing on to eternal judgment. They cannot bear fruit, they have no life. Their so-called “good works” are only “dead works,” filthy rags of religion without a Saviour, yet if they own they are lost, He will welcome them and give them life and peace through His finished work, but they must come to Him now.
Then we all, who are children of God, need what answers to purging us, to bring forth more fruit (Heb. 12:6-11; 2 Cor. 4:7-11). It is good to be humbled, if we will not humble ourselves, for the flesh is in us each one, and needs to be kept under the sentence of the death of Christ (Rom. 6:6,11), so that we may bring forth the fruits of the Spirit. (Gal. 5:22, 23.) How necessary it is for us to abide in Him, and let His words abide in us, for us to see and do what is for His and the Father’s glory, and walk in His steps (1 Peter 2:21).
The danger of not doing so is also marked out in the epistles. One may be a true child of God, and yet sink into the state of Ephesians 5:14—sleeping among the dead, that is: a Christian becoming like the world, his heart has parted company with Christ as His object; his feet are not being kept clean, and he has no part with Christ. (John 13:8.) Peter describes him as “blind and cannot see afar off, and has forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.” What a sad condition for a redeemed man to be in! (2 Peter 1:9.) An unhappy life is his, and worse than useless. He is no testimony for Christ; his light is hid under the bushel or the bed (business or pleasure) and thus sowing to the flesh, he of the flesh reaps corruption; whereas he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting (Gal. 6:8).
Verses 9-11. To those who abide in Him, and His words in them, all the Father’s resources are available. They bear much fruit, the Father is glorified in them, they bear the marks of true followers of Christ, and they learn to know and dwell in the sense of His love—love measured by the Father’s love to Him. Thus they are enabled to keep His commandments, and abide in His love, as He had kept His Father’s commandments, and abode in His love. The joy of the Son doing the Father’s will, becomes their joy in walking in His steps. Divinely perfect He ever was in it, but what grace and intimacy they are brought into, to share in such a path of dependence, obedience and love. All this belongs to the life we have in Him. It is for us the law of liberty (James 1:25; 2:12).
Verses 12-15. “This is My commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you.” His love to them rose above all their weakness and failures, and they were to carry out this also. If they were living in the power of the Spirit, they would do so, for love is the nature of the new life which they have received. He laid down His life for His enemies.
“Thou for Thine enemies wast slain,
What love with Thine can vie.”
We also are to walk in this path of love (1 John 3:16; Eph. 5:1), if we are to enjoy the intimacy of the place He gives us as His friends, and He calls us friends. A servant is told what to do, but He unfolds to us all things He has heard of the Father, making us to know His purposes before they are carried out. It is as friends we serve Him.
Verses 16-21. They had not chosen Him; it was He who had chosen them, and appointed them that they should go and bring forth fruit, and fruit that should remain, so that they in their weakness could certainly count on the Father supporting them in their path, and giving them whatsoever they would ask Him in Christ’s name. Strength and grace are thus assured to them for the path they were distinctly called to walk in. Here again His commandment is given them, that they love one another. They would meet the hatred of the world, for it hated Him. Had they been of the world, it would have loved them, but He had separated them, calling them out of the world, then the world’s hatred turned upon them also. When they endured persecution, they were to think of this, that they, as servants, were not greater than their Master, but those who persecuted Him, would persecute them, and those who kept His word, would keep theirs also. And all these things would they do to them for His name’s sake, because they knew not the One who had sent Him.
Verses 22-25. It was the coming of the Lord into this world that fully manifested its character. Not only were they transgressors of the law, but their hearts were enmity against God. Their state was bad before; now it is shown out in all its reality to be what it is—hatred to Christ, the Lord, and to the Father also. His word that He had spoken, and the works He had done, were all from the Father, manifestly from the Father, so now have they both seen and hated both Me and My Father. They were dead to all right thoughts of God, and active in hatred to the Father and the Son. It Proved and fulfilled the word written in their own law: “They hated Me without a cause.”
Verses 26, 27. But the Comforter would come. The Lord would send Him unto them from the Father, the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, He shall bear witness of Christ, the Son, and they also, in the power of that Spirit, would be His suitable witnesses, because they had been with Him from the beginning.
This is the testimony to His heavenly glory. Jesus, the Son of God, now exalted to the Father’s right hand, into the glory now as a man, the glory He had with the Father before the world was, it was from Him the Spirit was sent. “I will send,” and He could tell of the glory He had with the Father, and they were witnesses to His life and ways on earth. It was a new testimony, different entirely from the vine and its branches, for this is heavenly in its character.
What marvelous ways of God, that makes man’s sin and rejection of His Son, the occasion to unfold His heavenly treasures in putting His people now in association with a glorified Lord, a man in heaven. It is to this heavenly One that all believers belong. What manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness!