Jesus Christ In The Writings Of John
JESUS THE TRUE VINE

Lesson Text:
John 15:1-16 (KJV)

Subject:
Jesus Teaches How His Disciples May Bear Fruit

Golden Texts:
“Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit.” (John 15:8)
“I am the vine, ye are the branches.” (John 15:5)

Light from Other Scriptures:
The illustration of the vine: Isaiah 5:1-7; Jeremiah 2:21; Ezekiel 19:10; Psalm 80:8-10; Hosea 10:1; Matthew 21:33.
The tree and its fruits: Matthew 7:16-20; Luke 13:6-9; Galatians 5:19-23.

Lesson Plan:
1. INTRODUCTION
2. THE SOURCE OF THE FRUITFUL LIFE (VS. 1-4)
3. THE FRUIT OF A CHRISTIAN LIFE (VS. 5-8)
4. PERSEVERANCE IN FRUIT-BEARING (VS. 9-16)

Setting of the Lesson:
Time: Late Thursday evening; the last evening of Christ with His disciples.
Place: Christ and the disciples had risen from the supper table (John 14:31), and the rest of the conversation took place perhaps in the upper room or in the courtyard of the house, before they went out of the city to Gethsemane. Some think it took place in the court of the temple; others, on the way to Gethsemane while they were passing through some vineyards.
Place in the Life of Christ: The evening before His betrayal and crucifixion. Circumstances: The group had risen to their feet, and prepared to leave the room. In chapter 18:1, after the prayer, it is said that they "went forth," i.e. out of the room. So that the remainder of the discourse, and the prayer, occupying but a few moments, was probably spoken while they were standing, ready to leave the house. Jesus was full of thoughts and instruction He longed to utter before the final separation, and the disciples were reluctant to depart from their last meeting with their Teacher. Some think that at the close of the 14^th chapter, they went out of the room into some other place, perhaps, as mentioned above, the courts of the temple, or some garden, and there Jesus spoke these words.

Inductive Study of the Lesson:
First, a study of the relation between Christ and His true disciples will help us to realize the importance of the subject, and the many points of view, each of which throw light upon it, like the seven colors of the sun's spectrum. There are seven forms of figures in the New Testament that set forth this union of Christ with the true believer, and they run through the whole range of possible figures of speech.

a. One is drawn from the purely animal kingdom - the sheep and the shepherd (John 10).
b. One is drawn from the vegetable kingdom - the vine and the branches (John 15).
c. One is drawn from the mineral kingdom - the building and living stone (Eph. 2).
d. One is drawn from the human form - the body and its members (Eph. 4).
e. One is drawn from the family relation - the family and its members, or the State or commonwealth and its citizens (Eph. 2, 3).
f. One is drawn from the marriage relationship - the bride and the bridegroom (Eph. 5).
g. The climax is reached in 1 Corinthians 6:17, "He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit," and in Romans 8:35, "who shall separate us from the love of God?"

Second, a study of the use in the Bible of the symbol of the vine and its branches, familiar to the disciples, will help us to understand the full meaning of this allegory as Jesus used it. Write down what truth or symbol each of the following references puts into the picture

a. Presented by the vine: Psalm 80:8-16; Isaiah 5:1-7; Jeremiah 2:21, 22; 12:10; Ezekiel 17:6-10; Hosea 10:1; Matthew 20:1; Mark 12:1-9; John 15:1-12.

b. Cleansing the vine: Song of Solomon 2:15; Amos 4:9; Joel 1:7.

Third, the tree and its fruit – Matthew 7:16-20; Luke 13:6-9; Galatians 5:19-23.

For Further Study:
The circumstances in which the lesson was spoken.
The vine: those things in it which are a good vehicle of spiritual truth.
The vine as an object lesson.
The fruit.
Pruning.
Abiding in Christ.
How “much fruit” glorifies God.
Christ’s joy in us.

1. INTRODUCTION

At the close of the last chapter, the whole company rose, and prepared to leave the room. “But Jesus, full of thoughts which He longed even yet to utter, before His ever-nearer separation, stood, as it were, fixed to the spot by His love to them, and once more began to speak” (Geikie). They stood during the discourse recorded in the next two chapters, and during the intercessory prayer (ch. 17). In the previous chapter the words of Jesus were chiefly intended to calm and comfort the timid and troubled disciples. Clark points out that now He proceeds to give instruction rather than consolation, and to press on their attention certain great truths that He would have them especially remember when He is gone.

The place
As already pointed out, it is uncertain where this chapter, as well as chapters 16 and 17, was spoken. Chapter 14 closes with Christ’s words, “Arise, let us go hence,” and in 18:1 it is said that “they went forth.” It is probable that at the close of chapter 14 they arose from the table and prepared to leave, but before they actually went out of the room, and while standing, the remainder of the discourse was spoken. Others think that it was spoken somewhere on the way to Gethsemane. There was no need of anything outward to suggest the figure or metaphor of the vine and its branches. The comparison was familiar to every reader of the Old Testament; and the natural vine and its branches were an almost daily sight in a country where the vine is cultivated as abundantly as now in Italy or Southern France.

What may have suggested the comparison
But if it were suggested by any external object, it may have been:

a. The cup of which they had just partaken (suggested by the “fruit of the vine” they had just used in “the last supper”);

b. The vines climbing over the side of the house, and the window; or

c. The vineyards outside in the light of the moon (probably Jesus simply used a familiar illustration from the vines abounding everywhere in Palestine, and often employed in the Old Testament, because it so perfectly expressed the idea He wished to teach).

d. Those who assign the discourses to the walk to the Mount of Olives, down to Kedron through the vineyards, draw the figure from the vineyards, and the fires burning along the sides of the Kedron valley in order to consume the vine-cuttings, or

e. It was suggested by the great golden vine over the golden gate of the Temple, which Josephus says was so large that it “had clusters as long as a man.” According to Gorion, its “leaves and buds were wrought of gleaming reddish gold, but its clusters of yellow gold, and its grape-stones of precious stones.” There was such a vine over the throne of the king of Persia that was greatly admired by Alexander the Great. This vine must have been often seen by the disciples. According to Jewish authorities, this vine kept growing by means of offerings of a leaf, or a cluster, or even of a branch.

Illustration
“The Land of Promise was a land of vineyards. Hebron, according to Jewish tradition, is supposed to be the spot where the vine was created. A vineyard on a hill was the natural emblem of the kingdom of Judah; and this heraldic symbol was engraved on the coins of the Maccabees, on the ornaments of the temple, and on the tombstones of the Jews.” (Foulkes)

2. THE SOURCE OF THE FRUITFUL LIFE

Jesus Teaches How His Disciples May Bear Fruit
Jesus had been talking about His death, and the disciples were full of anxiety, so that He had repeatedly urged them, “Let not your heart be troubled” (John 14:1, 18, 26, 27). Now He goes on to assure them, under a beautiful and comforting figure, that though He will seem to leave them, they will still be joined to Him.

15:1 … “I am the true vine.” “The word ’true’ here is the ideal, genuine, perennial” (Giesy), the perfect vine. In the Hebrew Bible, the Jewish people are often compared to a vine (Ps. 80:8-19; Is. 5:1-7; Jer. 2:21; Hosea 10:1, etc.). But, Christ is the one who can fulfill in spiritual things the relation between a vine and its branches; “in contrast to Israel the stock which God had planted to bring forth fruit to Him (Exp. Greek Test.). Israel was not the true vine, but was false to the Husbandman, a barren and disappointing vine.

Edersheim points out that when Jesus said He was the “true vine,” He meant that He, the Father, and the disciples, stood in exactly the same relationship as the vine, the husbandman, and the branches. This true vine is Christ¹; not the man Christ Jesus, but the living, abiding Christ, the Christ Who is with His people always, even unto the end of the world (Matt. 28:20), Who reproduces Himself in every true disciple, since only those in whom the spirit of Christ dwells are truly His (Rom. 8:9), and Who is thus far more widely and potently in the earth today than He ever was or could be in the flesh. It is this ever-living Christ, reproduced in all His members, and spreading over the whole earth, that is the true vine, in contrast with the Old Israel, which proved not to be a true vine.

This comparison may have been suggested by the wine of the last supper, or by a vine In the East the main trunk “is generally allowed to grow to the height of six or eight feet” (Tristram), and then the branches are trained laterally. Some of the vines are said to be three hundred years old. Christ, the true vine, is not merely this trunk, but the whole vine, whose life “is reproduced in all His members, and is spreading over the whole earth.”

Note: as the vine supports the branches, and its life flows through them all and is their life, so Jesus is the sustaining power of the Christian kingdom and the source of the life in all His disciples. They are all born from above by the Spirit.² They all live in and through Him. “To live is Christ.” Take Christ away from the Church of our Lord³, and it is dead, a separated branch, a house without a foundation, a limb amputated from a man. Dr. William Harrison wrote: “The Vine since then has grown Until its green leaves gladden half the world, And from its countless clusters rivers flow For healing of the nations, and its boughs Innumerable stretch through all the earth, Ever increasing, ever each entwined With each, all living from the Central Heart, And you and I, my brethren, live and grow Branches of that immortal human stem.”

15:1 … “My Father is the husbandman.” Literally, the earth-worker. Clark points out that it is not the hired laborer, the vine-dresser, but the owner of the vineyard, the original planter, possessor, and cultivator of the vine. The Savior speaks of Himself as the subject of His Father’s care and cultivation. “God was husbandman of the whole vine; Christ Himself was pruned to the quick by the knife of affliction which the Father bore for Him as well as for other.” (Trench)

Illustration
Foulkes pointed out that “never did a connoisseur plant a rare rose in his private garden, watch, water, train and guard it with half the care and joy with which the divine Husbandman planted and perfected the ‘true vine,’ in His earthly garden.”

The Father owns the vineyard; He is the One who planted and cared for the vine. The teaching, the redemption, the religion of Jesus had its source in God, and He would protect it. He cares for the vine, “the choicest vine,” plans for it, nourishes it, “in a very fruitful hill,” gives it the sunshine of His love, and the gentle rain of His grace, He prunes it, He cleanses it, He does all He can that it may bring forth fruit. He well says of each of His children what He said of Israel, His vineyard, in Isaiah 5:1-7: “What could have been done more to My vineyard, that I have not done in it?”

It was no mere human device. The whole scheme of redemption had its source in the love and wisdom of the Godhead.⁴ All the wisdom, love, and power of God still protect and cherish His vineyard. The vine was the recognized symbol of the Messiah.⁵ Their helplessness and trouble appeal to Him, and He encourages them by reminding them that although left to do His work in the world, they will still be united to Him as the branches to the vine.

15:2 … “Every branch in Me.” The branch is the shoot put out by the vine every year. The branch in Christ is any one who, as a child in a Christian home or a member of the Lord’s church, brings forth the fruit that Christ expects.

Who are the branches?
His disciples (v. 5), all who follow Him, who are filled with His spirit. The source of whose life is from Him, a branch growing on the Tree of Life. “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless, I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.” (Gal. 2:20)

We clearly see by this picture of a great vine or tree what is the real unity of the church. Each twig and branch has its individuality, is really a miniature vine. No two are alike. They are of different sizes and shadings, in different positions, some higher and some lower, some bear larger clusters than others.

Each twig is joined with others, forming a bough, and there are many of these boughs formed into a number of larger branches – individuals who are all separate, and yet one in Christ, the True Vine; one because we belong to Christ; one because the same spirit, life, loyalty, and love runs through each individual child of God; one because each Christian is bearing the same heavenly fruit. Some are more exposed to destructive insects, to frost and storm, than others; some are old and some young, but all are part of the same vine, all have a family likeness and bear the same kind of fruit, with an emphasis on different qualities.

Illustration
From all this we see how the dead are still part of the church on earth. Their lives have helped to build up the branches that uphold the new branches. From each leaf a fiber goes to the root. The larger branches are the sum of all the smaller branches, as a river is the sum of all the streams flowing into it.

This allegory gives fresh meaning to Christ’s “Believe in Me,” and “Come unto Me,” and to the communion cup. From time immemorial men have covenanted with one another by drinking together from a common cup, of the blood of the grape, or the fruit of the vine. The fruit of the vine is more than wine; it is the symbol of outpoured life. We are partakers of the very life of Christ, and that unites us to Him.

15:2 … “That beareth not fruit.” Jacobus points out that these are the external professors; the merely baptized members, who have no life and never had; though they belong to the outward connection. It includes those who are joined to Christ by intellectual conviction, who accept Him and His teachings with their minds, but do not obey or love Him.

The fruits of the spirit are the fruits that naturally come from the spirit of Christ. Too many of us are like the Pharisees, who were externally children of Abraham, but not real children, because they did not have the spirit of Abraham (John 8:37-40). Such are those who attend church, but have none of its life; who go under the name of Christians, but are without Christ; who have intellectual convictions, but do not live up to them. Judas, Ananias, Sapphira, and Simon Magus are examples.

The fruit of the Christian life is deeds born of the spirit of Christ; not merely good deeds, but good deeds filled with the love of God and men.

“In Christian work a great mistake is often made. The difference between work and fruit is overlooked. Under a sense of duty or from an inborn love of work, a Christian may be very diligent in doing his work for God, and yet find little blessing in it . . . If work is to be acceptable and effectual it must come as fruit; it must be the spontaneous outgrowth of a healthy, vigorous life.” (Murray)

Illustration
Macmillan expressed it this way: “What a beautiful and appropriate type does the vine afford of the mystical body of Christ. Each member has his own personality, his own individual existence; and yet, living or dead, he is regarded as a scion, or branch, of one common stock – a component and integral part of one tree. The same bond unites each to all; the same sap pervades all; the same life animates them all. Christ is not the trunk, nor the branches, but the whole vine; they are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones.”

15:2 … “He taketh away.” There are trees that may be turned to secondary uses, if they fail to fulfill their primary. Not so the vine. As timber it is utterly valueless. We should always keep in mind the only test for the judgment day – fruit.

Why take them away?
They are taken away because there presence injures the other branches; and what remains is of no benefit. As long as there is hope of their bearing fruit, they are permitted to remain, are pruned and cared for.⁶ However, if this is of no avail, they are taken away by:

a. The natural withering away of those who draw no nourishment from the true vine. They lose their interest, and practically sever their connection with Christ and His church.

b. Excommunication, the outward expression of their severance from Christ the true vine.

c. Persecution and trials; by demands on their money, or time, and calls to self-denying service.

d. The separation from God’s people by death and the judgment.⁷

Illustration
The forces of nature, the energies of God in action are forever working to the removal by decay, of whatever is dead – a dead branch, a dead arm, a dead plant. The rain and sunshine that make it flourish when alive, destroy it when dead.

Applications
This applies to a local church of our Lord, as well as to individuals. God does not desire to have fruitless churches, even though they may be large and prosperous to the human eye. He lets them wither away. The churches of our Lord that keep nearest to Christ will grow spiritually. The Christian who neglects union with Christ will find his religious and moral life withering away, little by little.

15:2 … “And every branch that beareth fruit.” Every disciple is a branch; every local congregation of the church of our Lord is a branch. There are many branches, but there is one life flowing through them all, and they are all parts of one vine. The fruit is faith, love, and obedience. It includes all the fruits of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, long-suffering, etc. (Gal. 5:22, 23). It is not measured by the results, the amounts of money given, the number of souls saved, as we are too often inclined to measure fruits; but by the love, obedience, graces, devotion, which lead to these outward results.

15:2 … “He purgeth.” In other words, “He cleanseth,” for the verb has the same root as “clean” in the next verse, the result of this cleansing. “Everything is removed from the branch which tends to divert the vital power from the production of fruit” (Westcott); such as dead twigs and leaves, insects, dirt, and even superfluous growths. The very fruit itself must often be thinned out in order that larger fruit of better quality may be produced. Christ cleanses the soul by:

a. The operation of the law that right doing develops right feeling, and opens the heart to higher influences (John 7:17);

b. The sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit, given to each soul in the measure each proves itself worthy of and willing to receive; and by

c. The discipline of life, the manifestation of God’s special love to the soul (Heb. 12:6).

“Some teach that God does not prune the branches of His vine, that He does not afflict or discipline His children. They rob His love of its flaming holiness and make it a maudlin emotion, without moral fiber or backbone. Jesus might have waved aside His Gethsemane and His Calvary with a sweep of the hand if He had followed such sophistry.” (Foulkes)

Andrew Murray wrote that “the great hindrance in the vine to fruit-bearing is wood-bearing.” Wood-bearing is selfish occupation with worldly interests, neglecting the great work of Christ’s kingdom, the helping and saving of others. The Christian is pruned by disappointment, by sickness, by failure, by sorrow, by poverty, and by many other forms of discipline, all of which tend to center the mind on spiritual things.

Illustration
Andrew Murray lived in South America and abounded in grape-vines. He said of them: “There is no other plant whose fruit and juice are so full of spirit, so quickening and stimulating. But there is also none of which the natural tendency is so entirely evil, none where the growth is so ready to run into wood that is utterly worthless except for the fire. Of all plants, not one needs the pruning knife so unsparingly and so unceasingly. None is so dependent on cultivation and training, but with this none yields a richer reward to the husbandman.”

There is a similarity of sound between the Greek word for “taketh away” (hairei) of the fruitless branch and the purging (kathairei) of the fruitful branch (Cambridge Bible). “In the East dressers wash the leaves and shoots and tendrils and clusters, each by itself in turn, so as to clear off the dust and mold” (Robinson). But the principal method of purging is by pruning (“purge” is used to express pruning in Old English books on husbandry). There is no tree that requires so much pruning as the vine. In the fall nearly all the branches are cut off, either close to the stem , or to the main branches, and during the summer the luxuriant growths are continually taken away so as to throw all the life and strength into the vine and into the fruit. Young vines are not allowed to bear fruit for three years. The fruit is thinned out so as to leave the rest to grow into perfection. “Never prop a fruit tree” is sound advice; let it bear only as much as can thriftily grow. Excessive bearing injures the vine. The poorer clusters are removed. The object of all this redemptive work, is in order that the soul

15:2 … “may bring forth more fruit.” Westcott pointed out that everything is removed from the branch that tends to divert the vital power from the production of fruit. This pruning explains the reason for many loses and trials we experience.

Practical application:
a. Vines are pruned because they are of value, and have greater possibilities than they have realized.

Illustrations
The artist sees greater perfection possible to his best picture. The metallurgist sees greater purity for gold, greater strength in steel, where the common observer sees perfection.

“It fares exactly so with God and some of His servants. Men seeing their graces, which so far exceed the graces of common men, wonder sometimes why they should suffer still, why they seem to be ever falling, form one trial to another. But He sees in them – what no other eye can perceive – the grace which is capable of becoming more gracious still; and in His far-looking love for His own, who shall praise Him not for a day, but for an eternity, He will not suffer them to stop short of the best whereof they are capable. They are fruit-bearing branches, and just because they are so He prunes them, that they may bring forth more fruit.” (Trench)

“In a large greenhouse where they raise the best roses I ever saw, often in the winter worth their weight in gold, I asked the florist why his roses were so much better than others. His reply was, ‘I love them so.’ But every one could see that he showed his love by great richness of soil, and close pruning. His whole object was to obtain not the most luxuriant vines, but the most and the best roses.” (Dr. William Harrison)

b. Thinning fruit aids perfection of fruit. Men sometimes try to bear more kinds of fruit than they are able to bear, and are tempted to prop the tree with tonics. They are overworked, overburdened, overtaxed. They try to do too many things, and so nothing well.

“The best way to shake the tree, and free it of the extra fruit is to prune, clip, cut, pluck, and reduce the fruit till it becomes manageable, and until the tree can support its burden, and then let every branch be loaded with fruit that comes to perfection, but not overloaded with fruit which never will reach its full development.” (Hastings)

c. The cleansing and pruning are the work of the Holy Spirit, through the discipline of life, through the limitations of life by the Divine providence, through the Word of God.

d. All the discipline of life is a pruning of the exuberant growth of the will, the feelings, the passions, the desires, and all the motive forces of our natures.

15:3 … “Now ye are clean.” Cleansed, as described in verse 2 – The result of the purging. “Clean” here means properly pruned, “in a condition to bear fruit” (Expositor’s Greek Testament). Perhaps Christ had some thought of His words in John 13:10, after the feet-washing.

In other words, as Clark pointed out, they are clean, yet (v. 2) need to be cleansed. They need daily purging in order to bear fruit, with a birth to which no uncleanness attaches (1 Pet. 1:23; Jas. 1:18), and, therefore, in regard to their standing before God, they are absolutely clean.

15:3 … “Through [R.V., “Because of”] the word which I have spoken unto you” i.e., the whole course of Christ’s teaching, which had purified their hearts and lives, and cut off their evil ways. “You are already cleansed from past sin through your acceptance of and obedience to My word” (Abbott). Conscious of their imperfections, their late strife, and their weakness, they might fear that they were not branches of the true vine. Jesus comforts them with the assurance that they are cleansed, that they are bearing fruit, though they may need further cleansing in order that they may bring forth more fruit.

All Jesus’ teaching and training for three years had been cleansing and pruning the disciples. Imperfect as they were, they were bearing good fruit and were prepared to bring forth a great deal more and a great deal better fruit, as we see in the Book of Acts.

15:4 … “Abide in me.” They were clean now, but the only way to keep clean was by abiding in Christ – fixing on Him their faith, hope, and their love, communing with Him in the Spirit even after He leaves them to return to His Father.

This is not a direction and a promise, equivalent to, if you abide in Me, I will abide in you; it is a twofold direction – abide in me; see to it that I abide in you. Abbott points out that it implies that “Christ’s indwelling in us is dependent on ourselves.” Thus, the Lord recognizes the moral freedom of His disciples.

Meyer proposes that instead of “abide,” we use a word more closely allied in meaning and in sound to the Greek, “Remain in Me and I in you,” i.e., and I will abide in you. Dobs suggested this: “Maintain your belief in Me, your attachment to Me, your derivation of hope, aim, and motive from Me, and I will abide in you, filling you with all the life you need to represent Me on earth.”

Ryle pointed out that to abide in Christ means to keep up a habit of constant and close communion with Him – to always be leaning on Him, resting on Him, pouring out our hearts to Him, and using Him as our fountain of life and strength. Souls grow by contact with other souls. The larger and fuller the Spirit with whom we come into touch, and the more the points of conduct, the more free and strong is our growth. Life kindles life, love awakens love, courage arouses courage, self-devotion inspires self-devotion; thought quickens thought; so that there is nothing in the universe like abiding in Christ to promote the growth of our souls in every good.

How may we abide in Him?
a. By faith
b. By communion with Him
c. By doing His will
d. By doing all with right motives for His sake
e. By loving Him
f. By the means of grace, the Word of God, prayer, the Lord's Day

How may we have Him abide with us?
a. By opening the door of our hearts
b. By receiving the Holy Spirit
c. By putting away all that is repulsive to Him
d. By yielding to His impulses

The Lord is saying to His disciples continue your connection with Me by trusting, loving, and obeying Me. After I am gone still continue in Me as you have done so far. As pointed out above, the larger and fuller the spirit with whom we come into touch, and the more the points of contact, the more free and strong is our growth.

llustrations
“The orator is conscious of the presence and appreciation of his audience, even when his intellect is most busily engaged in furnishing the thought which is always on the alert for the cry of her babe. So we may be fully occupied in thought and act, and yet our heart may be abiding in holy and blessed communion with our Lord.” (Meyer)

Phillips Brooks illustrates abiding in Christ by a child’s dependence on his father and a soldier’s complete submission to his general. “Christ is at once our Father and our Captain.”

15:4 … “And I in you.” If the disciples thus directed their faith and love toward Christ, He would direct toward them His power, wisdom, comfort, and courage. If they talked with Him, He would answer them. In other words, My power, knowledge, guidance, will flow through you and produce the fruit you are to bear in building up the kingdom of God. How? By the Holy Spirit, who guides into all truth, and by His Word abiding in you – all His teachings and promises.

“In that deep abiding in the vine on which our life depends, it is given us to hold fellowship both with the root that twines itself about the cross, and with the tendrils that stretch upward into glory.” (Gordon)

Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote: “Abide in me; there have been moments pure, When I have seen thy face and felt its power; Then evil lost its grasp, and, passion hushed, Owed the divine enchantment of the hour. These were but seasons beautiful and rare; Abide in me – and they shall ever be; I pray thee now fulfill my earnest prayer, Come and abide in me, and I in thee.”

15:4 … “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself [when it is cut off from the vine, and lies on the ground], except it abide in the vine; no more [R.V., “so neither”] can ye, except ye abide in me.”

“A Hindu fakir might make a branch seem to ‘bear fruit of itself,’ but it would be only seeming. The Creator Himself never made branches that would bear fruit unless they were vitally united to the vine. So long as I think of myself as a source of power and not a channel of power, I am hopelessly deceived.” (Foulkes)

The union between the branch of a vine and the main stem is the closest that can be conceived. Fyle pointed out that it is the whole secret of the branch’s life, strength, vigor, beauty, and fertility. We see by our Lord’s familiar illustration that since our life flows from Jesus, we cannot live spiritually apart from Him. All true spiritual fruit is the effect of His life flowing in us.

3. THE FRUIT OF A CHRISTIAN LIFE

“The Bible appears to exhaust all available figures in describing the intimate relationship that exists between the Lord and His own. The exquisite fitness of the one to the other is suggested by such relationships as hunger and bread, thirst and water, and the intimacy of their united lives is unveiled in the figures of the vine and its branches, the head and its members, the bridegroom and the bride.” (Jowett)

15:5 … “I am the vine, ye are the branches.” Jowett further states: “Christ can only express Himself through union with man. He wants to reveal to your family what gracious fruit is matured in the life that abides in Him. But He has no branches! He longs to express Himself in civic life. But does He always find the branch?”

15:5 ... “He that abideth in me … bringeth forth much fruit.” This saying is true of individuals, teachers, ministers, and local churches of our Lord. To be fruitful, to really make this world better, and do of it what Christ began on earth, we must abide in Him. No Christ-less church can truly be successful. Teach Christ, live Christ, abide in Christ, and the fruit is sure.

“No man can make things grow. He can get them to grow by arranging all the circumstances and fulfilling all the conditions, but the growing is the work of God . . . what man can do is to place himself in the midst of a chain of sequences. While man prays in faith, God acts by law.” (Drummond)

The free flow of sap, the nature of the soil, the wealth of sunshine, the carefulness of the culture, all have to do with the quantity and quality of the fruit.

15:5 … “Without Me [R.V., “apart from Me,” not simply without My help, but separated from Me as a branch cut off is separated from the vine] ye can do nothing” – nothing that is which is worthy to be called fruit-bearing; nothing pleasing to the Father.

“Without Him what is called success is a shadow. In other words, there will be no true good works, no true success. We may gather riches, reputation, power, but standing alone, apart from Him, we cannot turn these into eternal blessings for ourselves or for others.” (Westcott)

But with Christ strengthening us, as Paul said in Philippians 4:13, we can do all things.

Illustrations
Once a mother had her little daughter pick a beautiful lily and bring it to her. “Now,” her mother said, “lay it on the front step in the sun for a few minutes.” Later she sent the little girl for the lily, and she came back grieved because the lily was withered and spoiled. “That, my dear,” said the mother, “is what you would be if God were not with you every minute (condensed from Bibbs’s Polished Stones).

“In the Hebrew allegory, the fallen angels of Love regained the celestial light, because they confused their weakness, and crept back through the dark, dependently begging to find again what they had lost. But the fallen angels of Knowledge, confident in their vain boast of self-emanating luster, plunged obstinately on, until they sank into the pit, obscure and lost forever.” (Huntington)

The famous grape-vine of England’s Hampton Court is probably the largest in the world. As the keeper was telling how many thousand clusters it bore, someone said to him, “The grapes seem very small for Black Hamburgs.” “Yes,” he said, “an old vine cannot bear grapes or clusters as large as a younger one; but the grapes are sweeter and of finer flavor. They are kept for the queen’s use.” It is truly a comfort to know that though in lesser quantities, old age can still bear fruit for the Lord – fruit whose qualities are better and the flavor more heavenly.

One who imagines that he or she can get these things because of knowing how to get them, is about the same as trying to feed on a cookery book.

15:6 … “If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch” – cast out of the vineyard; cut off and thrown outside the vineyard into the brush-heaps for burning, hopelessly rejected.⁸

15:6 … “And is withered;” Loses its power of bearing fruit; in time loses even the appearance of life; so that it cannot possibly bear any fruit. This is true of individuals and of churches. Their life is lost apart from Christ; they wither away. An unfruitful branch is not “withered” immediately when broken off from its parent stock and stem; on the contrary, it remains a deceitful greenness and freshness for a little while; deceitful, because on all this the sentence of death has irrevocably passed. Local churches of our Lord through abandonment of the true faith and individuals who by unbelief and sin that springs up from unbelief have separated themselves from Christ their head. They both may, for a while, keep the show and semblance of life; but little by little, sooner or later, they come to an end of all they took with them (Trench).

15:6 … “And men [R.V. “they”] gather them and cast them into the fire.” Some commentators think that Jesus, leading His disciples through the Kedron vineyards to Gethsemane, saw men burning heaps of dead branches cut from the vines.

15:6 … “And they are burned.” As dead branches of a vine are burned; destroyed – no longer a part of the vineyard; separated from the fruit-bearing branches. “The essential truth that underlies the metaphor is simply this that the soul separated from Christ is separated from the source of spiritual life, and withers away; eventually destroyed.” (Abbott)

By a wonderful succession of terrible verbs, Christ pictures the fate of those that are separated from Him: taken away (v. 2), cast forth, withered, gathered, cast into the fire, and burned. What a warning for the disciples – and for us.

“[The barren branch] is cast forth in order to preserve the integrity of the vine. It is withered in order to show the judgment of barrenness in its very self. It is gathered, as the judgment of society upon fruitlessness. It is cast into the fire, which is the judgment of the husbandman.” (Foulkes)

15:7 … “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you.” Ryle pointed out that “to have His word abiding in us is to keep His sayings and precepts continually before our minds and memories, and to make them guide our actions and rule our daily conduct and behavior.”

“My words” here are equivalent to “I” of verse 4; Christ identifies Himself with His teaching; we are His friends if we do His commandments (v. 14). We are to “hold His words close to our own living, loving heart; study their significance; absorb their living force; breathe their spirit; conform our voluntary activities everymore to their demands.” (Cowles)

Illustrations
“There seems to be here a sort of faintly sketched picture of a solemn council-room in the heart of the true Christian, around which sit in beautiful and holy chairs the judges of our lives – the words of Jesus. Every act that the true Christian does is compelled to pass upon its way from conception to execution through that council-room, and every word of Jesus sitting in its place must give its sanction to every act.” (Brooks)

A visitor in a family where the man prayed fervently for the good and happiness of others, and his own holiness, but who went out and was cross to his workmen, and disagreeable to all, said to him, “I should think you must be a very disappointed man.” “Why?” “Because your morning prayer was so completely unanswered.

v. 7 helps us to understand the meaning, “And My words abide in you.” If you remember My teachings, if you live according to them, if you make them the guide of your lives, if My principles are your principles, My hopes your hopes, My aims your aims, then you abide in Me.

There are many analogies
The sun says to the Earth, “Abide in my rays, and then my rays will abide in you, through the flowers and fruits, animal and vegetable life, coal measures, through life and warmth and light.” The artist says to the student, “Stay with me, share my home, saturate yourself with my ideas and methods of expression, and I will give you my best self in return.”

Souls grow by contact with other souls. The larger and fuller the Spirit with whom we come into touch, and the more the points of contact, the more free and strong is our growth. Life kindles life, love awakens love, courage arouses courage, self-devotion inspires self-devotion; thought quickens thoughts. There is nothing in the universe like abiding in Christ to promote the growth of our souls in every good.

Illustrations
First, the story of Rappacini’s daughter in Hawthorne’s Mosses from an Old Manse.

Second, the scented clay (A Persian fable): “One day as I was in the bath, a friend of mine put in my hand a piece of scented clay. I took it, and said to it, ‘Art thou musk or ambergris? For I am charmed with thy perfume.’ It answered, ‘I was a despicable piece of clay, but I was some time in the company of the rose, and the sweet quality of my companion was communicated to me.”

15:7 … “Ye shall ask what ye will” R.V.: “ask whatever ye will.” It will be Christ’s will as well as yours, since Christ is dwelling in you, influencing your desires. Because what we ask for is so imbued with God’s will that we will only ask what is God’s will to give; what will bring Him glory; that which is in submission to His wisdom and love.

15:7 … “And it shall be done unto you.” Of course, God answer a Christian’s prayer virtually as though it was prayer by His well-beloved Son. Francis Wayland believed that “if a man love and serve God, his prayers will infallibly prevail.” While that is true, still one must never forget that even though God’s well-beloved Son Himself prayed in Gethsemane that the cup before Him be taken away, still, He suffered and died on Calvary.

It is chiefly by prayer that this abiding is to be maintained and kept alive. “What richer promise could the wanting-soul frame for itself? What more should the children of poverty and need desire than the privilege of asking what one will, to be granted him?” (Cowles) People often lament, and sometimes even complain, that their prayers are not answered. Are they anxiously maintaining this union and this usefulness (v. 16)? Broadus asked, “Do they wish God to answer a prayer that is not ‘according to His will’”? No promise could be more adapted to the wants of this little band going forth like sheep among wolves, amid unknown dangers and trials, to bring in the greatest kingdom ever known, to conquer the invincible Roman Empire, and the human heart – the most difficult of all to conquer.

Illustration
“A great bell was once made to vibrate by a slender flute. The bell was not influenced by the flute except when a certain note was sounded, and then it at once responded. So when our prayers are in harmony with God’s will, they at once elicit a Divine response.” (Judson)

15:8 … “Herein [in the abundance of the fruit they bear] is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit.” In the fruitfulness of the vine lies the joy and glory of the husbandman (Westcott). Christians are God’s representatives on earth, and therefore the greater their virtues, the more good they do; the larger and more perfect their success in saving men from sin, the more God is honored.

Our fruit-bearing is to God’s glory because it comes through God’s grace and power poured out on us as through His Son, Jesus Christ. As Christians, we know that our good deeds are not to our credit, but to Christ’s.

Illustration
It is told of the old preacher Franklin that he chose for his signet-ring a tree, and a verse from the first psalm for the motto. And when near his end, being asked by his son for some word of condensed wisdom to be treasured in remembrance of him, and ever to serve as a prompter to duty, he whispered to him only this, “Fruitful” (Robinson).

15:8 … “So [R.V.: “and so”] shall ye be [become] my disciples.” Literally, “Ye shall become My disciples.” Westcott pointed out that “a Christian never ‘is,’ but always ‘is becoming’ a Christian. And it is by his fruitfulness that he indicates his claim to the name.” We are learners in the school of Christ, followers of His teaching.

Illustration
Two friends were walking through a garden and one asked the name of a particular tree. The answer came, “It’s an apple-tree.” “But,” he said, “I see no fruit.” “No,” came the reply, “it never bears any fruit, but it is very ornamental.” There are too many so-called Christians like that tree.

Much fruit shows:
a. That they are like Christ, who bore much fruit.
b. It shows that they abide in Him, or they could not bear such fruit.
c. It shows that they have learned of Him.
d. It shows that they obey Him. By the much fruit men would take knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus, and they would have assurance in themselves that they were His disciples, and were becoming more and more completely His.

Observe:
a. Every true Christian will aim at great things, and should ask for great things, and expect great things.
b. Our principle of conduct should not be to do as little as we can, but to do as much as we possibly can (Jacobus).

4. PERSEVERANCE IN FRUIT-BEARING

15:9 … “As [R.V.: “Even as”] the Father hath loved me [God’s love alone made it possible for Christ to do what He did for us], so have I loved you:” R.V.: “I also have loved you.” This is a marvelous statement of the measure and quality of Christ’s love for us. It is true, warm, personal, seeking our best good, unfailing. When we wish to know how much Jesus loves us, let us remember how much the Father loves His only begotten Son.

15:9 … “Continue ye in my love.” “Continue” or “abide” is the same Greek word used so often in these verses – three times in v. 4, twice each in vs. 7, 10, and once each in vs. 5, 6, 9, 16. It is variously translated in the common version, but always “abide” in the Revised.

As Christ was leaving His disciples, He had no greater anxiety than that they should persevere in the work He had set for them to do, continuing His own work for men. As God’s love was Christ’s motive power, so Christ’s love was to be their motive power, insuring their perseverance if they would only continue to love Christ. “My love” means both Christ’s love for the disciples and their love for Him.

“My love” is Christ’s love for us, not ours to Him. To abide in His love is to rest our souls continually on it, being assured that it is exercised toward us – as G. W. Clark stated: “to live and labor under a constant sense of it, being fully persuaded that nothing shall separate us from the love of Christ” (Rom. 8:35-39).

15:10 … “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love.” This is the way to “abide in” His “love,” and the proof that we are abiding in it. The natural and necessary effect of abiding in His love is to keep His commandments. Christ implies that if He yielded Himself to God’s commandments, they should not hesitate to yield to Christ’s commandments; and if Christ found that the result of obedience to God was that He continued to

15:10 … “Even as I have kept my Father’s commandments.” A complete adoption of the Father’s will by the Son, and of the Son’s will by us; and this is not spoken of as a proof of love, “but as the condition which makes continued love possible” (Schaff). Jesus does not ask His disciples to do what He Himself does not do. And His example proves that there is no other way for them.

15:10 … “Abide in his love,” they might confidently expect the same result to come from obedience to Christ’s commandments.

15:11 … “These things have I spoken [by comparing vs. 17; 16:25, 33 we see that this verse forma a conclusion to the allegory of the vine] unto you that my joy might remain in you.” R.V.: “may be in you”. Christ’s joy was in doing His Father’s will (John 4:34), obeying God’s commandments; and His joy would enter their lives and remain there on the same terms. “The joy of Christ, like the peace of Christ, is something strangely unlike that which commonly bears the name. His peace was maintained in the very shock of conflict; His joy was felt in the very depth of sorrow.” (Westcott)

If they obeyed them, then the purpose and effect of His teachings would be a joy in them like the joy He felt. “‘My joy’ is the joy which He Himself experiences in feeling Himself the object of His Father’s love. Joy, like His, having the same source in God, and the same quality, enduring and invincible.” (Godet)

15:11 … “And that your joy might be full.” Or fulfilled; grow more perfect; have every quality of true joy; increase in quality and abundance, till you are full of joy, having all your nature can contain.

The joy of Christ:
a. This joy is the joy of a free activity in doing right, like the joy of motion in health, like the song of a bird in the morning.

b. This joy is the joy of entire consecration and submission to God.

c. This joy is the joy of doing good, of self-denial for others.

d. This joy is the joy of perfect faith in a wise and loving God, committing everything to His care.

e. This joy is joy in the conscious love of God to us, communion and friendship with Him.

f. This joy is the joy of loving others.

g. This joy is the joy of seeing others saved.

h. This joy is the joy of victory.

i. In the end, outward delights and pleasures to correspond with the inward joy.

This answers many of the objections made to religion:
a. One says that religion is sour and gloomy, driving men out of every temple of pleasure with a whip of small cords, and posting “no trespassing here” against every field of delight. The answer is, “My joy in you, and your joy full.”

b. Another says, “You are continually talking of the happiness of religion. It is merely another form of selfishness.” The answer is, “Christ’s joy in us.”

c. Others say, “Your joy is wonderful, but it does not endure – a mere passing cloud, or morning dew.” The answer is, “Christ’s joy, which endures forever, and which remains in His disciples.”

15:12 … “This is my commandment.” “Perhaps they expected minute, detailed instructions such as they had received when first sent out (Matt. 10). Instead of this, love was to be their sufficient guide” (Expositor’s Greek Testament). This is the great universal law of His kingdom.

15:12 … “That ye love one another.” “Like as every lord gives a livery to his servants, whereby they may be known that they pertain unto him, so our Lord would have His servants known by their liveries and badge, which badge is love alone.” (Hugh Latimer, martyred in 1555) Bring all branches of the same vine, the same life flows through all; all have a similar nature, and that nature like Christ’s, which both loves and attracts love.

15:12 … “As [R.V.: “even as”] I have loved you.” “His love was at once the source and the measure of theirs.” (Expositor’s Greek Testament)

With the same unselfish, warm, and personal devoted love as He feels toward them. This is the measure of their love to one another. Where this is the law, there the church of our Lord has peace, works together, draws many to the Christ they love. “This is at once the standard, or measure, and also the motive of this command” (Cowles). It has been called “the eleventh commandment.” Love sums up our relation to Christ and to our fellow-men. How had Christ loved them? v. 13 is the answer.

15:13 … “Greater love hath no man than this [Christ would have His disciples understand something of His love for them, which was to be the inspiration of their love for Him], that a man lay down his life [like a cast-off garment] for his friends.” But Christ’s love was greater than man’s love, for He laid down His life for His foes (Rom. 5:6-10).

No man can show greater love to his friends. It does not say that this is the highest manifestation of love. For that is in giving His life for His enemies (Rom. 5:6-8).

Beware of reading into “that a man lay down his life for his friends” as though laying down the life was equivalent to dying. To die for a friend is not the greatest manifestation of love; to live for him by consecrating the whole life to him, is far greater. As Christ consecrates not only His earthly life, but, in His intercession with us and for us, His eternal life, to His friends, so, if we are His friends, we shall lay down our lives for Him, not necessarily by dying for Him, but by doing whatsoever He commands us; that is, by living for Him (Abbott). But it implies that we will die for Him and for one another, if necessary.

Who are His friends? v. 14 is the answer.

15:14 … “Ye are my friends.” The disciples had this assurance to comfort them through all the trials that Christ foresaw coming on them. Christ was their Friend, and He would see them through. “I look upon you as friends for whom I die; but ye too must prove yourselves My friends by doing My commandments, i.e., loving one another according to the degree set forth by My sacrificial love, in so far as that is designed as a patter for you.” (Lange)

15:14 … “If ye do whatsoever I command you.” R.V.: not so strong, “the things which I command you.” Christ said this, not to discourage the disciples, but to hearten them. Their trials would come as they obeyed His commandments, and He assured them that this obedience made His friendship certain. “The measure of your love to Christ will be found in the measure in which you overcome easily besetting sins.” (Beecher)

Obedience is the test and the expression of true friendship of disciples toward their Lord and Teacher.

15:15 … “Henceforth, I call you not servants” (literally, “slaves”). Christ had never called the disciples that, but they had called Him their Lord and Master [John 13:13], which amounted to the same thing); “He receives his allotted task but is not made acquainted with the ends his master wishes to serve by his toil. He is animated by no sympathy with his master’s purpose nor by any personal interest in what he is doing.” (Expositor’s Greek Testament)

They are to serve Him, as these chapters and verses point out: 13:13; 14:15, 23; and 15:10. But, it is not a service to be performed in a servile way. It is not service in a blind, unquestioning obedience to an unknown authority – merely from a sense of duty.

15:15 … “For the servant [slave] knoweth not what his lord doeth.” A servant does not know all his master’s will; he is expected simply to execute his commands without knowing the reason why they are given.

15:15 … “But I have called you friends.” As God called Abraham His friend (Is. 41:8); as Christ bestowed the same loving name on Lazarus (John 11:11).

“You” is emphatic, I take you into My counsels, I reveal to you My plans, and you serve Me, because you love Me, and carry out My plans. The highest service in the world is that of friendship and love. And this is the high privilege of all Christ’s disciples.

Illustration
“Xenophon tells us that when Cyrus gave Artabazus, one of his courtiers, a cup of gold, he gave Chryanthus, his favorite, nothing but a kiss, which occasioned this speech from Artabazus to Cyrus: ‘Sir, the cup you gave me was not so good gold as the kiss you gave Chrysanthus.’ There is no gift in the universe so rich and precious as the friendship of Jesus Christ.” (Banks)

15:15 … “For all things that I have heard of my Father [especially the greatest of all things, Christ’s mission to this world for the saving of men⁹], I have made known unto you.” All of Christ’s teachings were not His own, as He clearly said in John 8:28, but were taught Him by His Father.

Illustration
James I. Robertson wrote that Robert E. Lee’s confidence rested on history. In one of Lee’s letters to a wartime aide, he wrote: “The truth is this: The march of Providence is so slow and our desires so impatient; the work of progress is so immense and our means of aiding it so feeble; the life of humanity is so long, [and] that of the individual so brief, that we often see only the ebb of the advancing wave and are thus discouraged. It is history that teaches each of us to hope.”

15:16 … “Ye have not chosen me.” R.V.: “Ye did not choose me.” If they had, they might easily become discouraged, distrusting their own wisdom in the choice, fearing they had made a mistake.

15:16 … “But I have chosen you.” Knowing all your weakness and failings, foreseeing what tests you will be exposed to, and yet selecting you as followers who can be depended on. “A sense of being personally chosen of God is the best support of personal courage.” (Richards)

Pupils among the Jews at this time generally selected their own rabbi or teacher; Jesus reverses the order, and calls His disciples (Matt. 4:18-22; Mark 2:14). Their appointment to this high office was purely of grace. As G. W. Clark pointed out, “They were not His champions, noble of birth, powerful in influence, or of great wealth, but chosen vessels to whom He was pleased to commit the great treasurers of the Gospel (2 Corinthians 4:7).” However, some may have place a wrong emphasis on this truth, or made it narrower than the Gospel does, yet the truth itself has always had mighty power over the hearts of men. To believe that we are in the place ordained for us by the wisdom of God; that God cared so much for us that from all eternity He planned out our lives for us; that not chance, that not short-sighted human beings, not demons, but the ever-wise, ever-loving God is always near to help and, if we allow Him, to plan our lives, is a source of great comfort and power.

15:16 … “And ordained [R.V.: “appointed”] you [as a general selects his soldiers or a President his cabinet¹⁰], that ye should go [on the missions that He shall send you] and bring forth fruit.” Here Christ returns to the original comparison. This it is to which He ordained, or placed, appointed them. The fruit is good works, souls converted, a kingdom founded.

“As in adoring faith I see my personal life embraced in God’s eternal purpose in Christ, as the heavenly truth possesses me that I have been appointed to bear fruit, not in virtue of my fitness or my having offered myself for it, but because God and Christ saw fit to choose me for it, the call to give myself up to live alone for this comes with irresistible urgency, and the confidence is begotten that I can bear just as much fruit as God would have me do.” (Murray)

15:16 … “And that your fruit should remain.” Your work shall endure. The kingdom you found shall never end.

Illustrations
Robertson further wrote regarding Lee that few college presidents ever worked harder for the religious good of the students. To one local minister, Lee said: “I shall fail in the leading object that brought me here, unless these young men become real Christians.” To another minister, Lee repeated similar thoughts: “I dread the thought of any student going away from the college without becoming a sincere Christian.”

15:16 … “That whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name.” “To pray in Christ’s name is not to use His name as a charm or talisman simply, as though the bare repetition of it were all that is required to open the treasures of infinite grace. Let us not degrade this dearest promise of our Lord into such a superstition as that. The Jewish cabalists believed that the pronunciation of certain magical words engraved on the seal of Solomon would perform miracles. That was incantation. And we in like manner make Christian incantation of this sublimest privilege of the Gospel if we put such an interpretation as this upon Christ’s words. The name of Christ stands for Christ Himself. And to pray in the name of Christ is to pray in Christ, in the mind and spirit and will of Christ.” (Gordon)

15:16 … “He shall give it you.” So, their power to bring forth fruit will be assured. This is the culminating point of the climax. This is the result of their service as friends, and of their bringing forth fruit. Whatsoever they may need in this service, let them go to the Father, and He will grant it to them. “This high privilege was conditioned in v. 7 on permanent union with Christ, and is here conditioned on permanent usefulness in His service.” (Broadus)

Illustration
The Empress Josephine said that the happiest day in her life was when she found a poor woman in tears, and asked how she might help her. “Oh, no one could help me,” the woman answered. “It is impossible. It would require four hundred francs to save our vineyard and our goats.” Josephine at once counted out the money, and the woman’s gratitude made that the happiest day in the Empress’s life.

“But all God’s life is filled with days like that. His name is Love. He delights to hear our prayer, to answer it, to relieve and to enrich us” (Burrell).
Jesus, immutably the same,

Thou true and living Vine,
Around Thy all-supporting stem
My feeble arms I twine.

Quickened by Thee and kept alive
I flourish and bear fruit;
My life I from Thy sap derive,
My vigor from Thy root.
(Dr. William Harrison)

Illustration
A young Bible school student’s conception of joy was that it was a thing made in lumps and kept somewhere in heaven, and that when people prayed for it, pieces were somehow let down and fitted into their souls. In reality joy is as much a matter of cause and effect as pain. No one can get joy by merely asking for it. It cannot be gained by a conjuring trick, or tying it on, like grapes to a vine, or fruit to a tree. It is one of the ripest fruits of the Christian life, and, like all fruits, must be grown. So, here it is: Fruit first, joy next – Fruit-bearing is the necessary antecedent.

Footnotes:
¹ For more information on Jesus Christ, see God the Son in Contents section of StudyJesus.com.
² For more information on the Holy Spirit, see God the Spirit in Contents section of StudyJesus.com.
³ For more information on the Church, see God’s Church, in Contents section of StudyJesus.com.
⁴ For more information on the Godhead, see God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit in Contents section of StudyJesus.com.
⁵ See Delitzsch in “Expositor,” Third Series, iii., p. 68; and in his “Iris,” pp. 180-190. The discovery of “Teaching of the Apostles” shows how frequently “the vine of David” was used as a metaphor for Christ the son of David.
⁶ See Luke 13:6-9.
⁷ See v. 6, as well as Matthew 21:19, 20.
⁸ See Isaiah 27:11; Ezekiel 15:5.
⁹ See Matthew 11:27.
¹⁰ See 1 Corinthians 12:28; Acts 20:28, etc.

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