Illustration of the vine and the branches
15
📚“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. 15:1 In the Old Testament the nation Israel is compared to a vine. See Ps 80:8-17; Isa 5:1-7; Jer 2:21; Ezek 15:1-8; 19:10-14; Hos 10:1-2. But it turned out to be a corrupt, wild vine, not producing the fruit God wanted. It behaved as a false or unreal vine. By saying He is the true vine, Jesus teaches that He, and not the corrupt nation, is the source of true spiritual life and fruitfulness. The one who “planted” Him on earth and takes care of the “branches”, is God the Father.⚜
2 📚Every branch in me that bears no fruit he takes away, 📖 and he prunes 📖 every branch that bears fruit, that it might bear more fruit.
15:2 The subject of this illustration is the fruitfulness of believers, not their salvation (vs 4,5,8). Jesus does not here define the kind of fruit God wants, but it is seen in other places in the Bible (Matt 3:8; Rom 6:22; Gal 5:22-23; Eph 5:9; Phil 1:11; Heb 6:7-10; Prov 11:30). Many professing Christian workers who point to what they call success in the ministry are proud, unholy, dishonest, unkind, and unspiritual. Jesus does not call their seeming success “fruit”. The fruit God wants to see is believers becoming like Christ, and serving like Christ.⚜
3 “Now you are clean through the word which I have spoken to you.
15:3 See John 13:10; 17:17; Eph 5:26; 1 Pet 1:22; Ps 119:9, 11. The Word of God properly applied to minds, hearts, wills and consciences will produce a cleansing.⚜
4 📚Remain in me, and I will remain in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it remains in the vine, so you also cannot, unless you remain in me.
15:4 Compare vs 9,10. The word “remain” (or “abide”) means to stay in one place. It is used ten times in vs 4-10. This is some indication of its importance in this context. The one place believers are to stay in is Christ. Stay in Him as plants in the ground of His love (Eph 3:17), as members of His body (1 Cor 12:12-13), as stones in His temple (Eph 2:20-22), as members of His household (Heb 3:6), and as branches in Him the Vine. He tells believers to stay in Him. Does this imply that they may not or that some will not? Not necessarily. It implies that God will enable them to do so – otherwise He would not command it. It implies also that He wants them to know their freedom. Remaining in Christ is something believers do consciously, willingly. They are not puppets or robots. God wants them to apply their minds and wills to the business of being Christians.
The spiritual life is not automatic but dynamic. It is not a life of mutual compulsion between Christ and His people but one of mutual love. Believers are in Christ and remain in Him because they want to do so. He chose them and they choose to follow Him. They love Him. Their freedom does not cause them to leave Christ but to remain in Him. Compare John 6:67-68. Christ’s true disciples, in a sense, were free to go away from Him just as the others did, but they would not. And it was God’s work in them that produced this determination not to go away. See Phil 1:6; 2:12-13. And what God did in them He does in all believers. 1 John 2:24 reveals the way we can be sure of remaining in Christ – we must let His truth remain in us and continue to believe what He revealed.⚜
5 📚I am the vine, you are the branches. He who remains in me, and I in him, he will bear much fruit. 📖 For without me you can do nothing. 6 📚If a man does not remain in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers. And men gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.
15:6 He is speaking of what happens to literal branches cut from a vine. He does not say that some believers may not remain in Him and that if they do not they will be burned in the fires of hell. That will be the fate of unbelievers, like Judas Iscariot, but not of believers. See Matt 3:10, 12; Rev 21:8. If any believer fears it might happen to him let him be sure to take hold of all the truth Christ taught and remain in Him. Then he will certainly not fall away.⚜
7 📚“If you remain in me and my words remain in you, you will ask what you want, 📖 and it will be done for you. 8 📚My Father is glorified in this, that you bear much fruit; so you will be my disciples.
15:8 Fruit bearing is not for the honor of the one who bears the fruit, but for the glory of God. In other words, God is glorified by His work in believers. Compare Matt 5:16; 1 Cor 1:31; 4:7; 10:31; Phil 1:11. The person who seeks honor from men because of what he thinks is fruit bearing is not yet bearing the kind of fruit God wants.⚜
9 📚As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Remain in my love. 📖
15:9 See John 5:20. Since Christ’s love for His people is like the Father’s love for Him, we may be sure it is deep, true, everlasting, and indescribably wonderful.⚜
10 📚If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.
15:10 See John 14:15, 21, 23. Those who love Christ will obey His commands, and those who obey His commands will remain in His love. Here is a circle of love very meaningful to those inside it, but incomprehensible to those without. Believers are to settle down in this new dwelling place of God’s love and get better and better acquainted with the Master of the house by doing what He says. Observe that Christ Himself remained in the Father’s love by obedience. And believers will remain in His love in the same way. No doubt some believers are more obedient than others. Perhaps none are always completely obedient (Jam 3:2), and none completely disobedient. The extent to which they are obedient will affect how much they will consciously experience and enjoy His love.⚜
11 📚“These things I have said to you that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.
15:11 Jesus was the “man of sorrows” (Isa 53:3). In the Gospels it is written that He wept (John 11:35; Luke 11:41), but never that He laughed. Did He have joy? Certainly – a deep inner joy that had nothing to do with outward circumstances (John 17:13; Luke 10:21). It was a joy that came from perfect obedience to God’s will (compare John 4:34). This joy He wants all of His people to experience. And obedience is the only way to experience it. What joy can there be if our consciences are always condemning us for disobedience?⚜
12 📚This is my command, that you love one another, as I have loved you.
15:12 See John 13:34. Repeated for emphasis.⚜
13 📚No man has love greater than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
15:13 He is speaking of what He Himself was about to do. See John 10:11, 17, 18. He died also for His enemies (Rom 5:6-10), but that is not the point here. He is speaking to His friends and saying that the greatest proof of His love to them is the laying down of His life. See also 1 John 3:16.⚜
14 📚You are my friends, if you do whatever I command you.
15:14 God incarnate looks for friends. Here He defines what true friendship with Himself means – obedience. In other words, this friendship is not among equals – one is the Lord from heaven, the others are mere men called to follow Him. Rebellion, disobedience and refusal to obey are not marks of friendship but of enmity against God. In the kind of friendship of which Jesus speaks there must be oneness of mind, heart, and purpose.⚜
15 📚From now on, I will not call you servants, because the servant does not know what his lord is doing. But I have called you friends, for everything that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.
15:15 Christ’s disciples are not like ignorant slaves who must obey, but knowledgeable friends who want to obey. See here that Christ again states that His teachings were a direct revelation from God the Father – John 7:16-17; 12:49; 17:6-8.⚜
16 📚“You have not chosen me, but I have chosen 📖 you, and ordained you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, 📖 so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, 📖 he may give it to you. 17 📚These things I command you, that you love one another.
15:17 Verse 12; John 13:34. Repeated again for further emphasis.⚜
The character of this world
18 📚If the world 📖 hates you, 📖 you know that it hated me before it hated you. 19 📚If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own. But you do not belong to the world. I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
20 📚“Remember the word I spoke to you, ‘The servant is not greater than his lord.’ If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they have kept my word, they will keep yours also.
15:20 See John 13:16. Christ’s servants have no right to expect better treatment than Christ had to endure (1 Pet 4:1). The world will sometimes show its hatred by persecuting God’s people. But some individuals in the world will receive Christ’s teaching. We see both of these truths fully illustrated in the book of Acts.⚜
21 📚But they will do all these things to you for my name’s sake, because they do not know him who sent me.
15:21 The world has gods and lords in abundance, but does not know the one true God (John 8:19, 55; 16:3; Acts 17:22-23; 1 Cor 1:21; Eph 4:18). This ignorance is not the same as the ignorance spoken of by Advaita Vedanta. That teaches that man’s spirit and God’s Spirit are one and the same, and that ignorance of this keeps men in bondage, and knowledge of it liberates them. This whole idea is completely opposed to the teaching of the Bible. See also John 10:30.⚜
22 📚If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin. 📖 But now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 📚He who hates me hates my Father also.
15:23 Again He speaks of the absolute oneness of God the Father and the only Son of God – John 10:30; 13:20; 14:9-10. The person who loves and serves the one, loves and serves the other. The person who rejects and hates the one, rejects and hates the other.⚜
24 📚If I had not done among them deeds which no other man did, they would not have sin. But now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father.
15:24 Moses and the prophets of the Old Testament did mighty miracles but none had done what Jesus did – giving sight to the blind, feeding great multitudes with a handful of food, raising a man who had been dead four days, etc. The Jews rejected Him in the face of great evidence that He was the Son of God from heaven (John 5:31-40). This was the one sin that made it impossible for God to forgive the rest of their sins. The hatred of God, that often lies unrevealed in the sinful heart of men (Rom 8:7), in their case was brought out into the open.⚜
25 📚But this happens that the word that is written in their Law might be fulfilled, ‘They hated me without a cause.’
26 📚“But when the Comforter 📖 is come, whom I will send 📖 to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes out from the Father, he will testify 📖 about me. 27 📚And you also will testify, 📖 because you have been with me from the beginning.