John 15
“I am the true vine and My Father is the vineyard keeper. Every branch in Me that does not produce fruit He removes, and He prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in Me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in Me.” John 15: 1-4
In the Bible, both Israel and Jesus are described as “the vine”. The references are too extensive to list here, but a few are: Psalm 80: 8-16, Hosea 10:1, Isaiah 5: 1-7, Mt 21: 33-43, Rom 9:6-8
In today’s passage, Jesus informs us that He is the true Vine. That is, Israel has drawn its life, historically through Him. Some would say that statement is blasphemous, because the vine of Israel drew its nourishment & produced its fruit from God. That thinking obviously rejects the deity of Jesus, and it is ignorant of the 1st chapter of John’s Gospel…that everything was created by Jesus.
Therefore, Israel, not being a vine unto itself, has always been subject to the vineyard keeper’s desire, either to prune or remove it from the greater Vine.
At times in Jesus’ earthly ministry, there were hundreds…even thousands…of disciples. Jesus was communicating that in order to be saved, our intellectual belief in Him must be accompanied by a faith that leads to obedience. Furthermore, our obedience, empowered by His Spirit will produce fruit. A sign of our salvation is the fruit we bear in His Kingdom.
The Lord would never give us a command that was impossible to accomplish. Bearing true spiritual fruit is impossible by human means, but we can do all things through Messiah who strengthens us! Phil 4: 13
Branches that do not bear fruit have an obvious disconnect from the life-giving Vine. It is up to the vine keeper to determine whether the branch is dead, or simply needs pruning.
Even the branches which bear fruit are in need of “pruning”. That is to say, don’t be satisfied with your present level of fruit production! Christians should not be proud. When we are connected to the Vine, our ability to bear fruit is solely from the vine.
The Lord is always revealing “sin caches”, those un-surrendered areas which hinder our ability to produce fruit for His Kingdom. If your obedience to the Lord is matched with a level of pain, perhaps the Lord is pruning you. He may be building up your faith by placing you in situations where you must be faithful, thus raising your ability to bear fruit for Him.
Blessings.
Steve Wiggins
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1 Jeff Presley // Mar 31, 2008 at 11:01 am
Something about this passage that I missed for years — of course “the fruit” is the fruit of the Holy Spirit that is manifest through us, but also that we should be bearing fruit as in reproducing disciples. Not zillions of shallow relationships but the slow & steady, few people we are reproducing ourselves in and through. As Jesus modeled with the few and Paul did with Timothy and Timothy did with the “faithful men” … passing it on, could be your kids & wife, could be someone at work or school, but we are to have our antenna up, asking Him who he would have us pour ourselves into, “Lord give me eyes to see that person who is laying awake at night asking if you are real”. Thanks Steve for encouraging us & passing on what we are learning!
Herb Hodges teaches - The word “disciple” is the Greek word “mathetes,” you can see the root form of our word “mathematics.” There is a mathematical standard suggested in the word itself, this standard is revealed in the Book of Acts. He expects each believer to impact the world by building growing disciples who will multiply numerically through future generations.
There is nothing more Christ-like a believer can do with his life than making disciples, this is the way Jesus spent His public ministry. Probably 85% of the activities of Jesus recorded in the Gospels concern His training of the twelve men who would lead in the spreading of His movement over the whole world.
What will you do with the potential that is built into you as a believer – will you investigate, develop and invest the resources that comprise that potential, or will you ignore and bury those resources and the potential? Will your potential live again in others through disciple-making, or will it be buried in your coffin with you after you die?
Abide in Christ and bear much fruit!
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