THE BOOK OF JOHN, Chapter 15 – Jesus is the Vine, Disciple’s Relationships

 

THE BOOK OF JOHN, Chapter 15

Jesus is the Vine, Disciple’s Relationships

This book of John should be required reading for every Christian and perhaps even those who would consider following Jesus. If there were levels of Jesus’ teachings, like in institutions of higher learning, this would be among the most advanced. Jesus has opened the doorway, the portal, to the Kingdom of God for everyone who believes and follows Him. He explains our relationships with Him, the Father, one another and the world, which you will see, when kept in context, empowers the believer with and unleashes the power and authority of God into the believer and onto this world – and nothing is impossible for those who believe, in the calling, cause and mission of God.

Jesus Is the Vine—Followers Are Branches

John 15:1, I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Verse 2. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.

(Commentary Break): How does The Creator explain the highest of Spiritual Truths and give instructions in its use in the lowly language of the created?

I am the vine is another way of saying ‘I am your source, and your supply for all that you will need; I am the giver of life to all living creatures, and I am your way and life and the support system that will hold you up in your mission.

My Father is the vinedresser is saying that He is The Supreme Creator, The Orchestrator of all things. This also establishes the Grand Order, from higher to lower. Your willing submission to Him and His Authority will allow you to receive authority from above.

Every Branch describes our place in this order of things. God is the giver of all things we receive from Him.

These are metaphors and similes revealing some of the deepest and most profound hidden oracles of God meant for the believer. You are a weak, impotent shell of what God intends without these truths in your heart, mind, soul and spirit and being manifest in your natural body. (End Commentary Break):

Verse 3. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.

(Commentary Break): Such is the mystery! This is revealed in the Greek language it was written. The word ‘clean’ from the Greek language is the word ‘katharos’ which more literally means to be made clean, pure and clear having been purified by fire. I.e., your soul has been cauterized by the Word (Logos – the Word of God; the Living Word; the indwelling Christ), which Jesus has ‘spoken’ (laleo), as The Creative Word into you. When you receive this Word, the old dross within you is burned out of you and you are transformed by fire into a new creature being made into His image, to do His Work to bring Him honor and glory.

There is simply no way to overstate the magnificence and importance of this. (End Commentary Break).

Verse 4. Remain in Me, and I in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself but must remain in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in Me. Verse 5. I am the vine, you are the branches; the one who remains in Me, and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.

(Commentary Break): Jesus is cautioning us, His followers and believers that we are to abide, that is we must continue to tarry, to endure and to be ever present in Him in order to bear His fruit, both spiritual fruit (love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, patience, faithfulness, gentlene3ss and self-control), and the natural fruit of His Works, Otherwise it is not possible for us to bear His fruit and we become weak and will suffer from our own efforts.

Once again Jesus reminds us that He is the vine: our source, our supply for all that we will need; He is the giver of life and the way to an abundant life and He is our support system that will hold you up in your mission and safe from the adversary.

Apart from Him, you and I can do nothing. (End Commentary Break).

Verse 6. If anyone does not remain in Me, he is thrown away like a branch and dries up; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. Verse 7. If you remain in Me, and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

(Commentary Break): These two verses can be controversial in religious academic circles arguing matters of eternal security. But considering the example of Judas Iscariot, “one who was named among the twelve” and followed Jesus who betrayed Jesus, was found out to be traitor of the faith and was condemned to eternal judgment, the meaning is clear.

If you do not remain in Him, if you turn back (see Luke 9:62, Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”), you are in grave danger of being thrown away (ballo exo), cast out, into the fire (pyr), the destructive fire of judgement to be burned (kaio) up (destroyed).

By great contrast, Jesus says, “If, ( however), you remain in Me, and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. (There are those who foolishly believe and teach that you might use this promise and authority to ‘spend it on your own flesh’, do not be deceived.) All of this is intended, of course, within the context of The Greatest of Commandments, the Great Commission and the teaching of Jesus. (End Commentary Break).

Verse 8. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. Verse 9. Just as the Father has loved Me, I also have loved you; remain in My love. Verse 10. If you keep My commandments, you will remain in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and remain in His love. Verse 11. These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.

(Commentary Break): Herein lie the steps in the pathway to God and into His eternal presence.

(1). The Purpose: My Father is glorified by this, (2), that you bear much fruit, and so (3), prove to be My disciples.

How is this to happen? (1), If you keep My, (Jesus’), commandments, (2), you will remain in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and remain in His love.

You and I will manage to obey His commandments (ONLY) if we remain in His Love. I.e., abide, live moment-by-moment, tarry in continually. (This is no easy task. It is an act, a demonstration and the proof of our love for Him). He is saying that we can have the same relationship with Jesus as Jesus has with God the Father. (Let that and all it means sink into you mind, heart and soul). In this your joy is made full – just as it is written: “THINGS WHICH EYE HAS NOT SEEN AND EAR HAS NOT HEARD, AND WHICH HAVE NOT ENTERED THE HUMAN HEART, ALL THAT GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM.” This phrase is a biblical reference from 1 Corinthians 2:9, which expresses that the wonderful things God has prepared for those who love Him are beyond human understanding or imagination. It emphasizes the greatness of God’s plans for believers. (End Commentary Break).

Disciples’ Relation to Each Other

Verse 12. “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Verse 13. Greater love has no one than this, that a person will lay down his life for his friends. Verse 14. You are My friends if you do what I command you. Verse 15. No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, because all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.

(Commentary Break): This is neither a suggestion nor a law that can be abrogated with the consequence of estrangement – a loss of relationship. We are to love one another, as Christians, the same way (attitude, speech, behavior and acts of charity) – even to the point of laying down our lives for one another, as Christ Jesus has done for us.

Tragically, this is hardly the example we see within the walls of the contemporary church. But, this is nothing new: See 2 Timothy 3:1, which was written in or around A.D. 64 to A.D. 63, “But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, slanderers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness although they have denied its power; avoid such people as these. (For among them are those who slip into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses (the very description and prophetic warning of the global feminist movement which has done more harm than can be enumerated here), always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth”.

Here we learn (1), the tares and goats in the church resemble. Avoid them. (2), We also see that the “Last Days” or the “birth pains” of the Tribulation (the first 5 Tribulation Seals) began at or around the time of the birth of Jesus.

Finally, Jesus is pointing out that although we have been known as ‘slaves’, first to sin the as ‘servants’ (doulos – a voluntary, fully devoted bond-servant) to Christ, He is keeping no secrets from us. We are now friends and Jesus shares even the deepest and most important matters of the Father’s busines with us, Therefore, we are to grow in our faith, no longer as babes desiring the milk of the word, remaining childish in our thinking and ignorant about righteousness, but we should be as adults, desiring the solid food of the Word which is for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. (End Commentary Break).

Verse 16. You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you. Verse 17. This I command you, that you love one another.

(Commentary Break): These verses, sixteen and seventeen, are written to every Christian but particularly to the mature man or woman in Christ. Too many Christians who become pastors, teachers or church leaders in almost any capacity, begin to assume they are fully matured in the ways of the Word of God and foolishly forget they did not have the authority and not even the good sense to choose Christ. And no church board or group of church leaders appointed you. Jesus alone chose you and appointed you and your mission, your task is to bear the fruit of the Spirit and the fruit of righteousness that is permanent. Again, anything you ask Jesus for, regarding these things, the Father will give you. But, the entry way, the key to this door is that you love God, and you love one another above all else which proves your righteousness and validates your fruit. (End Commentary Break).

Disciples’ Relation to the World

Verse 18. “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. Verse 19. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. Verse 20. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you as well; if they followed My word, they will follow yours also. Verse 21. But all these things they will do to you on account of My name, because they do not know the One who sent Me. Verse 22. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. Verse 23. The one who hates Me hates My Father also. Verse 24. If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated Me and My Father as well. Verse 25. But this has happened so that the word that is written in their Law will be fulfilled: ‘THEY HATED ME FOR NO REASON.’

Verse 26. “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, namely, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, He will testify about Me, verse 27, and you are testifying as well, because you have been with Me from the beginning. (End Chapter 15).

(Commentary Break): Why would Jesus offer these words, both an instruction and a warning? Wouldn’t you think this would discourage people from following Him?

First of all, Jesus not addressing the world in these verses. He is addressing His disciples, current and future. These words are meant to encourage and prepare the disciple of Jesus. So, yes, do not be surprised or discouraged when trials of persecution and hatred come. Remember, He Who is in you is greater than he who is in the world and He has overcome this world and you too will overcome by word of your testimony and by the Blood of the Lamb. (End Commentary Break).

There have been periods of intense hatred for and persecution of Christians throughout history, and there is but one reason: They hate Jesus even though they do not know Him; and will they hate you even though they do not know you. It is and is not personal. It is personal because their murderous hate is directed at you. But it is not just you they hate. They hate the Message that Light has come into the world, and people whose deeds are evil loved darkness instead of Light. God is the light and now you too are the light of the world. And those who practice evil hate the Light for it exposes their sins

They also hate that there is only one way to God and that is by following the Light, Jesus Christ.

They hate that He has defeated sin and death and that they cannot enter the kingdom of heaven for their deeds are evil and dark. Therefore they are doomed to the darkness they love so much. They are doomed to an eternal lake of fire and darkness where is wailing and gnashing of teeth, and they will hate you for this.

But they are making their choice. They love the darkness and darkness they will inherit.

When Jesus walked the earth, He called all unto Himself. He told everyone who would hear that God the Father had sent His only Son, that whoever would believe on Him would not perish (into an eternal darkness and fire), but would have eternal life with Him in a heavenly home.

But not everyone would come to Him, so He said to “shake the dust from your sandals” and move on, and we must.

Yes, we are to tell of God’s goodness and tell the Gospel Message, but everyone will make their own choice. You cannot make decisions for them, and must not linger, for the fields are now white for harvest (which refers to the biblical teaching from Jesus in John 4:35, where He encourages His disciples to recognize that the time for spiritual harvest is now, indicating that many people are ready to receive the message of God. It symbolizes the urgency of sharing faith and reaching out to those who are spiritually seeking Him. We must reach them all, before the End of the Age and His return to claim some His Own and take us to our eternal home and others cast into the darkness they so love, for all eternity.

Your Brother and Friend,

Mike Young

PREVIOUS: THE BOOK OF JOHN, Chapter 14, Jesus comforts His disciples, One with the Father, The Holy Spirit.

NEXT:  (coming soon), THE BOOK OF JOHN, Chapter 16, Jesus’ Warning, The Holy Spirit Promised, Jesus’ Death and Resurrection Foretold, Prayer Promises.

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