I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.
On the last night before the cross, Jesus takes up a picture the Old Testament had already made famous: a vine planted and tended by God. He puts Himself at its centre. Who is the vine now, who are the branches, and what is the Father doing with them?
The subject shifts between chapter 14 and chapter 15.
In John 15 Jesus looks at His disciples as in the world, with the privilege and responsibility that go with it, not in their new place and state before the Father, which was the theme in John 14. There He gave them His place before the Father. Now they are identified with Him in His place before the world.
The word "true" points back to a vine that failed. The eleven disciples listening had grown up on that story.
The Lord introduces the subject of fruit-bearing with the words, "I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser." Such words would have sounded strange to the Eleven. The Psalms and the Prophets had taught them to think of Israel as the vine. Psalm 80 had spoken of Israel as a vine brought out of Egypt. Isaiah, in the song of the Beloved about His vineyard, uses the vine to picture the love and care Jehovah had spent on Israel. Jeremiah speaks of Israel as "a noble vine." But Israel had brought forth no fruit for God. Isaiah mourns that they produced only "wild grapes." Jeremiah complains that the "noble vine" became "the degenerate plant of a strange vine." In the same way Hosea speaks of Israel as an "empty vine," only bringing "forth fruit to himself," but nothing for God.
(These Old Testament phrases follow an older translation. The ESV renders Jeremiah 2:21: "you have turned degenerate and become a wild vine.")
The disciples expected the Messiah to be Israel's finest product. He says something else.
Israel would have thought Him the best branch in the vine, but no — He is the Vine and they are the branches.
The two vines work in opposite directions.
With Israel as the unfruitful vine, the branches had to supply the fruit to the vine, not the vine to the branches. Israel had been put under the law, which demanded a response but gave no power to meet its claims. In the case of the true vine, it is the blessed Lord who supplies the sap and strength and vitality that are needed.
Notice what the image rules out, and what it is actually about.
The scene of the parable is obviously earth and not heaven; we do not think of a vine and a vinedresser in heaven. The figure is very distinct. It is not the Head and the members, but a tree and its branches. And the subject of the parable is as distinct as the parable itself: it is not eternal life, but fruit-bearing.
The same distinction cuts through an old dispute between two schools of interpretation.
Clear as these words are, bias has misunderstood them. Calvinists and Arminians each twist them to fit their own scheme. Both start by assuming that the picture of the vine means union with Christ, or membership of His body. But this Gospel never teaches His body, and no one teaches it but the apostle Paul. Scripture teaches union in other places, not here. Here the subject is communion. Union is a settled fact in the spiritual realm, on the basis of Christ's death and by the power of the given Spirit. But communion is conditional, and so may or may not exist, since it depends on abiding in Christ.
Everything turns on who is tending the branches.
Here is the Father bound in this responsible office of love. He cares for the branches according to that love, and according to the character of the stock of the Vine in which they are. How beautiful that this office rests in the Father's care! Notice too the sureness of the work of the vineyard. There may be many vinedressers, but the real vinedresser of the vine is the Father. It is "I," and also "My Father."
The fruit He looks for has a definite character.
The Father is seeking fruit from those who are branches in the True Vine. The fruit He seeks and values is the reproduction of the virtues of His Son. So as a true vinedresser He removes what does not bear fruit. He prunes and helps on what does, to increase still more the fruit He delights to see.
- True — the word points back to a vine that failed. God planted and tended Israel, and it yielded wild grapes. Christ now stands in that place as the real one.
- Stem, not branch — the disciples expected Messiah to be the finest branch on the national tree. He claims to be the vine itself, the one source of fruit for God.
- Supply, not demand — the old vine demanded fruit from branches with no power to give it. The true Vine feeds His own branches with His own life.
- Earth, not heaven — there is no vine or vinedresser in heaven. The subject is fruit-bearing here and now, not eternal life, and not the body of Christ.
- Father, not chance — many may claim to tend the vine, but the real vinedresser is the Father. The fruit He is after is the character of His Son showing up in you.
[As to] every branch in me not bearing fruit, he takes it away; and [as to] every one bearing fruit, he purges it that it may bring forth more fruit.
The Lord calls Himself the true vine and His Father the vinedresser. One test sorts the branches: fruit. He removes one kind and cuts the other back. Why does the same hand that removes also wound what it loves?
Commentators point to one key that unlocks the passage. Vines grow on earth, so the union in view here is an earthly one.
"Every branch in Me that bears fruit," He says. This shows that the branch must be in Him, the true Vine, if it is to bear fruit. This sentence gives us the key to the passage. The union spoken of here is an earthly union, for vines do not grow in heaven… So our union with Christ as members of His body is not what is meant here. That union cannot be broken, and it does not depend on us at all.
If every branch had real life, this removal would make no sense. Writers answer that the vine includes everyone who claims Christ's name, real or not.
True blessing and fruitfulness for God no longer depended on being children of Abraham by birth, able to call Jacob their father. It all depended on a living connection with Christ. He was the true vine here on earth… So the question of profession comes up, and with it the question of fruitfulness. A vine might have branches on it that bore no fruit. A person might claim to be Christ's disciple without the claim being real. As the vinedresser removes the barren branches of a vine, so the Father, shown here as the vinedresser, takes away those whose discipleship is not real.
Missing this difference costs more than clarity.
There is an immense difference between salvation and fruit-bearing, between being a branch of the vine and a member of Christ's body. If you miss this difference, you lose the teaching of John 15. Worse still, you put at risk the peace of conscience that belongs to those who rest on Christ and His work. When I think of salvation, I think of grace; but when fruit-bearing is before my mind, I think of responsibility.
Commentators differ on who is taken away.
There is the sad possibility that some branches, though having a living link with the vine, may bring forth no fruit. Such the Father takes away. These branches are very different from the withered branches of verse 6. Here it is the Father who takes away; there it is men who throw them out and burn them.
The vinedresser is not chasing activity in general. He is watching for something specific.
The Father is seeking fruit from those who are branches in the True Vine. It is a privilege given and jealously watched over by the Father. The fruit He seeks and values is the reproduction of the virtues of His Son. Therefore as a true vinedresser He removes what does not bear fruit and prunes and helps on what does, to increase yet more the fruit He delights to see.
Trials often come just when a believer starts to bear fruit. This verse explains the timing.
Many of the Lord's dear children are dismayed when they find themselves in trial… They overlook the blessed truth revealed to us here: pruning always follows fruit bearing. Bear even a little fruit, and you may be sure the vinedresser will not spare the pruning knife. Once, walking round an orchard, I saw a tree that had not been pruned. I asked the gardener why he had neglected it when all the others showed the marks of his care. He replied, "That tree is half dead. I have no hope of it bearing more fruit, so I do not think it worth the trouble of pruning." Another day I saw a tree cut back so hard that to my eyes it looked almost ruined. Again I asked the gardener, "Why was this?" "Ah Sir," he replied, "that is my finest tree. I look for more fruit from that tree in autumn than from any other in the garden."
The cutting has a target, and how we take it decides what it produces in us.
The Father chastens and disciplines us to remove everything that keeps the character of Christ from showing. It may indeed be painful, for "no discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it" (Heb. 12:11). If we take His dealings to heart before the Father, hardship will not sour us or make us bitter. It will soften us instead, so that the character of Christ is seen in us and we bear fruit.
Pruning does not only remove what is wicked. It removes what is merely spare.
A vineyard, above all, shows the need of pruning… To get the fruit that is wanted, a vine needs the knife used on it without sparing… The lesson is the need of concentration: turning all our energy into what has profit in it, and spending none on what is merely harmless. This is not legalism or strict self-denial. As we may learn from the connection here, it is what makes for happiness as well as fruitfulness.
- Vine — the picture is earthly, and it covers everyone who takes Christ's name. Being a member of His body is a separate truth, and that link cannot be cut.
- Fruitless — fruit is what shows the claim is real. The Father removes the branch that has none.
- Fruit — what He looks for is the character of His Son showing up in His people.
- Knife — pruning follows fruit. Trial is a sign of value, not of rejection. The tree left alone is the hopeless one.
- More fruit — the knife cuts away what hinders Christ's likeness and what is merely spare. It puts all our energy into what bears.
Ye are already clean by reason of the word which I have spoken to you.
The words come right after Jesus speaks of a Father who prunes fruit-bearing branches. The first thing He says to the men listening is that the pruning has already done its work in them. What does it mean to be "clean" by a spoken word, when the cross had not yet happened and the Spirit had not yet come?
Jesus does not tell the disciples to become clean. He tells them what His word has already done in them. One commentator names three places where that word did its work:
They had received His word, and knew that He came from God, though they knew the Father only in part, if at all. Yet Christ's word had worked in their souls. It had cleansed their ways. It had judged their worldly thoughts. It had exposed their sinful desires. The effect was real in their consciences… They were clean already, even before the Holy Spirit was given as power from on high.
One word links this verse to the one before it. The word has already done to these men what the Father does to fruitful branches in verse 2. Judas has gone, so this time no one in the room is an exception. The commentator below starts from an older translation, which read "Now you are clean."
"Now you are clean" is "already you are clean." The "you are not all clean" in chapter 13 refers to Judas. Here there is no exception, because Judas had gone out… He says, "Every branch in Me that bears fruit, He prunes." And in verse 3, "Now you are already pruned." It is the same word. They were clean in the sense of "pruned," only the pruning continues. It is like the man who has been bathed and needs only to wash his feet. This is the first of those washings.
This verse is not about paying for guilt. Two different needs, two different remedies — and both came from the pierced side of Christ.
The Lord came by water, speaking His Father's word, and could say to His disciples, "Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you." This word of the Lord produced moral cleansing. But something more was needed to remove their guilt, and to cleanse the stain their guilt had produced. That something more was the shedding and sprinkling of blood… John witnessed the blood and water that flowed from the side of Christ, and has put it on record.
Notice the timing. When Jesus called them clean, the cross was still ahead and Christian baptism did not yet exist. So no ceremony made them clean.
When God's word enters the soul by faith, it deals with the conscience in a purifying way. It awakens a sense of sin, and produces repentance toward God… So the Lord told the disciples, "Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you." The atoning work was not yet done. Christian baptism was not commanded or even possible. It was God's word that worked in His grace.
Being clean is not the end of the story. The same word keeps working, and it is aiming at a life that matches His own mind.
The point here is the cleansing that keeps going on right now. The Lord Jesus has you in hand. He wants to teach you. He wants to bring you up in His ways, ways that agree with His own mind and will. There are things about you that do not please Him — in your words, in your thoughts, in your ways and friendships. They are not according to His mind, and He wants to cleanse you from them. And how will He do it? He does it by His word.
If the eleven were already clean, why would the Father still cut anything away? The answer turns on who holds the knife, and why.
The Father Himself does this pruning or cleansing. So we should not see such dealing as discipline for something done wrong, where a person suffers the fruit of his own ways. It is the Father's dealing to get more fruit. The eleven were already clean by the word that Christ had spoken to them. Yet the Father would still cleanse them, to remove anything that might keep them from bearing more fruit.
- Already. Not pending, but settled. Christ's word had done its work in them before the cross, before the Spirit was given, and without any ceremony.
- Pruned. "Clean" is the same word as "prunes" in verse 2. The eleven showed what the Father does to fruitful branches.
- Water. The word cleanses morally; the blood answers guilt. Both flowed from Christ's side, and we need both.
- Ongoing. The first washing is not repeated; the daily one goes on. The word keeps dealing with our words, thoughts, ways and friendships.
- Fruit. The Father's aim in every cut is never punishment but more fruit from a branch already clean.
Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abide in the vine, thus neither [can] ye unless ye abide in me.
The Lord pictures Himself as a vine and His disciples as its branches. Two things need explaining: what it means to abide in Him, and why a branch's own effort produces nothing.
The word behind "abide" is not a special religious term. It runs through John's Gospel and is translated in several ways, all pointing to the same plain idea of staying put.
The word 'abide' is used by John very frequently. It is rendered in different ways. Sometimes it is 'remain' and at other times it is 'continue', but all having the same basic meaning.
Put into everyday language, the command asks for nearness and reliance — the same word used elsewhere of sticking close to the Lord with settled purpose.
Fruitfulness is promoted by abiding in Christ. What does it really mean to do this? It may be more easily understood if we say, "Keep close to the Lord! Draw all your resources from Him." In the book of Acts 11:23 one of the Lord's servants, Barnabas by name, urged the believers "to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose." The word "remain faithful" [older versions: "cleave"] is the same word as "abide" in the original.
The verse joins a command to a promise, and the order matters.
First, we see what alone is enough for the fruit required. It is what the very nature of a branch implies — to abide in the vine. Apart from Christ we can do nothing. If the branch does not abide in the vine, the vine — the vine-sap — cannot abide in the branch. That is why the Lord's words come in this order: "Abide in Me, and I in you." "Abide in Me" — that is the command, the responsibility; "and I in you" — that will be the assured result.
A branch does no work. It stays attached, and life flows in. The same holds for the disciple, and it holds when life turns hard.
Here the Lord insists on more. We must depend on Him and be close to Him. This is to abide in Christ… He, and He only, is the dwelling-place for the soul in this world of traps and danger, in this desert where there is no water. Make Him the resource, make Him the object. Then the sap, as it were, flows without hindrance, and the branch bears fruit. Without Him no teaching works, and all religious excitement fails. Bring Him in, trust Him, and He sustains the heart, and fruit-bearing follows — no matter what the difficulty, the pain, the shame, the opposition or the slander.
Does the word "unless" mean a believer's salvation hangs by a thread?
No — that is not the meaning of these words. What they teach is that the only possible way of fruit-bearing is to abide in Christ, as a branch abides in the vine. And the one evidence of abiding in Christ is fruit-bearing… It is not a question of a branch abiding in Christ today and not tomorrow. It is a question of two sorts of branches: the fruit-bearing branches and the non-fruit-bearing branches. It is a question of what claims to be for the Lord on earth, and in that sense everyone who claims His name is a branch. But if there is no living union with Him there will be no fruit, and such a branch will in the end be cast out, as Judas was.
Scripture also uses a different picture: the Church as one body joined to Christ its Head.
Heavenly grace forms that one body by the one Spirit, united to the glorified Head. There we do not hear of tearing, wounding, or cutting off… Responsibility on earth under divine government is another thing. The Vine and its branches teach that, not the unfailing heavenly relationship of the Church.
So where does abiding start? With the question of what fills your thoughts.
Is it your fruit-bearing or Christ? If it is your fruit-bearing, it is self-occupation, and as a result the fruit will be poor in both quantity and quality. But if you have learnt what He means when He says, "Apart from ME you can do nothing," and so have turned wholly to Him — the Source of your life, strength and energy — fruit will not be lacking. You abide in Him when you realise that you can't do without Him, and when you know that all you need is in Him. Two words cover it. He is INDISPENSABLE to you, and He is ALL-SUFFICIENT.
What makes abiding a habit rather than a mood?
You will abide in Him HABITUALLY when you know His love as greater than all other loves, Himself better than the brightest and best below… The secret of constant abiding in Him is simply the knowledge of His love.
- Stay — To abide is to keep close to the Lord and draw all your resources from Him.
- Order — "Abide in Me" is the command and our responsibility; "and I in you" is the assured result that follows.
- Sap — A branch bears nothing by effort. It stays attached, life flows in, and fruit comes even under opposition.
- Fruit, not safety — The vine teaches fruit and responsibility on earth, not the fear of being lost. The body joined to its Head speaks of a heavenly relationship that never fails.
- Love — Constant abiding grows from knowing His love. Watching your own fruit only shrinks the harvest.
I am the vine, ye [are] the branches. He that abides in me and I in him, *he* bears much fruit; for without me ye can do nothing.
Jesus uses a picture from a vineyard to show His disciples where fruit for God comes from. Everything depends on staying joined to Him. It raises two questions the commentators keep returning to. What is this "fruit," and what does it mean to abide?
The disciples already knew a vine — their own nation. Commentators read this verse as Christ taking its place.
The disciples were used to thinking of Israel as the vine the Lord had planted. He brought it out of Egypt and planted it in the land He had chosen... Here the Lord sets Israel aside altogether and puts Himself in the place of that fruitless vine. Christ is the True Vine, and His Father is the gardener who tends it. This is not His work in heaven as Advocate (John 13). Nor is it His coming as our Hope, to place us with Himself in the Father's house (John 14). It is His relation to His own people on earth, for bearing fruit. Christ is all.
Writers warn against mixing this picture up with another one — the church as a body joined to Christ its Head. The two teach different things.
The relation of head and body serves quite another purpose in Scripture, and we must keep the two completely separate... There it is the church seen as the object of Christ's unfailing love, until He presents it to Himself in glory. Responsibility on earth, under God's rule, is another thing. The Vine and its branches teach that responsibility, not the unfailing heavenly relationship of the Church.
If "much fruit" meant sermons, converts or visible activity, the verse would belong to a talented few. Commentators point somewhere else.
Fruit is the character of Christ reproduced in the lives of His disciples. We read in Galatians 5:22 that "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control." These are the very qualities that marked Christ in His life here on earth... Fruit, then, is not preaching and teaching, or different forms of service. In this passage it is not even souls won for Christ through preaching. It is the beautiful qualities of Christ seen in the people who are won. Yet a person can be very active in Christian service and still show little of the character of Christ.
That definition changes who can bear fruit.
If service and work were fruit, then only those with gift and ability could bear it. But if fruit is the character of Christ, then every believer can bear fruit, from the oldest to the youngest — and it is a privilege to do so.
The verse joins two things — our abiding in Him, and His abiding in us. Writers note that one follows the other.
All the resources of the Father are in the Son, and we can only draw on those resources as we abide in Him. The Son's abiding in us is the consequence of our abiding in Him.
Another writer spells out what abiding leans on, and what pulls against it.
To abide in Him supposes not merely distrust of ourselves, but clinging to Him and counting on Him. Every influence around us is against this; every natural feeling no less so... We need Him, and we cannot do without Him for the smallest things any more than the greatest. But there is more — He also draws us by His own excellence.
The last words of the verse leave no exceptions. Commentators show how little separation it takes to prove them true.
Take any branch in the whole vine, however impressive or wide-spreading it looks. Cut it off from the main stem by no more than the thickness of a sheet of gold leaf, and it cannot produce the smallest atom of fruit. We must keep a living sense of our union with Christ. That means abiding in Him by faith in a practical way — day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment. Only then can we bear fruit that God accepts.
There is also a warning against turning fruit itself into the goal.
Fruit is not produced by making fruit an object, or by thinking about fruit; it is the outcome of having Christ as an object, of thinking of Him. Christ comes before fruit.
- Vine. Israel was God's vine on earth and bore nothing. Christ now stands in that place, with the Father as the gardener.
- Branch. This picture is about responsibility and fruit on earth. That is not the same as the church's unfailing union with Christ in glory.
- Fruit. Not gift, service or results, but the character of Christ formed in us. That puts fruit within reach of every believer, young or old.
- Abiding. Clinging to Him and counting on Him; His abiding in us follows ours in Him, never the reverse.
- Nothing. Separation as thin as gold leaf ends all fruit — so the aim is never fruit itself, but Christ, from whom the fruit comes.
Unless any one abide in me he is cast out as the branch, and is dried up; and they gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
Jesus has just said that a branch bears no fruit on its own; now He turns to the branch that does not stay joined to Him. The picture ends in fire, which raises an old question: can a truly saved person end there?
The vine pictures a link with Christ on earth. That link may be real, or it may be only a claim.
The Lord's words here say little about Christianity in its heavenly relations. This is not about relationship with Christ in heaven, as members of His body by the Holy Spirit — a vital relationship that cannot be broken. It is about relationship with Christ on earth, through the profession of discipleship. That profession may be real, or it may be only a claim. So the Lord speaks of two kinds of branches: those that have life and prove it by bearing fruit, and those that have no life, which are thrown out and burned.
Scripture uses another picture for the believer's tie to Christ. It works differently, and the two must not be mixed.
It hardly needs saying that the relation of head and body serves quite another purpose in Scripture. It must be kept completely separate. Heavenly grace forms that one body by the one Spirit, united to the glorified Head. There we never hear of tearing, wounding, or cutting off. It is the church seen as the object of Christ's unfailing love, until He presents it to Himself in glory. Responsibility on earth under God's government is another thing. That, not the unfailing heavenly relationship of the church, is what the Vine and its branches teach.
The Lord had been saying "you" to the eleven disciples in front of Him. Here He switches to "anyone" — "a man" in older translations — and the switch matters.
He has been addressing the Eleven as true branches of the vine, and He will address them that way again. But in the word of warning He changes from "you" to "a man"... Should a real believer then fear that this might be his own end? The wording of verse 6 clearly shows that none of the Eleven were in view. Suppose the Lord had said, "If you do not abide in Me." Then there might be some excuse for the serious mistake that a real believer could be lost after all — a child of God today, a lost soul tomorrow. But the Lord's language was guarded.
Notice who handles the dead branch. It passes out of the Father's own hands.
In the picture the Lord uses, the vinedresser does not deal with the dead branch Himself. Others deal with it. So the Father does not deal with the fruitless and therefore lifeless professing Christian. Under the government of God, those who carry out His judgment deal with him. And here the branch is not "taken away" but "thrown away," "withers," "thrown into the fire," and "burned."
Why does the branch dry up? Its supply has stopped.
Withering follows, because the sap of the divine Spirit is withdrawn. That sap flows to believers through their vital union with their great Head. Note the contrast. A branch in Him is fruitful and productive. Thrown out as unfruitful, it then withered by itself.
One seat at the table was empty as Jesus spoke. Commentators point to the man who had left it.
There was an empty place at the table. Judas, the twelfth, had just left. He was already on his way to the high priest's palace, working out how many pieces of silver he would sell Jesus for — and Jesus knows it.
Two schools of thought pull this verse in opposite directions, and both bend it.
Since Christ is the only source of fruit, to abandon Him is fatal. So it was with Judas... The Calvinist is afraid he will compromise his doctrines of grace. The Arminian is eager to press his advantage on the side of falling away. So the first tends to dodge the solemn warning of personal ruin and final judgment given here. The second argues that the passage means a saved soul may be lost after all.
Such a person may look like a follower. Something else is missing.
It was someone who had come out from the world and had followed Christ. But there was no attraction of heart, no power of faith, and therefore no dependence on Christ; and this is the sentence the Lord pronounces on all such people, whether in that day or in any other.
- Abide — the frame. The vine pictures a visible link with Christ on earth, tested by fruit. The body of Christ, formed by the Spirit, is a different tie, and it cannot be broken.
- Abide, or wither. Cut off from the source, the branch dries up on its own — no supply, no fruit, nothing left.
- A changed word. The Lord switched from "you" to "anyone" so no true disciple could read his own doom into the sentence.
- Judas, the sample. The empty seat shows what an unreal branch looks like: outward following, but no attachment of heart and no dependence.
- A warning kept whole. Commentators here reject both dodges: the fire is real judgment on empty profession, and no true believer is in view.