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.