John 15

We finished chapter 14 by saying that the completeness of God is interested in the insignificance of me who will come and make his home in us. Let's begin to unpack chapter 15 and see how this corporate unity of the completeness of God works out in life.

The first thing to remember about this chapter is that it is a continuation of chapter 14 and so is therefore part of the same discourse that Jesus is giving to his disciples.

Whilst he is saying to his disciples in John 14:30 “I do not have much time to talk to you” he reassures them that he and the father know what they are doing and in John 15:1 he says “I am the vine and my father is the gardener” immediately taking his disciples into a place of security where the gardener is in control and his disciples, along with us, the reader in the 21st century, can rest assured that God knows what he is doing.

Jesus then says in John 15:2 that the gardener prunes the vine by removing the dead branches and cutting back those that do produce fruit in order that the vine will produce more fruit.

It is the gardeners job to ensure that the vine produces fruit, the job of the gardener is never ending, he is required to prune, weed, water, care for and monitor the plants within the garden to ensure that the place is kept in a manner that pleases and provides a place of solace and encouragement for the owner and onlookers.

Pruning of a vine is a necessary part of vineyard husbandry and is required in order for the vine to produce a good quality and quantity of grape and also to ensure that adequate young shoots are being encouraged for next season's growth. Vines only produce fruit from shoots that are one year old and so require removing once fruiting has finished.

So what Jesus is saying is that we all need pruning continually in order for us to produce fruit and for us to be prepared for fruiting year on year.

What we observe about a vine is that a vine has a stock and branches but essentially they appear to be indistinguishable from each other, so when Jesus says in John 15:5  “I am the vine and you are the branches” what he is saying is I am the vine, you are the vine, I am the branch you are the branch. Essentially Jesus and me are one and the gardener does not distinguish between them, he selects the unhealthy branches and the branches that have already fruited he cuts off from the vine so that the vine will continue to be fruitful year on year.

This pruning process is a continual process that is applied to our lives to make us fit for purpose, the purpose of producing fruit for the vinedresser who Jesus tells us in John 15:1 is his Father.

In John 15:3 Jesus begins to piece the picture together by saying “you have already been pruned” or in the KJV “you are already clean” “because of the word or message I have already spoken to you“ Jesus is speaking here to the converted, his disciples. He is comforting and preparing his disciples for life on earth without him. He has already made it clear in John 15:1-2 that he is the vine and that every branch of his that is unprofitable is taken out by the father and destroyed and every fruitful branch is pruned in order to produce more fruit. So here in John 15:3 he assumes a point in time where the pruning process has taken place and he makes it very clear that in order for us to be fruitful we must remain in the vine and the vine must remain in us. As I have already pointed out a vine and it's branch are virtually indistinguishable and Jesus is saying that one must remain in the other to produce fruit, which is obvious, but probably overlooked by most of us at some point in our lives, one without the other renders both useless for the purpose it was intended, that of producing fruit.

The point that Jesus is also making about the importance of remaining in the vine is that he knows that his ministry on earth has been divisive because he knows that essentially “everything is spiritual”  and when a person starts from that perspective their life will be at odds with the world because it is so fundamentally different to the selfish, sinful nature of human desire that has been brought about by the fallen state of mankind, the state of man that Jesus came to restore to a right relationship to God the Father and creator of all. It is in the remaining or abiding in the vine that we find the true meaning of life. By ensuring that we remain in the vine, and as Jesus promises to remain in us by the power of the indwelling Spirit that has been given by the Father, we will produce fruit, fruit that will remain.

So Jesus is saying here, to his disciples and to anyone through the expanse of time, to those who have been made clean by the Word Jesus, (the Word that became flesh and lived among us John 1:14, the Word already spoken, the Word received and adopted) that life will work if we ABIDE IN THE VINE AND THE VINE ABIDES IN US, it is together that we work life out.

This producing of fruit is all about remaining spiritual, it is not about how many souls we have influenced into accepting Christ or how many people have joined our church or how many missionaries we support, it is all about knowing Christ and him crucified and the power of his risen life intertwined and immersed into our innermost spiritual parts so that we are able to stand firm in a turbulent and unstable world knowing that life is safe and secure in the knowledge that the vine dresser is fully committed to tending his vine so that it produces good fruit for his table.

Jesus call to action in this chapter is not that we strive to produce fruit but that we abide in the vine and remain indistinguishably joined to the root so that we can testify to the ministry of Jesus and can know a place of security in a topsy turvy world.