The Gospel according to John, Chapter 15. I hope to finish today.
We have been seeing that there are two books in the New Testament which are fully occupied with a special matter: the transition from the old Jerusalem to the New Jerusalem; from the earthly Israel to the new Israel—from the earthly being left behind to the new coming into view.
But the new is constituted upon the spiritual principles of the old. The two books referred to are the Gospel according to John and the Letter to the Hebrews.
We have said that in the Gospel according to John there are sixteen steps in this transition. I am afraid that I have made a mistake over that; I have discovered some more today. But I am not going to include them. I am not sure that we shall be able to take number sixteen.
However, we will come to number fifteen tonight. The fifteenth step in this transition is here in the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel according to John.
I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman.
—John 15:1
The rest of the chapter is well known to you. I shall not read it all through, but I shall refer to it later. Before we go on, we must turn to our Old Testament.
First of all, in Psalm 80:
Thou broughtest a vine out of Egypt:
Thou didst drive out the nations, and plantedst it.
—Psalm 80:8
And again:
Turn again, we beseech Thee, O God of hosts:
Look down from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine,
And the stock which Thy right hand planted.
—Psalm 80:14-15
Then Isaiah:
Let me sing for my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching His vineyard.
My well-beloved had a vineyard in a very fruitful hill:
And He digged it, and gathered out the stones thereof,
And planted it with the choicest vine,
And built a tower in the midst of it,
And also hewed out a winepress therein:
And He looked that it should bring forth grapes,
And it brought forth wild grapes.
—Isaiah 5:1-2
Jeremiah says:
Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed:
How then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto Me?
—Jeremiah 2:21
And again:
Thus saith the Lord of hosts,
They shall thoroughly glean the remnant of Israel as a vine:
Turn again thine hand as a grape-gatherer into the baskets.
—Jeremiah 6:9
Then Ezekiel:
And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
Son of man, what is the vine tree more than any tree,
The vine-branch which is among the trees of the forest?
Shall wood be taken thereof to make any work?
Or will men take a pin of it to hang any vessel thereon?
—Ezekiel 15:1-3
Behold, it is cast into the fire for fuel;
The fire hath devoured both the ends of it,
And the midst of it is burned:
Is it profitable for any work?
—Ezekiel 15:4
Therefore thus saith the Lord God:
As the vine tree among the trees of the forest,
Which I have given to the fire for fuel,
So will I give the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
—Ezekiel 15:6
Well, then, you have the old Israel background. It is clear from these Scriptures that Israel was called God’s vine. But that vine became a false vine, and God had to cast it into the fire.
It has been in the fire for these nearly twenty centuries. But when God cast that vine into the fire, He brought forth another. Now, the Gospel according to John sets forth the putting away of the old Israel and the bringing in of the new.
We have seen that various names of Israel have been taken over into the new Israel. Here in this chapter, the vine is taken over.
When Jesus said, “I am the true vine,” He emphasized that word true. If you could hear Him say it, you would hear Him say it like this: “I am the true vine.”
The implication is perfectly clear: “I take the place of the false vine. The false vine has been cast away. I am the true vine which takes its place.”
We have seen, for a little while, how Israel was false in its very nature and purpose.
What is the nature of a vine? It is the nature of a vine to spread out far and wide.
We have at least two vines in England and Scotland which are as long as this room. They have spread out on the right hand and on the left. They are always reaching out to cover more space.
It is not the nature of the vine just to go straight up. Its nature is to reach out.
Israel was raised up for this very purpose: to extend its arms to embrace the nations.
I will give Thee for a light to the Gentiles.
—Isaiah 42:6
And nations shall come to thy light,
And kings to the brightness of thy rising.
—Isaiah 60:3
Israel was raised up to be a testimony in all the nations. Israel was intended to bring to the whole world the knowledge of God. It was Israel’s calling to fulfil a world purpose and a world vision.
Israel was intended to be God’s missionary nation to the whole world. But instead of embracing the nations, they excluded the nations. They drew a wall round themselves.
They said, “We are the people, and all others are dogs.” They called the Gentiles dogs. They shut themselves in to themselves. They became an exclusive people.
In doing so, they contradicted their own nature and their own mission. Exclusiveness was a contradiction to the very nature of Israel, and exclusiveness is always a contradiction to the divine nature.
It is not written in Scripture, “God so loved the Jewish nation, that He gave His only begotten Son.” It is written:
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son.
—John 3:16
The very love of God was contradicted by their exclusiveness. The very nature of God amongst them was violated in that way.
To turn in upon ourselves is always a violation of divine calling. For any people, or any person, to make themselves an end in themselves is sin.
That is why, in the order of nature, a family expands. God laid down this law right at the beginning of human history. He said to Adam:
Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.
—Genesis 1:28
It was in the very nature of things by the appointment of God. And I say, when things are normal, no life is an end in itself.
Of course, I know there are exceptions. I am not speaking of cases where this is not possible. I am speaking of the normal course.
In the very nature of things, normally God intends life to be an extending life. Anybody who deliberately violates that law and becomes an end in themselves sins against God’s law.
Now, Israel was called to extend and to fill the earth with the knowledge of the Lord. Israel withheld that from the nations. Israel stopped, turned in upon itself, and made itself an end in itself.
And God came down upon that and said, “All right, you shall be an end in yourself.” God’s judgments are usually the confirmation of our own choices.
So that was Israel’s nature, and that was Israel’s violation of its nature as a vine. Instead of extending to the world, it contracted into itself. Anything like that is always fatal.
What about the purpose? Obviously, the purpose of a vine is to bear fruit. It is to bear grapes, and from the grapes there is to come the wine.
Do you know that in the Old Testament wine is always a symbol of life? That is why we have it at the Lord’s Table. It represents His blood, and in His blood is life.
He Himself called it “the fruit of the vine.” He did not say, “I will not drink of My blood again with you.” He said:
I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.
—Matthew 26:29
The grapes and the wine are symbols of life. Israel of old was called to minister the life of God to all the nations.
When you read these Gospels and look to see what kind of fruit that Israel bore, it is anything but life. It is really death. It is sour fruit.
All those who were tasting the fruit of that Israel were turning away and saying, “We do not want any more. This is not life; this is death.”
The Gospels are full of that truth. Jesus said:
In Him was life; and the life was the light of men.
—John 1:4
Men’s faces grew bright when they tasted of Him.
Now, did you notice one thing that we read from the Old Testament about the vine? It is there in Ezekiel 15. We read that the vine has no other purpose in its existence but to bear fruit.
Have you ever seen anything made of vine? You have never seen a table made of vine. You have never seen any vessel made of a vine. You have not even seen a walking stick made of a vine.
You can do nothing with a vine. That is what Ezekiel says. Men will not even take a peg from it to hang something on.
It is absolutely useless apart from fruit. The only purpose of its existence is the grape. If it does not bear grapes, you just put it in the fire.
There are no by-products of the vine. There is no secondary use for it. It exists for one thing, and one thing only: to bear fruit.
And that is true. That is what God raised up the old Israel for: to bear His divine fruit of life for the nations.
God has no other use for an Israel like that. And so He said, “Cast it into the fire,” these nearly twenty centuries ago.
From that we can see what the Lord Jesus means by being the true vine and we being the branches. The true vine is that which fulfils the one and only purpose of its existence.
The Lord Jesus brings this illustration over to Himself and His Church. It is perfectly clear what the nature of the Lord Jesus is. His nature is reaching out to all men, reaching out to embrace the whole world.
He takes into His heart all the nations. All men are His concern—not any one nation, but all the nations.
So He said, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation.” It is the very nature of Jesus to do that.
It is quite foreign to the nature of Jesus to be exclusive, to be small and narrow, and to be occupied only with ourselves. Our salvation is to have our hearts enlarged—bigger than ourselves.
Anybody who turns in on himself or herself, and is always occupied with themselves, is dying while they live. It cannot be avoided.
Let a little company of the Lord’s people live to themselves. They become wholly occupied with themselves, and their days are numbered. They are living a living death.
That is true of any one Christian, or of any company of the Lord’s people, because Christ is in the believer, and His very nature is to reach out like the vine.
He would draw all men unto Himself. To be otherwise is to be a contradiction of the very nature of Christ.
There is the nature of the true vine. “I am the vine, and ye are the branches.” The branches and the vine are one vine; they are of the same nature.
Do you notice that it is the branches themselves which do the extending work of Jesus? Yes, it is by the branches that this expanding nature is manifested.
You notice that this is what happened in Jerusalem right at the beginning. Some trouble sprang up in the Christian church in Jerusalem right at the beginning. It was the first trouble that the Christian church had.
Some of the first apostles wanted to stay in Jerusalem. They wanted to build up this church in Jerusalem. They were forgetting the commandment of the Lord.
They were just settling down in Jerusalem, making Jerusalem the centre of everything, and making Jerusalem an exclusive body.
Then there rose up in their midst a young man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. That young man’s name was Stephen.
If you listen to what Stephen said, you will hear him saying, “This will not do. We have been called for the nations. We are not to be an exclusive people. We are called to a world mission.”
“We must not settle down again in the old Judaism.”
Some of the first Christians and Christian leaders did not agree with him. Of course, the old Israel did not agree with that.
And so they stoned Stephen on this very issue. They stoned Stephen on the issue of the world mission of the Church.
I cannot help asking the question: Where was James, and where was Peter, when Stephen was being stoned?
They were in Jerusalem, but they were not there. Why was it that Stephen was stoned and not Peter and James?
Because, at that time, Peter and James were not taking the line that Stephen was taking. They were making Jerusalem everything.
So long as they were in Jerusalem, they were quite safe. But Stephen was stoned for this very thing.
Do understand, dear friends, that there is something here to be taken note of. This new Israel is given a mission through all the nations, and there is a great price to pay for that mission.
The whole kingdom of Satan is against that. If you will just become a little quiet, compromising local sect, you will be all right. Just live within your own walls, and the devil will not worry you. The world will not trouble itself about you. It will leave you alone.
But if you go out on this heavenly level of things, to embrace all men in Christ, you will find the world against you. You will find that the devil is against you.
You and I ought to see this in our day as no one has ever seen it before. Do you not see what is happening in the nations?
There is not a missionary left in China, and it is no longer possible for a missionary to go into China. In large parts of the world, that same thing is happening. They have tried to drive them out of Africa.
Why is this? The kingdom of Satan does not want Jesus to get into his world.
There have been literally millions of martyrs in China for Jesus Christ, and many others in Africa and in other parts.
It was never quite like this before. This is a new phase of things. Satan knows that his time is short, and he will do all that he can to close the nations to Jesus Christ.
There is a great price bound up with this word mission. Stephen is the great example of that.
The purpose, then, of Christ and His Church—of the vine and the branches—is to bring life to men all over this world.
I wonder if that is altogether true of the Church today. Do you not think that even the Christian Church today is failing in that matter?
It is not really bringing life to the nations. Many a place called a church is not bringing life even to its own members.
This is a contradiction of Christ. It is all very well to think of this objectively, but this comes down to every one of us.
What is the proof that Christ is in you and in me? How can it be known that Christ is in us? Only in one way: that others are receiving life through us.
When we minister life to others—the life of Christ—hungry and needy people who come into touch with us feel the touch of life.
They express it in different ways: “That man, that woman, has got something that I have not got. He or she has something that I need. I feel it about them. There is something about them that I feel, and it is what I really need.”
That is what should be true of every Christian, because Christ, who is the true vine, is in us, extending Himself through us and ministering His life through us.
Oh, do pray, dear friends, every day when you get up, “Lord, make me a channel of life to someone today. Lord, minister Your own life through me to someone today. May I bring life wherever I am.”
The Lord has no other purpose for you and for me. We may try to do a lot of things, but if we belong to the vine, we are no good for anything but to bear fruit. That is, to bring life to others.
Fruit—only fruit—life fruit. Not even to be a peg upon which to hang something; not even to be a walking stick to help somebody stand up straight.
No, God has no use for us but to bear fruit—to bring life.
Now Jesus said here in this chapter:
Every branch in Me that beareth fruit, He cleanseth it, that it may bear more fruit.
—John 15:2
We understand that in nature, and we agree with it. Perhaps, if you have had anything to do with grapevines, it is what you have done.
Strange that we believe it is a law of nature and say that it is the right thing to do—the best thing to do. “Cut this piece off so that it will do better.”
Yet we do not agree with the Lord doing it to us. When the Lord begins to do that with us, we are full of grumbling and complaint.
When the Lord, for a little while, holds us to do less in order that He might fit us to do more, we do not agree. It seems that the Lord is taking away some of our fruit and taking away some of our work.
We are full of problems. We do not understand the Lord, and we begin to ask questions about His love.
Now, Jesus has laid it down as a positive truth. Here is a branch that is bearing fruit. It is not a branch that is bearing no fruit; He says He casts that into the fire. But it is the fruit-bearing branch that He prunes.
Here is the branch that is fulfilling its vocation, and the Lord looks at it and says, “I am very pleased with that, but I can do better than that. There is better that that branch can do.”
So He takes the knife, and He disciplines us. He reduces us in order to increase us. He cuts away some in order that there might be more.
The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews says:
All chastening seemeth for the present to be not joyous but grievous;
Yet afterward it yieldeth peaceable fruit unto them that have been exercised thereby,
Even the fruit of righteousness.
—Hebrews 12:11
That is only saying that the husbandman sometimes takes the knife, and He cuts deeply into our souls. But afterward there is more and there is better fruit than there was before.
Time has gone. It just brings me to this last word. The wine comes from the grape through the winepress. The winepress is the symbol of pressure.
What pressure is brought to bear upon that fruit in order to get the wine! The winepress is the symbol of breaking. That fruit is broken to pieces.
Out of that fruit is run, by agony, the wine. And Jesus said, “I am the true vine.”
It is prophesied of Him that He would tread the winepress alone. The cross was the winepress of the Lord Jesus. How He was pressed in the cross! He was broken.
But out of that breaking has come the life which you and I have, and which so many in all the nations ever since have received.
In a measure, that is true of His Church. It was out of the crushing and the bruising of the Church that life came to the world. And, dear friends, that is true of every member, every branch of the vine.
If we are to fulfil this true living ministry, it will only be through suffering. It will be through the winepress. It will be pressure and breaking.
Paul said, “We were pressed out of measure, above strength.” But life came out of that man’s pressure.
I am not talking about preaching and Bible teaching. There is a great deal of that which is not life. But I am talking about this great ministry of Christ giving His life through us.
It may be through teaching. It may be through living. But if it is His life, it will come out of experiences of suffering.
A preacher or a teacher who has never suffered never ministered life. Well, this may not seem a very pleasant outlook, but it is true.
The best doctors and nurses are those who know something about suffering themselves. I would always choose a doctor who knew something about sickness in himself.
I have had many doctors, and I have had many nurses, and I know the difference. Some are just professional, treating you as a case. You are just number so-and-so.
There are others who treat you as a person, as a human being, who care for you. If you ask why, it is because they have a background of suffering themselves. They know just a little of what you are going through.
We read this morning from Hebrews:
For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities;
But one that hath been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
—Hebrews 4:15
He is able, therefore, to succour those who are tempted. He has been through the winepress. We have received the benefit.
Is this why Paul said:
That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection,
And the fellowship of His sufferings.
—Philippians 3:10
Paul knew quite well that the sufferings of Christ meant life. If there was one thing that Paul wanted for others, it was that they should have this life, and that they should have it through him.
So he says, “That I may know the fellowship of His sufferings.” That may not be our ambition. We may not like the idea very much. May the Lord help us to look at things in this way.
The Lord is putting me in the winepress. He is putting me through a time of great pressure. I am being broken. The Lord intends more fruit, more life, more people to have the life.
For the very nature of this thing is to reach out to others. That is the true vine. Anything that is not like that is a false vine.
“I am the vine; ye are the branches.”