“I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing." - John 15.5
Throughout the New Testament Christ uses various analogies to describe the believer in relationship to Himself. He is a house; Christ is the builder. He is a lump of clay; Christ is the potter… John 15 is no different except that, in this particular instance, the analogy is organic. The vine and the branches are part of a living whole which breathes and grows and bears fruit; or else, if it fails to remain in the vine, suffocates, withers, and rots.
A living branch is different from a house or a piece of sculpted clay in that it is never quite finished. It could go on living forever, so long as it continues receiving nourishment from the vine. A house may be renovated; it may be meticulously well-maintained or it may fall into a state of utter disrepair. But once each stone is placed it remains there, unmoving, ungrowing. It can, in a sense, abide; but it cannot flourish! The same is true of the clay – it may undergo metamorphosis - a total change in form and appearance - but once it hardens and sets, once it has been thrown into the kiln, it can neither change nor grow.
In contrast, stands the branch. It starts out naked and small. Alone it is nothing, just a future bit of firewood, barren and brittle (John 15.6). But if it remains nestled into the vine, drawing its nutrients from the source, the branch will grow clusters of buds. At first, they are just little nubs – small and hard and sour – small foreshadows of what they might someday be. If plucked too early they will taste bitter. But if they are properly nourished they will ripen into beautiful pieces of fruit – full and soft and sweet.
Important to remember is that fact that the fruit cannot - indeed, should not - attempt to distribute itself. When the time is right the fruit will fall off all on its own or else it will be plucked by some desperate passerby who is hungry enough to stoop down and pick it up from the place where it has fallen, the place at the foot of the tree.
Just so, if we abide in Him, He will bring forth fruit in our lives; fruit that is a small reproduction of the Life we bear inside. Unlike the house or the finished sculpture, this fruit has the capacity to nourish others. It can give the Life that it has drawn. And not only once, but many, many times, for nestled inside each piece lay the seeds of Promised Future Life.
And yet - however marvelous and beautiful this is - it is a rare branch that learns the secret of abiding.
Most, being frustrated by the slowness – or seeming lack! – of growth, become deceived into thinking they no longer need the vine. Those who have lived long enough to experience the painful process of pruning may conclude that it is futile or masochistic to persist under such ‘intolerable’ conditions. Won’t we grow much faster, they reason, if we find our own rich waters to drink from, far, far away from here?
And so they literally break out, severing their ties from the vine, not realizing that in doing so they betray themselves, becoming guilty not only of adolescent thinking, but adolescent behavior.
They may indeed find waters; and these they may drink from. But the growth that such drafts produce will be deceptively short-lived. The buds cannot, under such conditions, grow into ripe, round pieces of fruit because they have been poisoned by waters which make bitter and desolate all who drink from them. These branches, and the infant buds they bear, will not only cease growing; they will ultimately wither and become grotesque – the asylum of insects and other parasitical organisms.
Conversely, the branch that abides in the vine will – indeed, it must – bear fruit. To do otherwise would be to go against nature. However, the aim and purpose of its life is not oriented round the fruit, but round the vine. This is the emphasis of its life – its raison d’etre, or, reason for existence. It finds security and rest in the vine, not in its fruit, for the fruit is but the natural consequence of abiding; not ‘the thing itself.’ “He who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” It is one of God’s great graces that He bears fruit in a man’s life and then gives him credit (eternal reward) for having done so. If we abide, He will give us life, power, and rest in Him; all we have to do is let Him.
