Jesus, The Vine

Minister:
Date: PM
Text: John 15:1-5
Psalters: 348, 127, 398, 90
  1. The picture.
    1. Vines (a common sight to the disciples) pictured Jesus and His people as one plant, one living organism.
      1. The vine is the means of support to the branches.
      2. Jesus is the main vine, and His people are the branches joined to Him, living together as one.
    2. Jesus calls Himself “the true vine,” the real one (over against types and false ones).
    3. Jesus is the true vine because He is the “I am.”
  2. The chief point of the figure is that the fertility of the vine for spiritual fruit-bearing by the branches.
    1. As the vine is the power of the branches to produce fruit, so Jesus is the source of fertility in the branches.
      1. Jesus is the only power which makes His people “clean” (3.
      2. Jesus emphasizes this by saying that without Him they can do nothing!
    2. What is the fruit which Christ produces in us?
    3. The Husbandman (Jesus’ Father) cares for the vine and its branches.
      1. He tills the ground, tends the vine, busies Himself with the branches.
      2. Those branches which do not bear fruit, He takes away and burns.
      3. Those branches which bear fruit He purges/prunes, for they too are yet sinful.
  3. Thus the admonition to “Abide in me and I in you.”
    1. The Spirit equips the sinning saint to be active in bearing fruit and in abiding in Christ.
    2. Remain in conscious union with Jesus; stay consciously in fellowship with Him.
    3. Remember that the purpose of God in making us branches is so we might bear much fruit.