The True Vine
: Meditations for a Month on John 15:1-16* ONLY A BRANCH
o PREFACE
o CONTENTS
o THE VINE
o THE HUSBANDMAN
o THE BRANCH
o THE FRUIT
o MORE FRUIT
o THE CLEANSING
o THE PRUNING KNIFE
o ABIDE
o EXCEPT YE ABIDE
o THE VINE
o YE THE BRANCHES
o MUCH FRUIT
o YOU CAN DO NOTHING
o WITHERED BRANCHES
o WHATSOEVER YE WILL
o IF YE ABIDE
o THE FATHER GLORIFIED
o TRUE DISCIPLES
o THE WONDERFUL LOVE
o ABIDE IN MY LOVE
o OBEY AND ABIDE
o YE, EVEN AS I
o JOY
o LOVE ONE ANOTHER
o EVEN AS I HAVE LOVED YOU
o CHRIST'S FRIENDSHIP: ITS ORIGIN
o CHRIST'S FRIENDSHIP: ITS EVIDENCE
o CHRIST'S FRIENDSHIP: ITS INTIMACY
o ELECTION
o ABIDING FRUIT
o PREVAILING PRAYER
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THE TRUE VINE
Meditations for a Month
on John 15:1-16.....
By
Rev. Andrew Murray
"The mystery which hath been hid from ages, but now is made manifest to His
saints: to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this
mystery...which is Christ in you, the hope of glory."--Colossians 1:26,27
MOODY PRESS
CHICAGO
ONLY A BRANCH
"I am the vine, ye are the branches."--John 15:5
"Tis only a little Branch,
A thing so fragile and weak,
But that little Branch hath a message true
To give, could it only speak.
"I'm only a little Branch,
I live by a life not mine,
For the sap that flows through my tendrils small
Is the life-blood of the Vine.
"No power indeed have I
The fruit of myself to bear,
But since I'm part of the living Vine,
Its fruitfulness I share.
"Dost thou ask how I abide?
How this life I can maintain?--
I am bound to the Vine by life's strong band,
And I only need remain.
"Where first my life was given,
In the spot where I am set,
Upborne and upheld as the days go by,
By the stem which bears me yet.
"I fear not the days to come,
I dwell not upon the past,
As moment by moment I draw a life,
Which for evermore shall last.
"I bask in the sun's bright beams,
Which with sweetness fills my fruit,
Yet I own not the clusters hanging there,
For they all come from the root."
A life which is not my own,
But another's life in me:
This, this is the message the Branch would speak,
A message to thee and me.
Oh, struggle not to "abide,"
Nor labor to "bring forth fruit,"
But let Jesus unite thee to Himself,
As the Vine Branch to the root.
So simple, so deep, so strong
That union with Him shall be:
His life shall forever replace thine own,
And His love shall flow through thee.
For His Spirit's fruit is love,
And love shall thy life become,
And for evermore on His heart of love
Thy spirit shall have her home.
Freda Hanbury
PREFACE
I have felt drawn to try to write what young Christians might easily
apprehend, as a help to them to take up that position in which the Christian
life must be a success. It is as if there is not one of the principal
temptations and failures of the Christian life that is not met here. The
nearness, the all-sufficiency, the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus, the
naturalness, the fruitfulness of a life of faith, are so revealed, that it
is as if one could with confidence say, Let the parable enter into the
heart, and all will be right.
May the blessed Lord give the blessing. May He teach us to study the
mystery of the Vine in the spirit of worship, waiting for God's own
teaching.
CONTENTS
Preface
The Vine John 15:1
The Husbandman John 15:1
The Branch John 15:2
The Fruit John 15:2
More Fruit John 15:2
The Cleansing John 15:2
The Pruning Knife John 15:3
Abide John 15:4
Except Ye Abide John 15:4
I the Vine John 15:5
Ye the Branches John 15:5
Much Fruit John 15:5
You can do Nothing John 15:5
Withered Branches John 15:6
Whatsoever ye Will John 15:7
If ye Abide John 15:7
The Father Glorified John 15:8
True Disciples John 15:8
The Wonderful Love John 15:9
Abide in My Love John 15:9
Obey and Abide John 15:10
Ye, even as I John 15:10
Joy John 15:11
Love One Another John 15:12
Even as I have Loved You John 15:12
Christ's Friendship: Its Origin John 15:13
Christ's Friendship: Its Evidence John 15:14
Christ's Friendship: Its Intimacy John 15:15
Election John 15:16
Abiding Fruit John 15:16
Prevailing Prayer John 15:16
THE VINE
I am the True Vine--John 15:1
All earthly things are the shadows of heavenly realities--the
expression, in created, visible forms, of the invisible glory of God. The
Life and the Truth are in Heaven; on earth we have figures and shadows of
the heavenly truths. When Jesus says: "I am the true Vine," He tells us that
all the vines of earth are pictures and emblems of Himself. He is the divine
reality, of which they are the created expression. They all point to Him,
and preach Him, and reveal Him. If you would know Jesus, study the vine.
How many eyes have gazed on and admired a great vine with its beautiful
fruit. Come and gaze on the heavenly Vine till your eye turns from all else
to admire Him. How many, in a sunny clime, sit and rest under the shadow of
a vine. Come and be still under the shadow of the true Vine, and rest under
it from the heat of the day. What countless numbers rejoice in the fruit of
the vine! Come, and take, and eat of the heavenly fruit of the true Vine,
and let your soul say: "I sat under His shadow with great delight, and His
fruit was sweet to my taste."
I am the true Vine.--This is a heavenly mystery. The earthly vine can
teach you much about this Vine of Heaven. Many interesting and beautiful
points of comparison suggest themselves, and help us to get conceptions of
what Christ meant. But such thoughts do not teach us to know what the
heavenly Vine really is, in its cooling shade, and its life-giving fruit.
The experience of this is part of the hidden mystery, which none but Jesus
Himself, by His Holy Spirit, can unfold and impart.
I am the true Vine.--The vine is the living Lord, who Himself speaks,
and gives, and works all that He has for us. If you would know the meaning
and power of that word, do not think to find it by thought or study; these
may help to show you what you must get from Him to awaken desire and hope
and prayer, but they cannot show you the Vine. Jesus alone can reveal
Himself. He gives His Holy Spirit to open the eyes to gaze upon Himself, to
open the heart to receive Himself. He must Himself speak the word to you and
me.
I am the true Vine.--And what am I to do, if I want the mystery, in all
its heavenly beauty and blessing, opened up to me? With what you already
know of the parable, bow down and be still, worship and wait, until the
divine Word enters your heart, and you feel His holy presence with you, and
in you. The overshadowing of His holy love will give you the perfect calm
and rest of knowing that the Vine will do all.
I am the true Vine.--He who speaks is God, in His infinite power able
to enter into us. He is man, one with us. He is the crucified One, who won a
perfect righteousness and a divine life for us through His death. He is the
glorified One, who from the throne gives His Spirit to make His presence
real and true. He speaks--oh, listen, not to His words only, but to Himself,
as He whispers secretly day by day: "I am the true Vine! All that the Vine
can ever be to its branch, "I will be to you."
Holy Lord Jesus, the heavenly Vine of God's own planting, I beseech
Thee, reveal Thyself to my soul. Let the Holy Spirit, not only in thought,
but in experience, give me to know all that Thou, the Son of God, art to me
as the true Vine.
THE HUSBANDMAN
And My Father is the Husbandman--John 15:1
A vine must have a husbandman to plant and watch over it, to receive
and rejoice in its fruit. Jesus says: "My Father is the husbandman." He was
"the vine of God's planting." All He was and did, He owed to the Father; in
all He only sought the Father's will and glory. He had become man to show us
what a creature ought to be to its Creator. He took our place, and the
spirit of His life before the Father was ever what He seeks to make ours:
"Of him, and through him, and to him are all things." He became the true
Vine, that we might be true branches. Both in regard to Christ and ourselves
the words teach us the two lessons of absolute dependence and perfect
confidence.
My Father is the Husbandman.--Christ ever lived in the spirit of what
He once said: "The Son can do nothing of himself." As dependent as a vine is
on a husbandman for the place where it is to grow, for its fencing in and
watering and pruning. Christ felt Himself entirely dependent on the Father
every day for the wisdom and the strength to do the Father's will. As He
said in the previous chapter (14:10): "The words that I say unto you, I
speak not from Myself; but the Father abiding in Me doeth his works." This
absolute dependence had as its blessed counterpart the most blessed
confidence that He had nothing to fear: the Father could not disappoint Him.
With such a Husbandman as His Father, He could enter death and the grave. He
could trust God to raise Him up. All that Christ is and has, He has, not in
Himself, but from the Father.
My Father is the Husbandman.--That is as blessedly true for us as for
Christ. Christ is about to teach His disciples about their being branches.
Before He ever uses the word, or speaks at all of abiding in Him or bearing
fruit, He turns their eyes heavenward to the Father watching over them, and
working all in them. At the very root of all Christian life lies the thought
that God is to do all, that our work is to give and leave ourselves in His
hands, in the confession of utter helplessness and dependence, in the
assured confidence that He gives all we need. The great lack of the
Christian life is that, even where we trust Christ, we leave God out of the
count. Christ came to bring us to God. Christ lived the life of a man
exactly as we have to live it. Christ the Vine points to God the Husbandman.
As He trusted God, let us trust God, that everything we ought to be and
have, as those who belong to the Vine, will be given us from above.
Isaiah said: "A vineyard of red wine; I the Lord do keep it, I will
water it every moment; lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day." Ere
we begin to think of fruit or branches, let us have our heart filled with
the faith: as glorious as the Vine, is the Husbandman. As high and holy as
is our calling, so mighty and loving is the God who will work it all. As
surely as the Husbandman made the Vine what it was to be, will He make each
branch what it is to be. Our Father is our Husbandman, the Surety for our
growth and fruit.
Blessed Father, we are Thy husbandry. Oh, that Thou mayest have honor
of the work of Thy hands! O my Father, I desire to open my heart to the joy
of this wondrous truth: My Father is the Husbandman. Teach me to know and
trust Thee, and to see that the same deep interest with which Thou caredst
for and delightedst in the Vine, extends to every branch, to me too.
THE BRANCH
Every Branch in me that Beareth Not Fruit, He taketh It away--John 15:2
Here we have one of the chief words of the parable--branch. A vine
needs branches: without branches it can do nothing, can bear no fruit. As
important as it is to know about the Vine, and the Husbandman, it is to
realize what the branch is. Before we listen to what Christ has to say about
it, let us first of all take in what a branch is, and what it teaches us of
our life in Christ. A branch is simply a bit of wood, brought forth by the
vine for the one purpose of serving it in bearing its fruit. It is of the
very same nature as the vine, and has one life and one spirit with it. Just
think a moment of the lessons this suggests.
There is the lesson of entire consecration. The branch has but one
object for which it exists, one purpose to which it is entirely given up.
That is, to bear the fruit the vine wishes to bring forth. And so the
believer has but one reason for his being a branch--but one reason for his
existence on earth --that the heavenly Vine may through him bring forth His
fruit. Happy the soul that knows this, that has consented to it, and that
says, I have been redeemed and I live for one thing--as exclusively as the
natural branch exists only to bring forth fruit, I too; as exclusively as
the heavenly Vine exists to bring forth fruit, I too. As I have been planted
by God into Christ, I have wholly given myself to bear the fruit the Vine
desires to bring forth.
There is the lesson of perfect conformity. The branch is exactly like
the vine in every aspect--the same nature, the same life, the same place,
the same work. In all this they are inseparably one. And so the believer
needs to know that he is partaker of the divine nature, and has the very
nature and spirit of Christ in him, and that his one calling is to yield
himself to a perfect conformity to Christ. The branch is a perfect likeness
of the vine; the only difference is, the one is great and strong, and the
source of strength, the other little and feeble, ever needing and receiving
strength. Even so the believer is, and is to be, the perfect likeness of
Christ.
There is the lesson of absolute dependence. The vine has its stores of
life and sap and strength, not for itself, but for the branches. The
branches are and have nothing but what the vine provides and imparts. The
believer is called to, and it is his highest blessedness to enter upon, a
life of entire and unceasing dependence upon Christ. Day and night, every
moment, Christ is to work in him all he needs.
And then the lesson of undoubting confidence. The branch has no cure;
the vine provides all; it has but to yield itself and receive. It is the
sight of this truth that leads to the blessed rest of faith, the true secret
of growth and strength: "I can do all things through Christ which
strengtheneth me."
What a life would come to us if we only consented to be branches! Dear
child of God, learn the lesson. You have but one thing to do: Only be a
branch--nothing more, nothing less! Just be a branch; Christ will be the
Vine that gives all. And the Husbandman, the mighty God, who made the Vine
what it is, will as surely make the branch what it ought to be.
Lord Jesus, I pray Thee, reveal to me the heavenly mystery of the
branch, in its living union with the Vine, in its claim on all its fullness.
And let Thy all-sufficiency, holding and filling Thy branches, lead me to
the rest of faith that knows that Thou workest all.
THE FRUIT
Every Branch in me That Beareth Not Fruit, He Taketh It Away--John 15:2
Fruit.--This is the next great word we have: the Vine, the Husbandman,
the branch, the fruit. What has our Lord to say to us of fruit? Simply
this--that fruit is the one thing the branch is for, and that if it bear not
fruit, the husbandman takes it away. The vine is the glory of the
husbandman; the branch is the glory of the vine; the fruit is the glory of
the branch; if the branch bring not forth fruit, there is no glory or worth
in it; it is an offense and a hindrance; the husbandman takes it away. The
one reason for the existence of a branch, the one mark of being a true
branch of the heavenly Vine, the one condition of being allowed by the
divine Husbandman to share the life the Vine is--bearing fruit.
And what is fruit? Something that the branch bears, not for itself, but
for its owner; something that is to be gathered, and taken away. The branch
does indeed receive it from the vine sap for its own life, by which it grows
thicker and stronger. But this supply for its own maintenance is entirely
subordinate to its fulfillment of the purpose of its existence--bearing
fruit. It is because Christians do not understand or accept of this truth,
that they so fail in their efforts and prayers to live the branch life. They
often desire it very earnestly; they read and meditate and pray, and yet
they fail, they wonder why? The reason is very simple: they do not know that
fruit-bearing is the one thing they have been saved for. Just as entirely as
Christ became the true Vine with the one object, you have been made a branch
too, with the one object of bearing fruit for the salvation of men. The Vine
and the branch are equally under the unchangeable law of fruit-bearing as
the one reason of their being. Christ and the believer, the heavenly Vine
and the branch, have equally their place in the world exclusively for one
purpose, to carry God's saving love to men. Hence the solemn word: Every
branch that beareth not fruit, He taketh it away.
Let us specially beware of one great mistake. Many Christians think
their own salvation is the first thing; their temporal life and prosperity,
with the care of their family, the second; and what of time and interest is
left may be devoted to fruit-bearing, to the saving of men. No wonder that
in most cases very little time or interest can be found. No, Christian, the
one object with which you have been made a member of Christ's Body is that
the Head may have you to carry out His saving work. The one object God had
in making you a branch is that Christ may through you bring life to men.
Your personal salvation, your business and care for your family, are
entirely subordinate to this. Your first aim in life, your first aim every
day, should be to know how Christ desires to carry out His purpose in you.
Let us begin to think as God thinks. Let us accept Christ's teaching
and respond to it. The one object of my being a branch, the one mark of my
being a true branch, the one condition of my abiding and growing strong, is
that I bear the fruit of the heavenly Vine for dying men to eat and live.
And the one thing of which I can have the most perfect assurance is that,
with Christ as my Vine, and the Father as my Husbandman, I can indeed be a
fruitful branch.
Our Father, Thou comest seeking fruit. Teach us, we pray Thee, to
realize how truly this is the one object of our existence, and of our union
to Christ. Make it the one desire of our hearts to be branches, so filled
with the Spirit of the Vine, as to bring forth fruit abundantly.
MORE FRUIT
And Every Branch That Beareth Fruit, He Cleanseth, That it May Bear More
Fruit--John 15:2
The thought of fruit is so prominent in the eye of Him who sees things
as they are, fruit is so truly the one thing God has set His heart upon,
that our Lord, after having said that the branch that bears no fruit is
taken away, at once adds: and where there is fruit, the one desire of the
Husbandman is more fruit. As the gift of His grace, as the token of
spiritual vigor, as the showing forth of the glory of God and of Christ, as
the only way for satisfying the need of the world, God longs and fits for,
more fruit.
More Fruit--This is a very searching word. As churches and individuals
we are in danger of nothing so much as self-contentment. The secret spirit
of Laodicea--we are rich and increased in goods, and have need of
nothing--may prevail where it is not suspected. The divine warning--poor and
wretched and miserable--finds little response just where it is most needed.
Let us not rest content with the thought that we are taking an equal
share with others in the work that is being done, or that men are satisfied
with our efforts in Christ's service, or even point to us as examples. Let
our only desire be to know whether we are bearing all the fruit Christ is
willing to give through us as living branches, in close and living union
with Himself, whether we are satisfying the loving heart of the great
Husbandman, our Father in Heaven, in His desire for more fruit.
More Fruit--The word comes with divine authority to search and test our
life: the true disciple will heartily surrender himself to its holy light,
and will earnestly ask that God Himself may show what there may be lacking
in the measure or the character of the fruit he bears. Do let us believe
that the Word is meant to lead us on to a fuller experience of the Father's
purpose of love, of Christ's fullness, and of the wonderful privilege of
bearing much fruit in the salvation of men.
More Fruit--The word is a most encouraging one. Let us listen to it. It
is just to the branch that is bearing fruit that the message comes: more
fruit. God does not demand this as Pharaoh the task-master, or as Moses the
lawgiver, without providing the means. He comes as a Father, who gives what
He asks, and works what He commands. He comes to us as the living branches
of the living Vine, and offers to work the more fruit in us, if we but yield
ourselves into His hands. Shall we not admit the claim, accept the offer,
and look to Him to work it in us?
"That it may bear more fruit": do let us believe that as the owner of a
vine does everything to make the fruitage as rich and large as possible, the
divine Husbandman will do all that is needed to make us bear more fruit. All
He asks is, that we set our heart's desire on it, entrust ourselves to His
working and care, and joyfully look to Him to do His perfect work in us. God
has set His heart on more fruit; Christ waits to work it in us; let us
joyfully look up to our divine Husbandman and our heavenly Vine, to ensure
our bearing more fruit.
Our Father which art in Heaven, Thou art the heavenly Husbandman. And
Christ is the heavenly Vine. And I am a heavenly branch, partaker of His
heavenly life, to bear His heavenly fruit. Father, let the power of His life
so fill me, that I may ever bear more fruit, to the glory of Thy name.
THE CLEANSING
Every Branch That Beareth Fruit, He Cleanseth It, That It May Bear More
Fruit--John 15:2
There are two remarkable things about the vine. There is not a plant of
which the fruit has so much spirit in it, of which spirit can be so
abundantly distilled as the vine. And there is not a plant which so soon
runs into wild wood, that hinders its fruit, and therefore needs the most
merciless pruning. I look out of my window here on large vineyards: the
chief care of the vinedresser is the pruning. You may have a trellis vine
rooting so deep in good soil that it needs neither digging, nor manuring,
nor watering: pruning it cannot dispense with, if it is to bear good fruit.
Some tree needs occasional pruning; others bear perfect fruit without any:
the vine must have it. And so our Lord tells us, here at the very outset of
the parable, that the one work the Father does to the branch that bears
fruit is: He cleanseth it, that it may bear more fruit.
Consider a moment what this pruning or cleansing is. It is not the
removal of weeds or thorns, or anything from without that may hinder the
growth. No; it is the cutting off of the long shoots of the previous year,
the removal of something that comes from within, that has been produced by
the life of the vine itself. It is the removal of something that is a proof
of the vigor of its life; the more vigorous the growth has been, the greater
the need for the pruning. It is the honest, healthy wood of the vine that
has to be cut away. And why? Because it would consume too much of the sap to
fill all the long shoots of last year's growth: the sap must be saved up and
used for fruit alone. The branches, sometimes eight and ten feet long, are
cut down close to the stem, and nothing is left but just one or two inches
of wood, enough to bear the grapes. It is when everything that is not
needful for fruit-bearing has been relentlessly cut down, and just as little
of the branches as possible has been left, that full, rich fruit may be
expected.
What a solemn, precious lesson! It is not to sin only that the
cleansing of the Husbandman here refers. It is to our own religious
activity, as it is developed in the very act of bearing fruit. It is this
that must be cut down and cleansed away. We have, in working for God, to use
our natural gifts of wisdom, or eloquence, or influence, or zeal. And yet
they are ever in danger of being unduly developed, and then trusted in. And
so, after each season of work, God has to bring us to the end of ourselves,
to the consciousness of the helplessness and the danger of all that is of
man, to feel that we are nothing. All that is to be left of us is just
enough to receive the power of the life-giving sap of the Holy Spirit. What
is of man must be reduced to its very lowest measure. All that is
inconsistent with the most entire devotion to Christ's service must be
removed. The more perfect the cleansing and cutting away of all that is of
self, the less of surface over which the Holy Spirit is to be spread, so
much the more intense can be the concentration of our whole being, to be
entirely at the disposal of the Spirit. This is the true circumcision of the
heart, the circumcision of Christ. This is the true crucifixion with Christ,
bearing about the dying of the Lord Jesus in the body.
Blessed cleansing, God's own cleansing! How we may rejoice in the
assurance that we shall bring forth more fruit.
O our holy Husbandman, cleanse and cut away all that there is in us
that would make a fair show, or could become a source of self-confidence and
glorying. Lord, keep us very low, that no flesh may glory in Thy presence.
We do trust Thee to do Thy work.
THE PRUNING KNIFE
Already Ye Are Clean Because of the Word I Have Spoken Unto You--John 15:3
What is the pruning knife of this heavenly Husbandman? It is often said
to be affliction. By no means in the first place. How would it then fare
with many who have long seasons free from adversity; or with some on whom
God appears to shower down kindness all their life long? No; it is the Word
of God that is the knife, shaper than any two-edged sword, that pierces even
to the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit, and is quick to discern the
thoughts and intents of the heart. It is only when affliction leads to this
discipline of the Word that it becomes a blessing; the lack of this
heart-cleansing through the Word is the reason why affliction is so often
unsanctified. Not even Paul's thorn in the flesh could become a blessing
until Christ's Word--"My strength is made perfect in weakness"--had made him
see the danger of self-exaltation, and made him willing to rejoice in
infirmities.
The Word of God's pruning knife. Jesus says: "Ye are already clean,
because of the word I have spoken unto you." How searchingly that word had
been spoken by Him, out of whose mouth there went a sharp two-edged sword,
as he had taught them! "Except a man deny himself, lose his life, forsake
all, hate father and mother, he cannot be My disciple, he is not worthy of
Me"; or as He humbled their pride, or reproved their lack of love, or
foretold their all forsaking Him. From the opening of His ministry in the
Sermon on the Mount to His words of warning in the last night, His Word had
tried and cleansed them. He had discovered and condemned all there was of
self; they were now emptied and cleansed, ready for the incoming of the Holy
Spirit.
It is as the soul gives up its own thoughts, and men's thoughts of what
is religion, and yields itself heartily, humbly, patiently, to the teaching
of the Word by the Spirit, that the Father will do His blessed work of
pruning and cleansing away all of nature and self that mixes with our work
and hinders His Spirit. Let those who would know all the Husbandman can do
for them, all the Vine can bring forth through them, seek earnestly to yield
themselves heartily to the blessed cleansing through the Word. Let them, in
their study of the Word, receive it as a hammer that breaks and opens up, as
a fire that melts and refines, as a sword that lays bare and slays all that
is of the flesh. The word of conviction will prepare for the word of comfort
and of hope, and the Father will cleanse them through the Word.
All ye who are branches of the true Vine, each time you read or hear
the Word, wait first of all on Him to use it for His cleansing of the
branch. Set your heart upon His desire for more fruit. Trust Him as
Husbandman to work it. Yield yourselves in simple childlike surrender to the
cleansing work of His Word and Spirit, and you may count upon it that His
purpose will be fulfilled in you.
Father, I pray Thee, cleanse me through Thy Word. Let it search out and
bring to light all that is of self and the flesh in my religion. Let it cut
away every root of self-confidence, that the Vine may find me wholly free to
receive His life and Spirit. O my holy Husbandman, I trust Thee to care for
the branch as much as for the Vine. Thou only art my hope.
ABIDE
Abide in Me, and I in You--John 15:4
When a new graft is placed in a vine and it abides there, there is a
twofold process that takes place. The first is in the wood. The graft shoots
its little roots and fibers down into the stem, and the stem grows up into
the graft, and what has been called the structural union is effected. The
graft abides and becomes one with the vine, and even though the vine were to
die, would still be one wood with it. Then there is the second process, in
which the sap of the vine enters the new structure, and uses it as a passage
through which sap can flow up to show itself in young shoots and leaves and
fruit. Here is the vital union. Into the graft which abides in the stock,
the stock enters with sap to abide in it.
When our Lord says: "Abide in me, and I in you," He points to something
analogous to this. "Abide in me": that refers more to that which we have to
do. We have to trust and obey, to detach ourselves from all else, to reach
out after Him and cling to Him, to sink ourselves into Him. As we do this,
through the grace He gives, a character is formed, and a heart prepared for
the fuller experience: "I in you," God strengthens us with might by the
Spirit in the inner man, and Christ dwells in the heart by faith.
Many believers pray and long very earnestly for the filling of the
Spirit and the indwelling of Christ, and wonder that they do not make more
progress. The reason is often this, the "I in you" cannot come because the
"abide in me" is not maintained. "There is one body and one spirit"; before
the Spirit can fill, there must be a body prepared. The graft must have
grown into the stem, and be abiding in it before the sap can flow through to
bring forth fruit. It is as in lowly obedience we follow Christ, even in
external things, denying ourselves, forsaking the world, and even in the
body seeking to be conformable to Him, as we thus seek to abide in Him, that
we shall be able to receive and enjoy the "I in you." The work enjoined on
us: "Abide in me," will prepare us for the work undertaken by Him: "I in
you."
In--The two parts of the injunction have their unity in that central
deep-meaning word "in." There is no deeper word in Scripture. God is in all.
God dwells in Christ. Christ lives in God. We are in Christ. Christ is in
us: our life taken up into His; His life received into ours; in a divine
reality that words cannot express, we are in Him and He in us. And the
words, "Abide in me and I in you," just tell us to believe it, this divine
mystery, and to count upon our God the Husbandman, and Christ the Vine, to
make it divinely true. No thinking or teaching or praying can grasp it; it
is a divine mystery of love. As little as we can effect the union can we
understand it. Let us just look upon this infinite, divine, omnipotent Vine
loving us, holding us, working in us. Let us in the faith of His working
abide and rest in Him, ever turning heart and hope to Him alone. And let us
count upon Him to fulfill in us the mystery: "Ye in me, and I in you."
Blessed Lord, Thou dost bid me abide in Thee. How can I, Lord, except
Thou show Thyself to me, waiting to receive and welcome and keep me? I pray
Thee show me how Thou as Vine undertaketh to do all. To be occupied with
Thee is to abide in Thee. Here I am, Lord, a branch, cleansed and
abiding--resting in Thee, and awaiting the inflow of Thy life and grace.
EXCEPT YE ABIDE
As the Branch Cannot Bear Fruit of Itself, Except It Abide In the Vine; No
More Can Ye, Except Ye Abide in Me--John 15:4
We know the meaning of the word except. It expresses some indispensable
condition, some inevitable law. "The branch cannot bear fruit of itself,
except it abide in the vine. No more can ye, except ye abide in me." There
is but one way for the branch to bear fruit, there is no other possibility,
it must abide in unbroken communion with the vine. Not of itself, but only
of the vine, does the fruit come. Christ had already said: "Abide in me"; in
nature the branch teaches us the lesson so clearly; it is such a wonderful
privilege to be called and allowed to abide in the heavenly Vine; one might
have thought it needless to add these words of warning. But no--Christ knows
so well what a renunciation of self is implied in this: "Abide in me"; how
strong and universal the tendency would be to seek to bear fruit by our own
efforts; how difficult it would be to get us to believe that actual,
continuous abiding in Him is an absolute necessity! He insists upon the
truth: Not of itself can the branch bear fruit; except it abide, it cannot
bear fruit. "No more can ye, except ye abide in me."
But must this be taken literally? Must I, as exclusively, and
manifestly, and unceasingly, and absolutely, as the branch abides in the
vine, be equally given up to find my whole life in Christ alone? I must
indeed. The except ye abide is as universal as the except it abide. The no
more can ye admits of no exception or modification. If I am to be a true
branch, if I am to bear fruit, if I am to be what Christ as Vine wants me to
be, my whole existence must be as exclusively devoted to abiding in Him, as
that of the natural branch is to abiding in its vine.
Let me learn the lesson. Abiding is to be an act of the will and the
whole heart. Just as there are degrees in seeking and serving God, "not with
a perfect heart," or "with the whole heart," so there may be degrees in
abiding. In regeneration the divine life enters us, but does not all at once
master and fill our whole being. This comes as matter of command and
obedience. There is unspeakable danger of our not giving ourselves with our
whole heart to abide. There is unspeakable danger of our giving ourselves to
work for God, and to bear fruit, with but little of the true abiding, the
wholehearted losing of ourselves in Christ and His life. There is
unspeakable danger of much work with but little fruit, for lack of this one
thing needful. We must allow the words, "not of itself," "except it abide,"
to do their work of searching and exposing, of pruning and cleansing, all
that there is of self-will and self-confidence in our life; this will
deliver us from this great evil, and so prepare us for His teaching, giving
the full meaning of the word in us: "Abide in me, and I in you."
Our blessed Lord desires to call us away from ourselves and our own
strength, to Himself and His strength. Let us accept the warning, and turn
with great fear and self-distrust to Him to do His work. "Our life is hid
with Christ in God!" That life is a heavenly mystery, hid from the wise even
among Christians, and revealed unto babes. The childlike spirit learns that
life is given from Heaven every day and every moment to the soul that
accepts the teaching: "not of itself," "except it abide," and seeks its all
in the Vine. Abiding in the Vine then comes to be nothing more nor less than
the restful surrender of the soul to let Christ have all and work all, as
completely as in nature the branch knows and seeks nothing but the vine.
Abide in Me. I have heard, my Lord, that with every command, Thou also
givest the power to obey. With Thy "rise and walk," the lame man leaped, I
accept Thy word, "Abide in me," as a word of power, that gives power, and
even now I say, Yea, Lord, I will, I do abide in Thee.
THE VINE
I am The Vine, Ye Are The Branches--John 15:5
In the previous verse Christ had just said: "Abide in me." He had then
announced the great unalterable law of all branch-life, on earth or in
Heaven: "not of itself"; "except it abide." In the opening words of the
parable He had already spoken: "I am the vine." He now repeats the words. He
would have us understand--note well the lesson, simple as it appears, it is
the key of the abiding life--that the only way to obey the command, "Abide
in me," is to have eye and heart fixed upon Himself. "Abide in me...I am the
true vine." Yea, study this holy mystery until you see Christ as the true
Vine, bearing, strengthening, supplying, inspiring all His branches, being
and doing in each branch all it needs, and the abiding will come of itself.
Yes, gaze upon Him as the true Vine, until you feel what a heavenly Mystery
it is, and are compelled to ask the Father to reveal it to you by His Holy
Spirit. He to whom God reveals the glory of the true Vine, he who sees what
Jesus is and waits to do every moment, he cannot but abide. The vision of
Christ is an irresistible attraction; it draws and holds us like a magnet.
Listen ever to the living Christ still speaking to you, and waiting to show
you the meaning and power of His Word: "I am the vine."
How much weary labor there has been in striving to understand what
abiding is, how much fruitless effort in trying to attain it! Why was this?
Because the attention was turned to the abiding as a work we have to do,
instead of the living Christ, in whom we were to be kept abiding, who
Himself was to hold and keep us. we thought of abiding as a continual strain
and effort--we forget that it means rest from effort to one who has found
the place of his abode. Do notice how Christ said, "Abide in Me; I am the
Vine that brings forth, and holds, and strengthens, and makes fruitful the
branches. Abide in Me, rest in Me, and let Me do My work. I am the true
Vine, all I am, and speak, and do is divine truth, giving the actual reality
of what is said. I am the Vine, only consent and yield thy all to Me, I will
do all in thee."
And so it sometimes comes that souls who have never been specially
occupied with the thought of abiding, are abiding all the time, because they
are occupied with Christ. Not that the word abide is not needful; Christ
used it so often, because it is the very key to the Christian life. But He
would have us understand it in its true sense--"Come out of every other
place, and every other trust and occupation, come out of self with its
reasonings and efforts, come and rest in what I shall do. Live out of
thyself; abide in Me. Know that thou art in Me; thou needest no more; remain
there in Me."
"I am the Vine." Christ did not keep this mystery hidden from His
disciples. He revealed it, first in words here, then in power when the Holy
Spirit came down. He will reveal it to us too, first in the thoughts and
confessions and desires these words awaken, then in power by the Spirit. Do
let us wait on Him to show us all the heavenly meaning of the mystery. Let
each day, in our quiet time, in the inner chamber with Him and His Word, our
chief thought and aim be to get the heart fixed on Him, in the assurance:
all that a vine ever can do for its branches, my Lord Jesus will do, is
doing, for me. Give Him time, give Him your ear, that He may whisper and
explain the divine secret: "I am the vine."
Above all, remember, Christ is the Vine of God's planting, and you are
a branch of God's grafting. Ever stand before God, in Christ; ever wait for
all grace from God, in Christ; ever yield yourself to bear the more fruit
the Husbandman asks, in Christ. And pray much for the revelation of the
mystery that all the love and power of God that rested on Christ is working
in you too. "I am God's Vine," Jesus says; "all I am I have from Him; all I
am is for you; God will work it in you."
I am the Vine. Blessed Lord, speak Thou that word into my soul. Then
shall I know that all Thy fullness is for me. And that I can count upon Thee
to stream it into me, and that my abiding is so easy and so sure when I
forget and lose myself in the adoring faith that the Vine holds the branch
and supplies its every need.
YE THE BRANCHES
I Am The Vine, Ye Are the Branches--John 15:5
Christ had already said much of the branch; here He comes to the
personal application: "Ye are the branches of whom I have been speaking. As
I am the Vine, engaged to be and do all the branches need, so I now ask you,
in the new dispensation of the Holy Spirit whom I have been promising you,
to accept the place I give you, and to be My branches on earth." The
relationship He seeks to establish is an intensely personal one: it all
hinges on the two little words I and You. And it is for us as intensely
personal as for the first disciples. Let us present ourselves before our
Lord, until He speak to each of us in power, and our whole soul feels it: "I
am the Vine; you are the branch."
Dear disciple of Jesus, however young or feeble, hear the voice. "You
are the branch." You must be nothing less. Let no false humility, no carnal
fear of sacrifice, no unbelieving doubts as to what you feel able for, keep
you back from saying: "I will be a branch, with all that may mean--a branch,
very feeble, but yet as like the Vine as can be, for I am of the same
nature, and receive of the same spirit. A branch, utterly helpless, and yet
just as manifestly set apart before God and men, as wholly given up to the
work of bearing fruit, as the Vine itself. A branch, nothing in myself, and
yet resting and rejoicing in the faith that knows that He will provide for
all. Yes, by His grace, I will be nothing less than a branch, and all He
means it to be, that through me, He may bring forth His fruit."
You are the branch.--You need be nothing more. You need not for one
single moment of the day take upon you the responsibility of the Vine. You
need not leave the place of entire dependence and unbounded confidence. You
need, least of all, to be anxious as to how you are to understand the
mystery, or fulfill its conditions, or work out its blessed aim. The Vine
will give all and work all. The Father, the Husbandman, watches over your
union with and growth in the Vine. You need be nothing more than a branch.
Only a branch! Let that be your watchword; it will lead in the path of
continual surrender to Christ's working, of true obedience to His every
command, of joyful expectancy of all His grace.
Is there anyone who now asks: "How can I learn to say this aright,
`Only be a branch!' and to live it out?" Dear soul, the character of a
branch, its strength, and the fruit it bears, depend entirely upon the Vine.
And your life as branch depends entirely upon your apprehension of what our
Lord Jesus is. Therefore never separate the two words: "I the Vine--you the
branch." Your life and strength and fruit depend upon what your Lord Jesus
is! Therefore worship and trust Him; let Him be your one desire and the one
occupation of your heart. And when you feel that you do not and cannot know
Him aright, then just remember it is part of His responsibility as Vine to
make Himself known to you. He does this not in thoughts and
conceptions--no--but in a hidden growth within the life that is humbly and
restfully and entirely given up to wait on Him. The Vine reveals itself
within the branch; thence comes the growth and fruit, Christ dwells and
works within His branch; only be a branch, waiting on Him to do all; He will
be to thee the true Vine. The Father Himself, the divine Husbandman, is able
to make thee a branch worthy of the heavenly Vine. Thou shalt not be
disappointed.
Ye are the branches. This word, too Lord! O speak it in power unto my
soul. Let not the branch of the earthly vine put me to shame, but as it only
lives to bear the fruit of the vine, may my life on earth have no wish or
aim, but to let Thee bring forth fruit through me.
MUCH FRUIT
He That Abideth in Me, and I in Him, the Same Bringeth Forth Much
Fruit--John 15:5
Our Lord had spoken of fruit, more fruit. He now adds the thought: much
fruit. There is in the Vine such fullness, the care of the divine Husbandman
is so sure of success, that the much fruit is not a demand, but the simple
promise of what must come to the branch that lives in the double abiding--he
in Christ, and Christ in him. "The same bringeth forth much fruit." It is
certain.
Have you ever noticed the difference in the Christian life between work
and fruit? A machine can do work: only life can bear fruit. A law can compel
work: only love can spontaneously bring forth fruit. Work implies effort and
labor: the essential idea of fruit is that it is the silent natural restful
produce of our inner life. The gardener may labor to give his apple tree the
digging and manuring, the watering and the pruning it needs; he can do
nothing to produce the apple: "The fruit of the Spirit is love, peace, joy."
The healthy life bears much fruit. The connection between work and fruit is
perhaps best seen in the expression, "fruitful in every good work." (Col.
1:10). It is only when good works come as the fruit of the indwelling Spirit
that they are acceptable to God. Under the compulsion of law and conscience,
or the influence of inclination and zeal, men may be most diligent in good
works, and yet find that they have but little spiritual result. There can be
no reason but this--their works are man's effort, instead of being the fruit
of the Spirit, the restful, natural outcome of the Spirit's operation within
us.
Let all workers come and listen to our holy Vine as He reveals the law
of sure and abundant fruitfulness: "He that abideth in me, and I in him, the
same bringeth forth much fruit." The gardener cares for one thing--the
strength and healthy life of his tree: the fruit follows of itself. If you
would bear fruit, see that the inner life is perfectly right, that your
relation to Christ Jesus is clear and close. Begin each day with Him in the
morning, to know in truth that you are abiding in Him and He in you. Christ
tells that nothing less will do. It is not your willing and running, it is
not by your might or strength, but--"by my Spirit, saith the Lord." Meet
each new engagement, undertake every new work, with an ear and heart open to
the Master's voice: "He that abideth in me, beareth much fruit." See you to
the abiding; He will see to the fruit, for He will give it in you and
through you.
O my brother, it is Christ must do all! The Vine provides the sap, and
the life, and the strength: the branch waits, and rests, and receives, and
bears the fruit. Oh, the blessedness of being only branches, through whom
the Spirit flows and brings God's life to men!
I pray you, take time and ask the Holy Spirit to give you to realize
the unspeakably solemn place you occupy in the mind of God. He has planted
you into His Son with the calling and the power to bear much fruit. Accept
that place. Look much to God, and to Christ, and expect joyfully to be what
God has planned to make you, a fruitful branch.
Much fruit! So be it, blessed Lord Jesus. It can be, for Thou art the
Vine. It shall be, for I am abiding in Thee. It must be, for Thy Father is
the Husbandman that cleanses the branch. Yea, much fruit, out of the
abundance of Thy grace.
YOU CAN DO NOTHING
Apart From Me Ye Can Do Nothing--John 15:5
In everything the life of the branch is to be the exact counterpart of
that of the Vine. Of Himself Jesus had said: "The Son can do nothing of
himself." As the outcome of that entire dependence, He could add: "All that
the Father doeth, doeth the Son also likewise." As Son He did not receive
His life from the Father once for all, but moment by moment. His life was a
continual waiting on the Father for all He was to do. And so Christ says of
His disciples: "Ye can do nothing apart from me." He means it literally. To
everyone who wants to live the true disciple life, to bring forth fruit and
glorify God, the message comes: You can do nothing. What had been said: "He
that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit," is here
enforced by the simplest and strongest of arguments: "Abiding in Me is
indispensable, for, you know it, of yourselves you can do nothing to
maintain or act out the heavenly life."
A deep conviction of the truth of this word lies at the very root of a
strong spiritual life. As little as I created myself, as little as I could
raise a man from the dead, can I give myself the divine life. As little as I
can give it myself, can I maintain or increase it: every motion is the work
of God through Christ and His Spirit. It is as a man believes this, that he
will take up that position of entire and continual dependence which is the
very essence of the life of faith. With the spiritual eye he sees Christ
every moment supplying grace for every breathing and every deepening of the
spiritual life. His whole heart says Amen to the word: You can do nothing.
And just because he does so, he can also say: "I can do all things in Christ
who strengtheneth me." The sense of helplessness, and the abiding to which
it compels, leads to true fruitfulness and diligence in good works.
Apart from me ye can do nothing.--What a plea and what a call every
moment to abide in Christ! We have only to go back to the vine to see how
true it is. Look again at that little branch, utterly helpless and fruitless
except as it receives sap from the vine, and learn that the full conviction
of not being able to do anything apart from Christ is just what you need to
teach you to abide in your heavenly Vine. It is this that is the great
meaning of the pruning Christ spoke of--all that is self must be brought
low, that our confidence may be in Christ alone. "Abide in me"--much fruit!
"Apart from me"--nothing! Ought there to be any doubt as to what we shall
choose?
The one lesson of the parable is--as surely, as naturally as the branch
abides in the vine, You can abide in Christ. For this He is the true Vine;
for this God is the Husbandman; for this you are a branch. Shall we not cry
to God to deliver us forever from the "apart from me," and to make the
"abide in me" an unceasing reality? Let your heart go out to what Christ is,
and can do, to His divine power and His tender love to each of His branches,
and you will say evermore confidently: "Lord! I am abiding; I will bear much
fruit. My impotence is my strength. So be it. Apart from Thee, nothing. In
Thee, much fruit."
Apart from Me--you nothing. Lord, I gladly accept the arrangement: I
nothing--Thou all. My nothingness is my highest blessing, because Thou art
the Vine, that givest and workest all. So be it, Lord! I, nothing, ever
waiting on Thy fullness. Lord, reveal to me the glory of this blessed life.
WITHERED BRANCHES
If a Man Abide Not in Me, He is Cast Forth as a Branch, and is Withered; and
They Gather Them, and Cast Them into the Fire, and They are Burned--John
15:6
The lessons these words teach are very simple and very solemn. A man
can come to such a connection with Christ, that he counts himself to be in
Him, and yet he can be cast forth. There is such a thing as not abiding in
Christ, which leads to withering up and burning. There is such a thing as a
withered branch, one in whom the initial union with Christ appears to have
taken place, and in whom yet it is seen that his faith was but for a time.
What a solemn call to look around and see if there be not withered branches
in our churches, to look within and see whether we are indeed abiding and
bearing fruit!
And what may be the cause of this "not abiding." With some it is that
they never understood how the Christian calling leads to holy obedience and
to loving service. They were content with the thought that they had
believed, and were safe from Hell; there was neither motive nor power to
abide in Christ--they knew not the need of it. With others it was that the
cares of the world, or its prosperity, choked the Word: they had never
forsaken all to follow Christ. With still others it was that their religion
and their faith was in the wisdom of men, and not in the power of God. They
trusted in the means of grace, or in their own sincerity, or in the
soundness of their faith in justifying grace; they had never come even to
seek an entire abiding in Christ as their only safety. No wonder that, when
the hot winds of temptation or persecution blew, they withered away: they
were not truly rooted in Christ.
Let us open our eyes and see if there be not withered branches all
around us in the churches. Young men, whose confessions were once bright,
but who are growing cold. Or old men, who have retained their profession,
but out of whom the measure of life there once appeared to be has died out.
Let ministers and believers take Christ's words to heart, and see, and ask
the Lord whether there is nothing to be done for branches that are beginning
to wither. And let the word Abide ring through the Church until every
believer has caught it--no safety but in a true abiding in Christ.
Let each of us turn within. Is our life fresh, and green, and vigorous,
bringing forth its fruit in its season? (See Ps. 1:3; 92:13, 14; Jer. 17:7,
8.) Let us accept every warning with a willing mind, and let Christ's "if a
man abide not" give new urgency to His "abide in me." To the upright soul
the secret of abiding will become ever simpler, just the consciousness of
the place in which He has put me; just the childlike resting in my union
with Him, and the trustful assurance that He will keep me. Oh, do let us
believe there is a life that knows of no withering, that is ever green; and
that brings forth fruit abundantly!
Withered! O my Father, watch over me, and keep me, and let nothing ever
for a moment hinder the freshness that comes from a full abiding in the
Vine. Let the very thought of a withered branch fill me with holy fear and
watchfulness.
WHATSOEVER YE WILL
If Ye Abide in Me, and My Words Abide in You, Ask Whatsoever Ye Will, and it
Shall be Done Unto You--John 15:7
The Whole place of the branch in the vine is one of unceasing prayer.
Without intermission it is ever calling: "O my vine, send the sap I need to
bear Thy fruit." And its prayers are never unanswered: it asks what it
needs, what it will, and it is done.
The healthy life of the believer in Christ is equally one of unceasing
prayer. Consciously or unconsciously, he lives in continual dependence. The
Word of his Lord, "You can do nothing," has taught him that not more
unbroken than the continuance of the branch in the vine, must be his asking
and receiving. The promise of our text gives us infinite boldness: "Ask
whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you."
The promise is given in direct connection with fruit-bearing. Limit it
to yourself and your own needs, and you rob it of its power; you rob
yourself of the power of appropriating it. Christ was sending these
disciples out, and they were ready to give their life for the world; to them
He gave the disposal of the treasures of Heaven. Their prayers would bring
the Spirit and the power they needed for their work.
The promise is given in direct connection with the coming of the
Spirit. The Spirit is not mentioned in the parable, just as little as the
sap of the vine is mentioned. But both are meant all through. In the chapter
preceding the parable, our Lord had spoken of the Holy Spirit, in connection
with their inner life, being in them, and revealing Himself within them
(14:15-23). In the next chapter He speaks of the Holy Spirit in connection
with their work, coming to them, convincing the world, and glorifying Him
(16:7-14). To avail ourselves of the unlimited prayer promises, we must be
men who are filled with the Spirit, and wholly given up to the work and
glory of Jesus. The Spirit will lead us into the truth of its meaning and
the certainty of its fulfillment.
Let us realize that we can only fulfill our calling to bear much fruit,
by praying much. In Christ are hid all the treasures men around us need; in
Him all God's children are blessed with all spiritual blessings; He is full
of grace and truth. But it needs prayer, much prayer, strong believing
prayer, to bring these blessings down. And let us equally remember that we
cannot appropriate the promise without a life given up for men. Many try to
take the promise, and then look round for what they can ask. This is not the
way; but the very opposite. Get the heart burdened with the need of souls,
and the command to save them, and the power will come to claim the promise.
Let us claim it as one of the revelations of our wonderful life in the
Vine: He tells us that if we ask in His name, in virtue of our union with
Him, whatsoever it be, it will be done to us. Souls are perishing because
there is too little prayer. God's children are feeble because there is too
little prayer. We bear so little fruit because there is so little prayer.
The faith of this promise would make us strong to pray; let us not rest till
it has entered into our very heart, and drawn us in the power of Christ to
continue and labor and strive in prayer until the blessing comes in power.
To be a branch means not only bearing fruit on earth, but power in prayer to
bring down blessing from Heaven. Abiding fully means praying much.
Ask what ye will. O my Lord, why is it that our hearts are so little
able to accept these words in their divine simplicity? Oh, give me to see
that we need nothing less than this promise to overcome the powers of the
world and Satan! Teach us to pray in the faith of this Thy promise.
IF YE ABIDE
If Ye Abide in Me, and My Words, Abide in You, Ask Whatsoever Ye Will, and
it Shall be Done Unto You--John 15:7
The reason the Vine and its branches are such a true parable of the
Christian life is that all nature has one source and breathes one spirit.
The plant world was created to be to man an object lesson teaching him his
entire dependence upon God, and his security in that dependence. He that
clothes the lilies will much more cloth us. He that gives the trees and the
vines their beauty and their fruits, making each what He meant it to be,
will much more certainly make us what He would have us to be. The only
difference is what God works in the trees is by a power of which they are
not conscious. He wants to work in us with our consent. This is the nobility
of man, that he has a will that can cooperate with God in understanding and
approving and accepting what He offers to do.
If ye abide--Here is the difference between the branch of the natural
and the branch of the spiritual Vine. The former abides by force of nature:
the latter abides, not by force of will, but by a divine power given to the
consent of the will. Such is the wonderful provision God has made that, what
the power of nature does in the one case, the power of grace will do in the
other. The branch can abide in the Vine.
If ye abide in me...ask whatsoever ye will--If we are to live a true
prayer life, with the love and the power and the experience of prayer
marking it, there must be no question about the abiding. And if we abide,
there need be no question about the liberty of asking what we will, and the
certainty of its being done. There is the one condition: "If ye abide in
me." There must be no hesitation about the possibility or the certainty of
it. We must gaze on that little branch and its wonderful power of bearing
such beautiful fruit until we truly learn to abide.
And what is its secret? Be wholly occupied with Jesus. Sink the roots
of your being in faith and love and obedience deep down into Him. Come away
out of every other place to abide here. Give up everything for the
inconceivable privilege of being a branch on earth of the glorified Son of
God in Heaven. Let Christ be first. Let Christ be all. Do not be occupied
with the abiding--be occupied with Christ! He will hold you, He will keep
you abiding in Him. He will abide in you.
If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you--This He gives as the
equivalent of the other expression: "I in you. If my words abide in
you"--that is, not only in meditation, in memory, in love, in faith--all
these words enter into your will, your being, and constitute your life--if
they transform your character into their own likeness, and you become and
are what they speak and mean--ask what ye will; it shall be done unto you.
Your words to God in prayer will be the fruit of Christ and His words living
in you.
Ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you--Believe in the truth
of this promise. Set yourself to be an intercessor for men; a fruit-bearing
intercessor, ever calling down more blessing. Such faith and prayer will
help you wonderfully to abide wholly and unceasingly.
If ye abide. Yes, Lord, the power to pray and the power to prevail must
depend on this abiding in Thee. As Thou art the Vine, Thou art the divine
Intercessor, who breathest Thy spirit in us. Oh, for grace to abide simply
and wholly in Thee, and ask great things!
THE FATHER GLORIFIED
Herein is My Father Glorified, that Ye Bear Much Fruit--John 15:8
How can we glorify God? Not by adding to His glory or bringing Him any
new glory that He has not. But simply by allowing His glory to shine out
through us, by yielding ourselves to Him, that His glory may manifest itself
in us and through us to the world. In a vineyard or a vine bearing much
fruit, the owner is glorified, as it tells of his skill and care. In the
disciple who bears much fruit, the Father is glorified. Before men and
angels, proof is given of the glory of God's grace and power; God's glory
shines out through him.
This is what Peter means when he writes: "He that ministers, let him
minister as of the ability that God giveth, that God in all things may be
glorified through Jesus Christ." As a man works and serves in a power which
comes from God alone, God gets all the glory. When we confess that the
ability came from God alone, he that does the work, and they who see it,
equally glorify God. It was God who did it. Men judge by the fruit of a
garden of what the gardener is. Men judge of God by the fruit that the
branches of the Vine of His planting bears. Little fruit brings little glory
to God. It brings no honor to either the Vine or the Husbandman. "That ye
bear much fruit, herein is my Father glorified."
We have sometimes mourned our lack of fruit, as a loss to ourselves and
our fellow men, with complaints of our feebleness as the cause. Let us
rather think of the sin and shame of little fruit as robbing God of the
glory He ought to get from us. Let us learn the secret of bringing glory to
God, serving of the ability which God giveth. The full acceptance of
Christ's Word, "You can do nothing"; the simple faith in God, who worketh
all in all; the abiding in Christ through whom the divine Husbandman does
His work and gets much fruit--this is the life that will bring glory to God.
Much fruit--God asks it; see that you give it. God can be content with
nothing less; be you content with nothing less. Let these words of
Christ--fruit, more fruit, much fruit--abide in you, until you think as He
does, and you be prepared to take from Him, the heavenly Vine, what He has
for you. Much fruit: herein is my Father glorified. Let the very height of
the demand be your encouragement. It is so entirely beyond your power, that
it throws you more entirely upon Christ, your true Vine. He can, He will,
make it true in you.
Much fruit--God asks because he needs. He does not ask fruit from the
branches of His Vine for show, to prove what He can do. No; He needs it for
the salvation of men: it is in that He is to be glorified. Throw yourself in
much prayer on your Vine and your Husbandman. Cry to God and your Father to
give you fruit to bring to men. Take the burden of the hungry and the
perishing on you, as Jesus did when He was moved with compassion, and your
power in prayer, and your abiding, and your bearing much fruit to the glory
of the Father will have a reality and a certainty you never knew before.
The Father glorified. Blessed prospect--God glorifying Himself in me,
showing forth the glory of His goodness and power in what He works in me,
and through me. What a motive to bear much fruit, just as much as He works
in me! Father, glorify Thyself in me.
TRUE DISCIPLES
Herein is My Father Glorified, that Ye Bear Much Fruit: So Shall Ye Be My
Disciples--John 15:8
And are those who do not bear much fruit not disciples? They may be,
but in a backward and immature stage. Of those who bear much fruit, Christ
says: "These are My disciples, such as I would have them be--these are true
disciples." Just as we say of someone in whom the idea of manliness is
realized: That is a man! So our Lord tells who are disciples after His
heart, worthy of the name: Those who bear much fruit. We find this double
sense of the word disciple in the Gospel. Sometimes it is applied to all who
accepted Christ's teaching. At other times it includes only the inner circle
of those who followed Christ wholly, and gave themselves to His training for
service. The difference has existed throughout all ages. There have always
been a smaller number of God's people who have sought to serve Him with
their whole heart, while the majority have been content with a very small
measure of the knowledge of His grace and will.
And what is the difference between this smaller inner circle and the
many who do not seek admission to it? We find it in the words: much fruit.
With many Christians the thought of personal safety, which at their first
awakening was a legitimate one, remains to the end the one aim of their
religion. The idea of service and fruit is always a secondary and very
subordinate one. The honest longing for much fruit does not trouble them.
Souls that have heard the call to live wholly for their Lord, to give their
life for Him as He gave His for them, can never be satisfied with this.
Their cry is to bear as much fruit as they possibly can, as much as their
Lord ever can desire or give in them.
Bear much fruit: so shall ye be My disciples--Let me beg every reader
to consider these words most seriously. Be not content with the thought of
gradually doing a little more or better work. In this way it may never come.
Take the words, much fruit, as the revelation of your heavenly Vine of what
you must be, of what you can be. Accept fully the impossibility, the utter
folly of attempting it in your strength. Let the words call you to look anew
upon the Vine, an undertaking to live out its heavenly fullness in you. Let
them waken in you once again the faith and the confession: "I am a branch of
the true Vine; I can bear much fruit to His glory, and the glory of the
Father."
We need not judge others. But we see in God's Word everywhere two
classes of disciples. Let there be no hesitation as to where we take our
place. Let us ask Him to reveal to us how He ask and claims a life wholly
given up to Him, to be as full of His Spirit as He can make us. Let our
desire be nothing less than perfect cleansing, unbroken abiding, closest
communion, abundant fruitfulness--true branches of the true Vine.
The world is perishing, the church is failing, Christ's cause is
suffering, Christ is grieving on account of the lack of wholehearted
Christians, bearing much fruit. Though you scarce see what it implies or how
it is to come, say to Him that you are His branch to bear much fruit; that
you are ready to be His disciple in His own meaning of the word.
My disciples. Blessed Lord, much fruit is the proof that Thou the true
Vine hast in me a true branch, a disciple wholly at Thy disposal. Give me, I
pray Thee, the childlike consciousness that my fruit is pleasing to Thee,
what Thou countest much fruit.
THE WONDERFUL LOVE
Even as the Father Hath Loved Me, I Also Have Loved you--John 15:9
Here Christ leaves the language of parable, and speaks plainly out of
the Father. Much as the parable could teach, it could not teach the lesson
of love. All that the vine does for the branch, it does under the compulsion
of a law of nature: there is no personal living love to the branch. We are
in danger of looking to Christ as a Saviour and a supplier of every need,
appointed by God, accepted and trusted by us, without any sense of the
intensity of personal affection in which Christ embraces us, and our life
alone can find its true happiness. Christ seeks to point us to this.
And how does He do so? He leads us once again to Himself, to show us
how identical His own life is with ours. Even as the Father loved Him, He
loves us. His life as vine dependent on the Father was a life in the
Father's love; that love was His strength and His joy; in the power of that
divine love resting on Him He lived and died. If we are to live like Him, as
branches to be truly like our Vine, we must share in this too. Our life must
have its breath and being in a heavenly love as much as His. What the
Father's love was to Him, His love will be to us. If that love made Him the
true Vine, His love can make us true branches. "Even as the Father hath
loved me, so have I loved you."
Even as the Father hath loved Me--And how did the Father love Him? The
infinite desire and delight of God to communicate to the Son all He had
Himself, to take the Son into the most complete equality with Himself, to
live in the Son and have the Son live in Him--this was the love of God to
Christ. It is a mystery of glory of which we can form no conception, we can
only bow and worship as we try to think of it. And with such a love, with
this very same love, Christ longs in an infinite desire and delight to
communicate to us all He is and has, to make us partakers of His own nature
and blessedness, to live in us and have us live in Himself.
And now, if Christ loves us with such an intense, such an infinite
divine love, what is it that hinders it triumphing over every obstacle and
getting full possession of us? The answer is simple. Even as the love of the
Father to Christ, so His love to us is a divine mystery, too high for us to
comprehend or attain to by any effort of our own. It is only the Holy Spirit
who can shed abroad and reveal in its all-conquering power without
intermission this wonderful love of God in Christ. It is the vine itself
that must give the branch its growth and fruit by sending up its sap. It is
Christ Himself must by His Holy Spirit dwell in the heart; then shall we
know and have in us the love that passeth knowledge.
As the Father loved Me, so have I loved you--Shall we not draw near to
the personal living Christ, and trust Him, and yield all to Him, that He may
love this love into us? Just as he knew and rejoiced every hour--the Father
loveth Me--we too may live in the unceasing consciousness--as the Father
loved Him, so He loves me.
As the Father loved Me, so have I loved you. Dear Lord, I am only
beginning to apprehend how exactly the life of the Vine is to be that of the
branch too. Thou art the Vine, because the Father loved Thee, and poured His
love through Thee. And so Thou lovest me, and my life as branch is to be
like Thine, a receiving and a giving out of heavenly love.
ABIDE IN MY LOVE
Even as the Father Hath Loved Me, I Also Have Loved You: Abide Ye in My
Love--John 15:9
Abide in My love--We speak of a man's home as his abode. Our abode, the
home of our soul, is to be the love of Christ. We are to live our life
there, to be at home there all the day: this is what Christ means our life
to be, and really can make it. Our continuous abiding in the Vine is to be
an abiding in His love.
You have probably heard or read of what is called the higher, or the
deeper life, of the richer or the fuller life, of the life abundant. And you
possibly know that some have told of a wonderful change, by which their life
of continual failure and stumbling had been changed into a very blessed
experience of being kept and strengthened and made exceeding glad. If you
asked them how it was this great blessing came to them, many would tell you
it was simply this, that they were led to believe that this abiding in
Christ's love was meant to be a reality, and that they were made willing to
give up everything for it, and then enabled to trust Christ to make it true
to them.
The love of the Father to the Son is not a sentiment--it is a divine
life, an infinite energy, an irresistible power. It carried Christ through
life and death and the grave. The Father loved Him and dwelt in Him, and did
all for Him. So the love of Christ to us too is an infinite living power
that will work in us all He delights to give us. The feebleness of our
Christian life is that we do not take time to believe that this divine love
does really delight in us, and will possess and work all in us. We do not
take time to look at the Vine bearing the branch so entirely, working all in
it so completely. We strive to do for ourselves what Christ alone can, what
Christ, oh, so lovingly, longs to do for us.
And this now is the secret of the change we spoke of, and the beginning
of a new life, when the soul sees this infinite love willing to do all, and
gives itself up to it. "Abide ye in my love." To believe that, it is
possible so to live moment by moment; to believe that everything that makes
it difficult or impossible will be overcome by Christ Himself; to believe
that Love really means an infinite longing to give itself wholly to us and
never leave us; and in this faith to cast ourselves on Christ to work it in
us; this is the secret of the true Christian life.
And how to come to this faith? Turn away from the visible if you would
see and possess the invisible. Take more time with Jesus, gazing on Him as
the heavenly Vine, living in the love of the Father, wanting you to live in
His love. Turn away from yourself and your efforts and your faith, if you
would have the heart filled with Him and the certainty of His love. Abiding
means going out from everything else, to occupy one place and stay there.
Come away from all else, and set your heart on Jesus, and His love, that
love will waken your faith and strengthen it. Occupy yourself with that
love, worship it, wait for it. You may be sure it will reach out to you, and
by its power take you up into itself as your abode and your home.
Abide in My love. Lord Jesus, I see it, it was Thy abiding in Thy
Father's love that made Thee the true Vine, with Thy divine fullness of love
and blessing for us. Oh, that I may even so, as a branch, abide in Thy love,
for its fullness to fill me and overflow on all around.
OBEY AND ABIDE
If Ye Keep My Commandments, Ye Shall Abide In My Love--John 15:10
In our former meditation reference was made to the entrance into a life
of rest and strength which has often come through a true insight into the
personal love of Christ, and the assurance that that love indeed meant that
He would keep the soul. In connection with that transition, and the faith
that sees and accepts it, the word surrender or consecration is frequently
used. The soul sees that it cannot claim the keeping of this wonderful love
unless it yields itself to a life of entire obedience. It sees too that the
faith that can trust Christ for keeping from sinning must prove its
sincerity by venturing at once to trust Him for strength to obey. In that
faith it dares to give up and cut off everything that has hitherto hindered
it, and to promise and expect to live a life that is well pleasing to God.
This is the thought we have here now in our Saviour's teaching. After
having in the words, "Abide in my love," spoken of a life in His love as a
necessity, because it is at once a possibility and an obligation, He states
what its one condition is: "If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my
love." This is surely not meant to close the door to the abode of His love
which he had just opened up. Not in the most distant way does it suggest the
thought which some are too ready to entertain, that as we cannot keep His
commandments, we cannot abide in His love. No; the precept is a promise:
"Abide in my love," could not be a precept if it were not a promise. And so
the instruction as to the way through this open door points to no
unattainable ideal; the love that invites to her blessed abode reaches out
the hand, and enables us to keep the commandments. Let us not fear, in the
strength of our ascended Lord, to take the vow of obedience, and give
ourselves to the keeping of His commandments. Through His will, loved and
done, lies the path to His love.
Only let us understand well what it means. It refers to our performance
of all that we know to be God's will. There may be things doubtful, of which
we are not sure. A sin of ignorance has still the nature of sin in it. There
may be involuntary sins, which rise up in the flesh, which we cannot control
or overcome. With regard to these God will deal in due tome in the way of
searching and humbling, and if we be simple and faithful, give us larger
deliverance than we dare expect. But all this may be found in a truly
obedient soul. Obedience has reference to the positive keeping of the
commandments of our Lord, and the performance of His will in everything in
which we know it. This is a possible degree of grace, and it is the
acceptance in Christ's strength of such obedience as the purpose of our
heart, of which our Saviour speaks here. Faith in Christ as our Vine, in His
enabling and sanctifying power, fits us for this obedience of faith, and
secures a life of abiding in His love.
If ye keep My commandments, ye shall abide in My love--It is the
heavenly Vine unfolding the mystery of the life He gives. It is to those
abiding in Him to whom He opens up the secret of the full abiding in His
love. It is the wholehearted surrender in everything to do His will, that
gives access to a life in the abiding enjoyment of His love.
Obey and abide. Gracious Lord, teach me this lesson, that it is only
through knowing Thy will one can know Thy heart, and only through doing that
will one can abide in Thy love. Lord, teach me that as worthless as is the
doing in my own strength, so essential and absolutely indispensable is the
doing of faith in Thy strength, if I would abide in Thy love.
YE, EVEN AS I
If Ye Keep My Commandments, Ye Shall Abide in My Love, Even as I have Kept
My Father's Commandments, and Abide in His Love--John 15:10
We have had occasion more than once to speak of the perfect similarity
of the vine and the branch in nature, and therefore in aim. Here Christ
speaks no longer in a parable, but tells us plainly out of how His own life
is the exact model of ours. He had said that it is alone by obedience we can
abide in His love. He now tells that this was the way in which He abode in
the Father's love. As the Vine, so the branch. His life and strength and joy
had been in the love of the Father: it was only by obedience He abode in it.
We may find our life and strength and joy in His love all the day, but it is
only by an obedience like His we can abide in it. Perfect conformity to the
Vine is one of the most precious of the lessons of the branch. It was by
obedience Christ as Vine honored the Father as Husbandman; it is by
obedience the believer as branch honors Christ as Vine.
Obey and abide--That was the law of Christ's life as much as it is to
be that of ours. He was made like us in all things, that we might be like
Him in all things. He opened up a path in which we may walk even as He
walked. He took our human nature to teach us how to wear it, and show us how
obedience, as it is the first duty of the creature, is the only way to abide
in the favor of God and enter into His glory. And now He comes to instruct
and encourage us, and asks us to keep His commandments, even as He kept His
Father's commandments and abides in His love.
The divine fitness of this connection between obeying and abiding,
between God's commandments and His love, is easily seen. God's will is the
very center of His divine perfection. As revealed in His commandments, it
opens up the way for the creature to grow into the likeness of the Creator.
In accepting and doing His will, I rise into fellowship with Him. Therefore
it was that the Son, when coming into the world, spoke: "I come to do thy
will, O God"! This was the place and this would be the blessedness of the
creature. This was what he had lost in the Fall. This was what Christ came
to restore. This is what, as the heavenly Vine, He asks of us and imparts to
us, that even as He by keeping His Father's commandments abode in His love,
we should keep His commandments and abide in His love.
Ye, even as I--The branch cannot bear fruit except as it has exactly
the same life as the Vine. Our life is to be the exact counterpart of
Christ's life. It can be, just in such measure as we believe in Him as the
Vine, imparting Himself and His life to His branches. "Ye, even as I," the
Vine says: one law, one nature, one fruit. Do let us take from our Lord the
lesson of obedience as the secret of abiding. Let us confess that simple,
implicit, universal obedience has taken too little the place it should have.
Christ died for us as enemies, when we were disobedient. He took us up into
His love; now that we are in Him, His Word is: "Obey and abide; ye, even as
I." Let us give ourselves to a willing and loving obedience. He will keep us
abiding in His love.
Ye, even as I. O my blessed Vine, who makest the branch in everything
partake of Thy life and likeness, in this too I am to be like Thee: as Thy
life in the Father's love through obedience, so mine in Thy love! Saviour,
help me, that obedience may indeed be the link between Thee and me.
JOY
These Things Have I Spoken Unto You, That My Joy May Be in You, and That
Your Joy May Be Fulfilled--John 15:11
If any one asks the question, "How can I be a happy Christian?" our
Lord's answer is very simple: "These things," about the Vine and the
branches, "I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your
joy may be fulfilled." "You cannot have My joy without My life. Abide in Me,
and let Me abide in you, and My joy will be in you." All healthy life is a
thing of joy and beauty; live undividedly the branch life; you will have His
joy in full measure.
To many Christians the thought of a life wholly abiding in Christ is
one of strain and painful effort. They cannot see that the strain and effort
only come, as long as we do not yield ourselves unreservedly to the life of
Christ in us. The very first words of the parable are not yet opened up to
them: "I am the true Vine; I undertake all and provide for all; I ask
nothing of the branch but that it yields wholly to Me, and allows Me to do
all. I engage to make and keep the branch all that it ought to be." Ought it
not to be an infinite and unceasing joy to have the Vine thus work all, and
to know that it is none less than the blessed Son of God in His love who is
each moment bearing us and maintaining our life?
That My joy may be in you--We are to have Christ's own joy in us. And
what is Christ's own joy? There is no joy like love. There is no joy but
love. Christ had just spoken of the Father's love and His own abiding in it,
and of His having loved us with that same love. His joy is nothing but the
joy of love, of being loved and of loving. It was the joy of receiving His
Father's love and abiding in it, and then the joy of passing on that love
and pouring it out on sinners. It is this joy He wants us to share: the joy
of being loved of the Father and of Him; the joy of in our turn loving and
living for those around us. This is just the joy of being truly branches:
abiding in His love, and then giving up ourselves in love to bear fruit for
others. Let us accept His life, as He gives it in us as the Vine, His joy
will be ours: the joy of abiding in His love, the joy of loving like Him, of
loving with His love.
And that your joy may be fulfilled--That it may be complete, that you
may be filled with it. How sad that we should so need to be reminded that as
God alone is the fountain of all joy, "God our exceeding joy," the only way
to be perfectly happy is to have as much of God, as much of His will and
fellowship, as possible! Religion is meant to be in everyday life a thing of
unspeakable joy. And why do so many complain that it is not so? Because they
do not believe that there is no joy like the joy of abiding in Christ and in
His love, and being branches through whom He can pour out His love on a
dying world.
Oh, that Christ's voice might reach the heart of every young Christian,
and persuade him to believe that His joy is the only true joy, that His joy
can become ours and truly fill us, and that the sure and simple way of
living in it is--only this--to abide as branches in Him our heavenly Vine.
Let the truth enter deep into us--as long as our joy is not full, it is a
sign that we do not yet know our heavenly Vine aright; every desire for a
fuller joy must only urge us to abide more simply and more fully in His
love.
My joy--your joy. In this too it is: as the Vine, so the branch; all
the Vine in the branch. Thy joy is our joy--Thy joy in us, and our joy
fulfilled. Blessed Lord, fill me with Thy joy--the joy of being loved and
blessed with a divine love; the joy of loving and blessing others.
LOVE ONE ANOTHER
This is My Commandment, That Ye Love One Another--John 15:12
God is love. His whole nature and perfection is love, living not for
Himself, but to dispense life and blessing. In His love He begat the Son,
that He might give all to Him. In His love He brought forth creatures that
He might make them partakers of His blessedness.
Christ is the Son of God's love, the bearer, the revealer, the
communicator of that love. His life and death were all love. Love is His
life, and the life He gives. He only lives to love, to live out His life of
love in us, to give Himself in all who will receive Him. The very first
thought of the true Vine is love--living only to impart His life to the
branches.
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of love. He cannot impart Christ's life
without imparting His love. Salvation is nothing but love conquering and
entering into us; we have just as much of salvation as we have of love. Full
salvation is perfect love.
No wonder that Christ said: "A new commandment I give unto you"; "This
is my commandment"--the one all-inclusive commandment--"that ye love one
another." The branch is not only one with the vine, but with all its other
branches; they drink one spirit, they form one body, they bear one fruit.
Nothing can be more unnatural than that Christians should not love one
another, even as Christ loved them. The life they received from their
heavenly Vine is nothing but love. This is the one thing He asks above all
others. "Hereby shall all men know that ye are my disciples...love one
another." As the special sort of vine is known by the fruit it bears, the
nature of the heavenly Vine is to be judged of by the love His disciples
have to one another.
See that you obey this commandment. Let your "obey and abide" be seen
in this. Love your brethren as the way to abide in the love of your Lord.
Let your vow of obedience begin here. Love one another. Let your intercourse
with the Christians in your own family be holy, tender, Christlike love. Let
your thoughts of the Christians round you be, before everything, in the
spirit of Christ's love. Let your life and conduct be the sacrifice of
love--give your self up to think of their sins or their needs, to intercede
for them, to help and to serve them. Be in your church or circle the
embodiment of Christ's love. The life Christ lives in you is love; let the
life in which you live it out be all love.
But, man, you write as if all this was so natural and simple and easy.
Is it at all possible thus to live and thus to love? My answer is: Christ
commands it: you must obey. Christ means it: you must obey, or you cannot
abide in His love.
But I have tried and failed. I see no prospect of living like Christ.
Ah! that is because you have failed to take in the first word of the
parable--"I am the true Vine: I give all you need as a branch, I give all I
myself have." I pray you, let the sense of past failure and present
feebleness drive you to the Vine. He is all love. He loves to give. He gives
love. He will teach you to love, even as He loved.
Love one another. Dear Lord Jesus, Thou art all love; the life Thou
gavest us is love; Thy new commandment, and Thy badge of discipleship is,
"Love one another." I accept the charge: with the love with which Thou
lovest me, and I love Thee, I will love my brethren.
EVEN AS I HAVE LOVED YOU
This is My Commandment, That Ye Love One Another, Even as I Have Loved
You--John 15:12
This is the second time our Lord uses the expression--Even as I. The
first time it was of His relation to the Father, keeping His commandments,
and abiding in His love. Even so we are to keep Christ's commandments, and
abide in His love. The second time He speaks of His relation to us as the
rule of our love to our brethren: "Love one another, as I have loved you."
In each case His disposition and conduct is to be the law for ours. It is
again the truth we have more than once insisted on--perfect likeness between
the Vine and the branch.
Even as I--But is it not a vain thing to imagine that we can keep His
commandments, and love the brethren, even as He kept His Father's, and as He
loved us? And must not the attempt end in failure and discouragement?
Undoubtedly, if we seek to carry out the injunction in our strength, or
without a full apprehension of the truth of the Vine and its branches. But
if we understand that the "even as I" is just the one great lesson of the
parable, the one continual language of the Vine to the branch, we shall see
that it is not the question of what we feel able to accomplish, but of what
Christ is able to work in us. These high and holy commands--"Obey, even as
I! Love, even as I"--are just meant to bring us to the consciousness of our
impotence, and through that to waken us to the need and the beauty and the
sufficiency of what is provided for us in the Vine. We shall begin to hear
the Vine speaking every moment to the branch: "Even as I. Even as I: My life
is your life; and have a share in all My fullness; the Spirit in you, and
the fruit that comes from you, is all just the same as in Me. Be not afraid,
but let your faith grasp each "Even as I" as the divine assurance that
because I live in you, you may and can live like Me."
But why, if this really be the meaning of the parable, if this really
be the life a branch may live,who do so few realize it? Because they do not
know the heavenly mystery of the Vine. They know much of the parable and its
beautiful lessons. But the hidden spiritual mystery of the Vine in His
divine omnipotence and nearness, bearing and supplying them all the
day--this they do not know, because they have not waited on God's Spirit to
reveal it to them.
Love one another, even as I have loved you--"Ye, even as I." How are we
to begin if we are really to learn the mystery? With the confession that we
need to be brought to an entirely new mode of life, because we have never
yet known Christ as the Vine in the completeness of His quickening and
transforming power. With the surrender to be cleansed from all that is of
self, and detached from all that is in the world, to live only and wholly as
Christ lived for the glory of the Father. And then with the faith that this
"even as I" is in very deed what Christ is ready to make true, the very life
the Vine will maintain in the branch wholly dependent upon Him.
Even as I. Ever again it is, my blessed Lord, as the Vine, so the
branch--one life, one spirit, one obedience, one joy, one love.
Lord Jesus, in the faith that Thou art my Vine, and that I am Thy
branch, I accept Thy command as a promise, and take Thy "even as I" as the
simple revelation of what Thou dost work in me. Yea, Lord, as Thou hast
loved, I will love.
CHRIST'S FRIENDSHIP: ITS ORIGIN
Greater Love Hath No Man Than This, That a Man Lay Down His Life for His
Friends--John 15:13
In the three following verses our Lord speaks of His relation to His
disciples under a new aspect--that of friendship. He point us to the love in
which it on His side has its origin (v.13): to the obedience on our part by
which it is maintained (v.14); and then to the holy intimacy to which it
leads (v.15).
Our relation to Christ is one of love. In speaking of this previously,
He showed us what His love was in its heavenly glory; the same love with
which the Father had loved Him. Here we have it in its earthly
manifestation--lay down His life for us. "Greater love hath no man than
this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." Christ does indeed long
to have us know that the secret root and strength of all He is and does for
us as the Vine is love. As we learn to believe this, we shall feel that here
is something which we not only need to think and know about, but a living
power, a divine life which we need to receive within us. Christ and His love
are inseparable; they are identical. God is love, and Christ is love. God
and Christ and the divine love can only be known by having them, by their
life and power working within us. "This is eternal life, that they know
thee"; there is no knowing God but by having the life; the life working in
us alone gives the knowledge. And even so the love; if we would know it, we
must drink of its living stream, we must have it shed forth by the Holy
Spirit in us.
"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man give his life for his
friends." The life is the most precious thing a man has; the life is all he
is; the life is himself. This is the highest measure of love: when a man
gives his life, he hold nothing back, he gives all he has and is. It is this
our Lord Jesus wants to make clear to us concerning His mystery of the Vine;
with all He has He has placed Himself at our disposal. He wants us to count
Him our very own; He wants to be wholly our possession, that we may be
wholly His possession. He gave His life for us in death not merely as a
passing act, that when accomplished was done with; no, but as a making
Himself ours for eternity. Life for life; He gave His life for us to possess
that we might give our life for Him to possess. This is what is taught by
the parable of the Vine and the branch, in their wonderful identification,
in their perfect union.
It is as we know something of this, not by reason or imagination, but
deep down in the heart and life, that we shall begin to see what ought to be
our life as branches of the heavenly Vine. He gave Himself to death; He lost
Himself, that we might find life in Him. This is the true Vine, who only
lives to live in us. This is the beginning and the root of that holy
friendship to which Christ invites us.
Great is the mystery of godliness! Let us confess our ignorance and
unbelief. Let us cease from our own understanding and our own efforts to
master it. Let us wait for the Holy Spirit who dwells within us to reveal
it. Let us trust His infinite love, which gave its life for us, to take
possession and rejoice in making us wholly its own.
His life for His friends. How wonderful the lessons of the Vine, giving
its very life to its branches! And Jesus gave His life for His friends. And
that love gives itself to them and in them. My heavenly Vine, oh, teach me
how wholly Thou longest to live in me!
CHRIST'S FRIENDSHIP: ITS EVIDENCE
Ye Are My Friends, if Ye Do the Things Which I Command You--John 15:14
Our Lord has said what He gave as proof of His friendship: He gave His
life for us. He now tells us what our part is to be--to do the things which
He commands. He gave His life to secure a place for His love in our hearts
to rule us; the response His love calls us to, and empowers us for, is that
we do what He commands us. As we know the dying love, we shall joyfully obey
its commands. As we obey the commands, we shall know the love more fully.
Christ had already said: "If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my
love." He counts it needful to repeat the truth again: the one proof of our
faith in His love, the one way to abide in it, the one mark of being true
branches is--to do the things which He commands us. He began with absolute
surrender of His life for us. He can ask nothing less from us. This alone is
a life in His friendship.
This truth, of the imperative necessity of obedience, doing all that
Christ commands us, has not the place in our Christian teaching and living
that Christ meant it to have. We have given a far higher place to privilege
than to duty. We have not considered implicit obedience as a condition of
true discipleship. The secret thought that it is impossible to do the things
He commands us, and that therefore it cannot be expected of us, and a subtle
and unconscious feeling that sinning is a necessity have frequently robbed
both precepts and promises of their power. The whole relation to Christ has
become clouded and lowered, the waiting on His teaching, the power to hear
and obey His voice, and through obedience to enjoy His love and friendship,
have been enfeebled by the terrible mistake. Do let us try to return to the
true position, take Christ's words as most literally true, and make nothing
less the law of our life: "Ye are my friends, if ye do the things that I
command you." Surely our Lord asks nothing less than that we heartily and
truthfully say: "Yea, Lord, what Thou dost command, that will I do."
These commands are to be done as a proof of friendship. The power to do
them rests entirely in the personal relationship to Jesus. For a friend I
could do what I would not for another. The friendship of Jesus is so
heavenly and wonderful, it comes to us so as the power of a divine love
entering in and taking possession, the unbroken fellowship with Himself is
so essential to it, that it implies and imparts a joy and a love which make
the obedience a delight. The liberty to claim the friendship of Jesus, the
power to enjoy it, the grace to prove it in all its blessedness--all come as
we do the things He commands us.
Is not the one thing needful for us that we ask our Lord to reveal
Himself to us in the dying love in which He proved Himself our friend, and
then listen as He says to us: "Ye are My friends." As we see what our Friend
has done for us, and what as unspeakable blessedness it is to have Him call
us friends, the doing His commands will become the natural fruit of our life
in his love. We shall not fear to say: "Yea, Lord, we are Thy friends, and
do what Thou dost command us."
If ye do. Yes, it is in doing that we are blessed, that we abide in His
love, that we enjoy His friendship. "If ye do what I command you!" O my
Lord, let Thy holy friendship lead me into the love of all Thy commands, and
let the doing of Thy commands lead me ever deeper into Thy friendship.
CHRIST'S FRIENDSHIP: ITS INTIMACY
No Longer Do I Call You Servants; for the Servant Knoweth Not What His Lord
Doeth: But I Have Called You Friends; for All Things That I Heard From My
Father, I Have Made Known Unto You--John 15:15
The highest proof of true friendship, and one great source of its
blessedness, is the intimacy that holds nothing back, and admits the friend
to share our inmost secrets. It is a blessed thing to be Christ's servant;
His redeemed ones delight to call themselves His slaves. Christ had often
spoken of the disciples as His servants. In His great love our Lord now
says: "No longer do I call you servants"; with the coming of the Holy Spirit
a new era was to be inaugurated. "The servant knoweth not what his Lord
doeth"--he has to obey without being consulted or admitted into the secret
of all his master's plans. "But, I have called you friends, for all things I
heard from my Father I have made known unto you." Christ's friends share
with Him in all the secrets the Father has entrusted to Him.
Let us think what this means. When Christ spoke of keeping His Father's
commandments, He did not mean merely what was written in Holy Scripture, but
those special commandments which were communicated to Him day by day, and
from hour to hour. It was of these He said: "The Father loveth the Son, and
showeth him all things that he doeth, and he will show him greater things."
All that Christ did was God's working. God showed it to Christ, so that He
carried out the Father's will and purpose, not, as man often does, blindly
and unintelligently, but with full understanding and approval. As one who
stood in God's counsel, He knew God's plan.
And this now is the blessedness of being Christ's friends, that we do
not, as servants, do His will without much spiritual insight into its
meaning and aim, but are admitted, as an inner circle, into some knowledge
of God's more secret thoughts. From the Day of Pentecost on, by the Holy
Spirit, Christ was to lead His disciples into the spiritual apprehension of
the mysteries of the kingdom, of which He had hitherto spoken only by
parables.
Friendship delights in fellowship. Friends hold council. Friends dare
trust to each other what they would not for anything have others know. What
is it that gives a Christian access to this holy intimacy with Jesus? That
gives him the spiritual capacity for receiving the communications Christ has
to make of what the Father has shown Him? "Ye are my friends if ye do what I
command you." It is loving obedience that purifies the soul. That refers not
only to the commandments of the Word, but to that blessed application of the
Word to our daily life, which none but our Lord Himself can give. But as
these are waited for in dependence and humility, and faithfully obeyed, the
soul becomes fitted for ever closer fellowship, and the daily life may
become a continual experience: "I have called you friends; for all things I
have heard from my Father, I have made known unto you."
I have called you friends. What an unspeakable honor! What a heavenly
privilege! O Saviour, speak the word with power into my soul: "I have called
you My friend, whom I love, whom I trust, to whom I make known all that
passes between my Father and Me."
ELECTION
Ye Did Not Choose Me, But I Chose You, and Appointed You That Ye Should Go
and Bear Fruit--John 15:16
The branch does not choose the vine, or decide on which vine it will
grow. The vine brings forth the branch, as and where it will. Even so Christ
says: "Ye did not choose me, but I chose you." But some will say is not just
this the difference between the branch in the natural and in the spiritual
world, that man has a will and a power of choosing, and that it is in virtue
of his having decided to accept Christ, his having chosen Him as Lord, that
he is now a branch? This is undoubtedly true. And yet it is only half a
truth. The lesson of the Vine, and the teaching of our Lord, points to the
other half, the deeper, the divine side of our being in Christ. If He had
not chosen us, we had never chosen Him. Our choosing Him was the result of
His choosing us, and taking hold of us. In the very nature of things, it is
His prerogative as Vine to choose and create His own branch. We owe all we
are to "the election of grace." If we want to know Christ as the true Vine,
the sole origin and strength of the branch life, and ourselves as branches
in our absolute, most blessed, and most secure dependence upon Him, let us
drink deep of this blessed truth: "Ye did not choose me, but I chose you."
And with what view does Christ say this? That they may know what the
object is for which He chose them, and find, in their faith in His election,
the certainty of fulfilling their destiny. Throughout Scripture this is the
great object of the teaching of election. "Predestinated to be conformed to
the image of his son." (to be branches in the image and likeness of the
Vine). "Chosen that we should be holy." "Chosen to salvation, through
sanctification of the Spirit." "Elect in sanctification of the Spirit unto
obedience." Some have abused the doctrine of election, and others, for fear
of its abuse, have rejected it, because they have overlooked this teaching.
They have occupied themselves with its hidden origin in eternity, with the
inscrutable mysteries of the counsels of God instead of accepting the
revelation of its purpose in time, and the blessings it brings into our
Christian life.
Just think what these blessings are. In our verse Christ reveals His
twofold purpose in choosing us to be His branches: that we may bear fruit on
earth, and have power in prayer in Heaven. What confidence the thought that
He has chosen us for this gives, that He will not fail to fit us for
carrying out His purpose! What assurance that we can bear fruit that will
abide, and can pray so as to obtain! What a continual call to the deepest
humility and praise, to the most entire dependence and expectancy! He would
not choose us for what we are not fit for, or what He could not fit us for.
He has chosen us; this is the pledge, He will do all in us.
Let us listen in silence of soul to our holy Vine speaking to each of
us: "You did not choose Me!" And let us say, "Yea, Lord, but I chose You!
Amen, Lord!" Ask Him to show what this means. In Him, the true Vine, your
life as branch has its divine origin, its eternal security, and the power to
fulfill His purpose. From Him to whose will of love you owe all, you may
expect all. In Him, His purpose, and His power, and His faithfulness, in His
love let me abide.
I chose you. Lord, teach me what this means--that Thou hast set Thy
heart on me, and chosen me to bear fruit that will abide, and to pray prayer
that will prevail. In this Thine eternal purpose my soul would rest itself
and say: "What He chose me for I will be, I can be, I shall be."
ABIDING FRUIT
I Chose You, and Appointed You, That Ye Should Go and Bear Fruit, and That
Your Fruit Should Abide--John 15:16
There are some fruits that will not keep. One sort of pears or apples
must be used at once; another sort can be kept over till next year. So there
is in Christian work some fruit that does not last. There may be much that
pleases and edified, and yet there is no permanent impression made on the
power of the world or the state of the Church. On the other hand, there is
work that leaves its mark for generations or for eternity. In it the power
of God makes itself lastingly felt. It is the fruit of which Paul speaks
when he describes the two styles of ministry: "My preaching was not in
persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstrations of the Spirit and of
power; that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the
power of God." The more of man with his wisdom and power, the less of
stability; the more of God's Spirit, the more of a faith standing in God's
power.
Fruit reveals the nature of the tree from which it comes. What is the
secret of bearing fruit that abides? The answer is simple. It is as our life
abides in Christ, as we abide in Him, that the fruit we bear will abide. The
more we allow all that is of human will and effort to be cut down short and
cleansed away by the divine Husbandman, the more intensely our being
withdraws itself from the outward that God may work in us by His Spirit;
that is, the more wholly we abide in Christ, the more will our fruit abide.
What a blessed thought! He chose you, and appointed you to bear fruit,
and that your fruit should abide. He never meant one of His branches to
bring forth fruit that should not abide. The deeper I enter into the purpose
of this His electing grace, the surer my confidence will become that I can
bring forth fruit to eternal life, for myself and others. The deeper I enter
into this purpose of His electing love, the more I will realize what the
link is between the purpose from eternity, and the fruit to eternity: the
abiding in Him. The purpose is His, He will carry it out; the fruit is His,
He will bring it forth; the abiding is His, He will maintain it.
Let everyone who professes to be a Christian worker, pause. Ask whether
you are leaving your mark for eternity on those around you. It is not your
preaching or teaching, your strength of will or power to influence, that
will secure this. All depends on having your life full of God and His power.
And that again depends upon your living the truly branchlike life of
abiding--very close and unbroken fellowship with Christ. It is the branch,
that abides in Him, that brings forth much fruit, fruit that will abide.
Blessed Lord, reveal to my soul, I pray Thee, that Thou hast chosen me
to bear much fruit. Let this be my confidence, that Thy purpose can be
realized--Thou didst choose me. Let this be my power to forsake everything
and give myself to Thee. Thou wilt Thyself perfect what Thou hast begun.
Draw me so to dwell in the love and the certainty of that eternal purpose,
that the power of eternity may posses me, and the fruit I bear may abide.
That ye may bear fruit. O my heavenly Vine, it is beginning to dawn
upon my soul that fruit, more fruit--much fruit--abiding fruit is the one
thing Thou hast to give me, and the one thing as branch I have to give Thee!
Here I am. Blessed Lord, work out Thy purpose in me; let me bear much fruit,
abiding fruit, to thy glory.
PREVAILING PRAYER
I Appointed You That Ye Should Go and Bear Fruit, and That Your Fruit Should
Abide: That Whatsoever Ye Shall Ask of the Father in My Name, He May Give It
You--John 15:16
In the first verse of our parable, Christ revealed Himself as the true
Vine, and the Father as the Husbandman, and asked for Himself and the Father
a place in the heart. Here, in the closing verse, He sums up all His
teaching concerning Himself and the Father in the twofold purpose for which
He had chosen them. With reference to Himself, the Vine, the purpose was,
that they should bear fruit. With reference to the Father, it was, that
whatsoever they should ask in His name, should be done of the Father in
Heaven. As fruit is the great proof of the true relation to Christ, so
prayer is of our relation to the Father. A fruitful abiding in the Son, and
prevailing prayer to the Father, are the two great factors in the true
Christian life.
That whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it
you.--These are the closing words of the parable of the Vine. The whole
mystery of the Vine and its branches leads up to the other mystery--that
whatsoever we ask in His name the Father gives! See here the reason of the
lack of prayer, and of the lack of power in prayer. It is because we so
little live the true branch life, because we so little lose ourselves in the
Vine, abiding in Him entirely, that we feel so little constrained to much
prayer, so little confident that we shall be heard, and so do not know how
to use His name as the key to God's storehouse. The Vine planted on earth
has reached up into Heaven; it is only the soul wholly and intensely abiding
in it, can reach into Heaven with power to prevail much. Our faith in the
teaching and the truth of the parable, in the truth and the life of the
Vine, must prove itself by power in prayer. The life of abiding and
obedience, of love and joy, of cleansing and fruit-bearing, will surely lead
to the power of prevailing prayer.
Whatsoever ye shall ask--The promise was given to disciples who were
ready to give themselves, in the likeness of the true Vine, for their fellow
men. This promise was all their provision for their work; they took it
literally, they believed it, they used it, and they found it true. Let us
give ourselves, as branches of the true Vine, and in His likeness, to the
work of saving men, of bringing forth fruit to the glory of God, and we
shall find a new urgency and power to pray and to claim the "whatsoever ye
ask." We shall waken to our wonderful responsibility of having in such a
promise the keys to the King's storehouses given us, and we shall not rest
till we have received bread and blessing for the perishing.
"I chose you, that ye may bring forth fruit, and that your fruit may
abide; that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it
to you." Beloved disciple, seek above everything to be a man of prayer. Here
is the highest exercise of your privilege as a branch of the Vine; here is
the full proof of your being renewed in the image of God and His Son; here
is your power to show how you, like Christ, live not for yourself, but for
others; here you enter Heaven to receive gifts for men; here your abiding in
Christ has led to His abiding in you, to use you as the channel and
instrument of His grace. The power to bear fruit for men has been crowned by
power to prevail with God.
"I am the vine, my Father is the Husbandman." Christ's work in you is
to bring you so to the Father that His Word may be fulfilled in you: "At
that day ye shall ask in my name; and I say not that I will pray the Father
for you; for the Father himself loveth you." The power of direct access to
the Father for men, the liberty of intercession claiming and receiving
blessing for them in faith, is the highest exercise of our union with
Christ. Let all who would truly and fully be branches give themselves to the
work of intercession. It is the one great work of Christ the Vine in Heaven,
the source of power for all His work. Make it your one great work as branch:
it will be the power of all your work.
In My name. Yes, Lord, in Thy name, the new name Thou hast given
Thyself here, the true Vine. As a branch, abiding in Thee in entire
devotion, in full dependence, in perfect conformity, in abiding
fruitfulness, I come to the Father, in Thee, and He will give what I ask.
Oh, let my life be one of unceasing and prevailing intercession! Amen!