I AM the True Vine

Good morning! Today we continue our “I AM” series on Jesus’ “I AM” statements in the Bible and we come to Jesus’ statement “I AM the True Vine” from John chapter 15. 

I want to start today with Moses. In Deut. 31, Moses is 120 years old, and he lets the Israelites know that he is too old to lead them. He promises that the Lord Himself will lead them if they follow Him, and he lets them know that Joshua will lead them in his place. He finishes writing the words of the Law and tells them to read it publicly, on a regular schedule. Then God visits Moses and warns him that the people will soon forsake God, and in response, God will make it very difficult for them. He then gave Moses a song and told Moses to teach it to the Israelites and have them sing it, so that it would be a witness against what they are going to do.

The song speaks of God’s faithfulness but then goes on to the Israelites’ future unfaithfulness. And God uses an image of a vine to describe them:

Their vine comes from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are filled with poison, and their clusters with bitterness. Their wine is the venom of serpents, the deadly poison of cobras. – Deut. 31:32-33

What kind of vine is this? A terrible one! The Israelites were supposed to sing this song to remind themselves to stay true to the Lord. But it is almost certain that they did not continue to sing this song, or if they did, they did not think about how it could apply to them. And in time, the people became unfaithful just as the song had warned.

The vine is a hugely important symbol in the Old Testament, coming up dozens of times to symbolize different things, most commonly the nation or people of Israel. As to the theme of this Deuteronomy passage, we see it again in Jeremiah. From Chapter 2:

“Long ago you broke off your yoke and tore off your bonds; you said, ‘I will not serve You!’ Indeed, on every high hill and under every spreading tree you lay down as a prostitute. I had planted you like a choice vine of sound and reliable stock. How then did you turn against Me into a corrupt, wild vine? – Jer. 2:20-21

And so again, we see this theme of a vine going bad. And again, it symbolizes the unfaithfulness of the people of God. 

Vines are not easy to grow. Rather, they are easy to grow in some wild form, but they are not easy to grow in such a way that they produce lots of fruit. They require continual care – pruning, feeding, training, watering, weeding, and more. They require protection from small animals – this is even mentioned in the Song of Songs, also known as the Song of Solomon:

Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom. – Song of Songs 2:15

Animals ruin vineyards by digging up around the roots, causing the vines to weaken and become vulnerable to disease. Other animals of course can steal the fruit or eat the leaves. 

With this background on the nature of vineyards and the use of vines in the Old Testament, I think we are ready to look at Jesus’ powerful teaching in which He uses vines as His primary illustration. This can be found in John 15. Let’s look at the first few verses.

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in Me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit He prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in Me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me. – John 15:1-4

Let’s start by talking about that word “true”. What is a true vine? The Greek word used here is alathinos. It is helpful to understand that there is another related word, alathes. In the Latin Vulgate translation they were very careful to use different Latin words for these two Greek words, verax for the second word, and verus for the first. It is the second word, not the word in this passage but the other one, that means what we commonly think about when we think about truth, as the opposite of lying, the opposite of saying something that is actually not true. But there is another meaning of “true” that seems to be rapidly disappearing from the English language. This is disappointing and disturbing, because the usage of language reveals how people groups think, and the lack of a word for something reveals that the people group does not value the thing being described by such a word. You have possibly heard that Eskimos have a huge number of words for snow, in various very specific conditions. We know nothing of this, because snow is not a major part of our lives. But even up north in the US, the words they use for snow in various conditions is nothing compared to what Eskimos have. Eskimos traditionally lived out in nature, whereas people up north are like people down here – we have cars, and heated houses, heated places to work at, and snowplows, and so on. Who cares how sharp the sound is when you walk in it? But losing a whole side of “true” is a lot more concerning.

In old adventure books, you might see the rapidly fading version of “true” I am describing. Here is a typical sentence: “The flight of the arrow was true.” What does this mean? It means it is accurate. It is reliable. It will go all the way to its destination. Sometimes a sword would be described as true. What does this mean? It means that it responds as it should, that it doesn’t chip or have problems with weighting, or being dull, and so on. A true sword is perfect in every way – from how it works to its composition. In older English, we would sometimes see as a synonym for this kind of “true” the word “very” used not as an adverb (like “I am very happy”) but as an adjective. One example of this is in the typical English translation of the Nicene Creed, which describes Jesus as “very God of very God”. This refers to His divinity. He is God “all the way through” – in every way – all the time. 

And so Jesus is the true vine. He is not like the vine in Deuteronomy, whose grapes are bitter and whose wine is poison. His fruit is good fruit. I am reminded of Jesus’ own words in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 7) where He says that every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. He says that you can recognize a tree by its fruit. As the true vine, Jesus only produces good fruit. He can no more produce bad fruit than a true sword can behave like a poorly made sword. 

What does it mean that the Father cuts off every branch that bears no fruit? Well, as Jesus says in verse 4, branches that are not “in” Christ do not produce fruit, any fruit, or more specifically, any good fruit. Jesus produces good fruit. This reminds me of the verse we looked at in Jeremiah, with the wild, uncared-for vine. If you do not cut away dead branches, and even prune the good branches, both the quality and quantity of the fruit will suffer. 

When I think about the Father cutting off unfruitful branches, I think about how people may be initially attracted to Jesus and His teachings but never really give their hearts to Him. And I think about how all the crowds that followed Jesus earlier in His ministry fell away when His teachings became more challenging. I also think about the parable of the seed put into four different soils, and how the plants did not thrive and grow in three of those soils. This is found, for example, in Matt. 13. If you recall, there was the seed falling on the path, representing someone who hears the gospel message but does not understand it or accept how it applies to them. And there was the seed falling on the rocky ground, representing someone who is caught up in the emotions of the moment but does not have “root”, which to me means that they do not want to do the work of seeking Christ, of spending time in the Word, of submitting to Him, of praying, and so on. And the third problematic ground was the ground covered by thorns, representing someone who is consumed by the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth. When I think about the Father as the master gardener, I see Him carefully identifying such people and helping them to move on (or as it say, “cutting them off”) so as not to affect the living, vibrant part of the vine. 

Now, what about pruning, and what does being “already clean” have to do with anything? Well, it turns out that “pruning” and “cleaning” are actually the same word in Greek. So one way to think of this is to say that the disciples – and you – are already pruned because of the word He has given to them – and you. Now, just a bit earlier in John, in Chapter 13, Jesus has washed the disciples’ feet, and taught on the meaning of this in terms of being made clean, so I think being “clean” is also a good way to think about what is being said here. 

Jesus then tells them to remain in Him. And this makes perfect sense of the vine analogy. When our oldest son Isaac was very little, we were taking him around Clemson one day, and, for whatever reason makes little boys do what they do, he broke off a very nice flower in a raised bed. Then he felt bad about it, and tried to put it back onto the plant, and managed to get it balanced so that it looked more or less like it had looked before he had broken it. Isaac may have been too young to fully understand this, but of course, that isn’t going to work. The flower was cut off from the plant, and it would rapidly decay, probably much more rapidly than if it had remained connected to the plant. And using Jesus’ analogy, we too need to remain connected to the vine – that is, to Him – if we want to grow in Him. 

And it has been many years, but a Bible teacher I greatly respected before he passed away taught that a synonym in the Bible for fruit is “results.” An example is the fruit of the Spirit. These are the results of the Spirit, of having the Holy Spirit work in you. And in the same way, the fruit of the vine are the results of being connected to the vine. There is no plan B here – the only way to have spiritual growth, results, fruit, is to be connected to Christ so that He can grow you, mature you, change you. 

And note that the Father is the vinedresser, the one who prunes. It isn’t supposed to be the branches doing it! That is, we are not supposed to be the pruners. God is. We need to exercise restraint and let God do His job. 

Let’s continue with John 15:

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in Me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in Me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to My Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be My disciples. – John 15:5-8

And so Jesus reiterates with his I AM statement. He is the vine. He is the base of the vine, the core, the central part of the vine, where the roots are attached. In fact, He is also the roots. And this is very fitting in light of multiple passages in Isaiah and other passages that describe the Messiah as the root, or core branch. Again, branches need to be connected to the main vine, or they will not receive sustenance, and will not grow, and will eventually – actually, pretty rapidly – die.  It is Christ, and Christ alone, that helps us to grow, which is what fruit is. As we remain in Him, our “rough edges” become less rough, our desire and ability to love sacrificially will grow, and our compassion for those who are perishing apart from Christ will also grow, and we will want to pray for the lost, speak to the lost, and hopefully, God will save some. 

And this brings us to the more seemingly controversial statement: “If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” Now does this mean that if you ask for a Lamborghini that God will give it to you? Probably not. This is an “if-then” statement. The “if” is explicit; the then is implied. If you remain in Him, and if His words remain in you, this will change what you want to pray for. You are not going to ask God for Lamborghinis. 

One passage I think of is Psalm 37:4, in which David says:

Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. – Ps. 37:4

The desires of the heart change significantly when someone truly delights in the Lord. I also think of the model prayer Jesus gave for us:

“This, then, is how you should pray: “‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name, Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’ – Matt. 6:9-13

Note that this prayer starts with worship, with praising God for who He is. And then it moves into praying that what He (God) wants would come to pass. When we pray like this, our desires are whatever He desires. And if course there is a very big difference between praying for daily bread and praying for a Lamborghini. 

Now, were branches that were cut off from the vine actually dealt with, even burned? Why didn’t they just let them stay on the ground underneath the plant? It is because doing this leads to moisture buildup where molds and other diseases can propagate. These are not conducive to the health of the plant or to the bearing of plentiful, delicious fruit.  

Now I have put off talking about the immediate context of these verses, so let me do so here. This is Jesus’ final night with His disciples before He is crucified. Earlier this evening, He had washed His disciples’ feet as an illustration of (1) how He comes to serve, symbolized by how He, the Son of God, the second Person in the Trinity, is taking on such a lowly task as foot washing, (2) how believers still need to come to Him when they sin so that He can forgive them, symbolized by the washing of only the feet and not the full body, and (3) how the disciples are to practice servant leadership as well, effectively washing the feet of other believers. 

He then reveals Judas as the traitor and releases him to go betray Him on that very night, although the other disciples don’t really understand what is happening. He then gives them a new command, to love one another as He has loved them. And when Peter says he would lay down his life for Jesus, Jesus tells him that on that very night he will disown Him three times. 

And then Jesus tells them that He is going to prepare a place for them, and He will come back to take them to be with Him. Thomas replies that they don’t know the way, and it is then that Jesus says that He is the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Him. He then promises them the Holy Spirit and tells them that the Holy Spirit will teach them and remind them of what Jesus has said to them. 

And then, in the verse immediately prior to telling them that He is the true vine, He says, “come now, let us leave.” So it appears that John 15, that we have been reading, takes place on the road, as they leave their upper room and go through Jerusalem, eventually going outside of Jerusalem and crossing the Kidron stream. We read of this in John 18:1. The NIV puts this verse as “When He had finished praying, Jesus left with his disciples and crossed the Kidron Valley.” This makes it sound as if they didn’t leave the room until this point. And I agree this is possible.

But in the KJV which is more literal, John 18:1 reads “When Jesus had spoken these words, he went forth with his disciples over the brook Cedron [Kidron],” and the Greek word choices and tenses make it seem as if He had finished speaking/praying to them as they arrived at the Kidron stream and immediately crossed it. 

Whether they left earlier or later is not especially important, but multiple commentators have suggested that perhaps they had gone past the Temple. Regarding the Temple, I want to read a passage from Josephus, a historian who wrote only a few decades after Jesus. This passage mentions a cubit, which according to Josephus, was 24 finger widths long, and modern historians, based on this and other descriptions conclude that a cubit was about 20 inches long, about half a meter. In particular, note that 70 cubits is over 100 feet. 

Here is what Josephus writes. Pay close attention to the “first gate”.

As to the holy house itself, which was placed in the midst of the inmost court, that most sacred part of the temple, it was ascended to by twelve steps; and in front its height and breadth were equal, and each a hundred cubits…. Its first gate was seventy cubits high and twenty-five cubits broad, but this gate had no doors for it represented the universal visibility of heaven, and that it cannot be excluded from any place.  Its front was covered with gold all over and through it the first part of the house that was more inward did all of it appear; which, as it was very large, so did all the parts about the more inward gate appear to shine to those that saw them.  But then as the entire house was divided into two parts within, it was only the first part of it that was open to our view.  Its height extended all along to ninety cubits in height, and its length was fifty cubits, and its breadth twenty.  But that gate which was at this end of the first part of the house was, as we have already observed, all covered with gold, as was its whole wall about it.  It had also golden vines above it from which clusters of [golden] grapes hung as tall as a man’s height; but then this house, as it was divided into two parts: the inner part was lower than the appearance of the outer, and had golden doors of twenty-five cubits altitude, and six in breadth.   But before these doors there was a veil of equal largeness with the doors.  It was a Babylonian curtain embroidered with blue and fine linen, and scarlet, and purple, and of a contexture that was truly wonderful. Nor was this mixture of colors without its mystical interpretation but was a kind of image of the universe.  For by the scarlet there seemed to be enigmatically signified fire, by the fine flax the earth, by the blue the air, and by the purple the sea; two of them having their colors this foundation of this resemblance.  But the fine flax and the purple have their own origin for that foundation, the earth producing the one and the sea the other.  This curtain had also embroidered upon it all that was mystical in the heavens, excepting that of the twelve signs representing living creatures. – Josephus, Wars 5.5.4 (207-214)

I included the description of the curtain simply because it is interesting. By the way, when he says the flax color comes from the earth, he means that it, the flax, is grown on land. And the purple comes from a kind of sea snail, the murex, so it literally comes from the sea.

We have additional evidence of the golden vine, including coins from that time that seem to depict it. 

Now this is pure conjecture, but it is possible that Jesus and His party of disciples passed by the first gate as they were walking, this stunning, gold gate adorned with a huge golden vine with golden clusters of grapes. Another ancient writer has said that from time to time people would donate golden leaves or orbs to the Temple, and workers (Levites) would hang them up in addition to all that was already there. 

The vine was undoubtedly beautiful, but to the degree it symbolized the people of Israel and their history, and even the present leadership, the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin and the so-called teachers of the Law, it represented a vine that produced poor fruit, if any fruit at all. And I picture Jesus walking past this ostentatious display and saying, “I am the true vine.” 

Again, we don’t know if this is what happened, but the contrast between the failed human vine and the living perfect vine in Christ is certainly something we are supposed to consider. Indeed, this is so much of Jesus’ point here: Remain in Me, He says, and God will trim you so that you produce amazing, living fruit. 

If you watch videos about what vinedressers do, you learn that that prune a lot. It requires tons of time and attention to detail. If even a single leaf is oriented the wrong way, so that it doesn’t get lots of sun, or blocks the sun from better oriented leaves, it is cut. If the canes, the branches, are not first year branches, they are cut. There are literally piles of debris, clippings, under every foot’s length of vine. This is gathered up, these days, usually chopped up and used as mulch. But not long ago it was still burned, and some farms still burn the clippings today. 

When you look at a vine that has recently been pruned, everything is just perfect. You have this new, tender growth, with beautiful, plentiful grapes attached to this old, thick, hearty, wood core vine. When Jesus says He is the vine, He means that part. In itself, it looks dead, much like how a tree trunk, looked at in isolation, also looks dead. But it is in fact very much alive, and it also brings life to all the greenery that is attached to it. Same with the vine. These beautiful, tender leaves, and those juicy, delicious grapes, only are that way because of both the powerful living vine that provides them life and because of the tender, loving, continual care of the vinedresser. And in the same way, we as believers are to be beautiful, tender, loving, people with abundant fruit (results) that come from God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. 

We won’t go into as much detail, but I want to read what Jesus tells His disciples next, because it brings up some important points about what this fruit really is.   

“As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you. Now remain in My love. If you keep My commands, you will remain in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commands and remain in His love. I have told you this so that My joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are My friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in My name the Father will give you. This is My command: Love each other. – John 15:9-17

What is this fruit? Is it seeing people saved, the Kingdom of God expanding? I would say that is part of it, and I think that is why Jesus again tells them that what they ask in His name the Father will grant. He does want them to be doing Kingdom growing work, of course not in their own strength, but in total dependence on God. But if you feel like you have to do this out of a sense of burden, if you feel unsatisfied in how many people, if any, you have led to the Lord, I believe you are missing what fruit is ultimately about. 

There are two huge themes of fruit included in this passage. The first of these is joy. God intends for us to be joyful in Him. And the second is love. Agape self-sacrificial love. The type of love that lays down one’s life for one’s friends. Grapes don’t grow in isolation. They are in clumps, in groups. And it is very clear from this passage that believers are to be in community. You cannot love one another, laying down your lives for your friends, if you have nobody to love, if you have no friends in Christ. You quite simply cannot have this fruit of love if you are not in community with other believers, working to let them into your lives, living life together, serving one another, being with one another. The world should be jealous. People of the world should be jealous of what believers have in fellowship with one another, the joy and the love.

I remind you of portions of two passages from Galatians 5:

You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” … But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy…  – Gal. 5:13-14, 22a

Love and joy, the first two items in the list of the fruit of the Spirit. To be “fruitful”, Biblically, in the Old Testament was to have many physical children, and there is indeed a sense in the New Testament that fruitfulness includes the idea of having spiritual children, those who follow you in the faith. Disciples are people who make disciples, Jesus commanded us to go and make disciples. But the concept of fruit, as explained here by Jesus, goes much deeper. We are not just to produce fruit. We are to produce good fruit. And that fruit is, primarily, our very character, the very nature of our lives. Love and joy should be the first two words others use when they are asked to describe us. Not efficient, or effective, or productive. These things will come, if God wills it. But we also have to allow God to prune us, and that may include pruning our efficiency, our effectiveness, and our productivity. We may be a bit shocked at how deeply He prunes us. But God knows what He is doing. Our primary task is to remain in Him, and connected to Him, have joy and practice agape love through His continual sustenance.