THE VINE AND THE VINEDRESSER
Series on John 15 pt. 1
John 15:1
12/10/06
Today we are beginning a series of messages on John chapter 15. We will be going through the whole chapter verse by verse. I am not sure what lead me to preach on John 15. I wanted to spend some time on the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and God lead me to this chapter of the gospel of John. It is a chapter that is full of great teaching, some which may be hard to take. I pray that as we go through this chapter that it will be as much of a blessing to you and it has been for me.
I will warn you, that this will not be an overview of the 15th chapter of John, but an in-depth study. Think of this passage as a gold mine, and the only way to get the gold is to mine it out. I want to weigh carefully the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. I believe that we miss much that the Lord would have us to know by reading through scripture as fast as we can. That is the reason I am not a big fan of the reading through the Bible in a year.
As 2 Tim. 3:16 tells us “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
That is the purpose of Scripture, to teach doctrine, to reproof, to correct, to instruct in righteousness, not seeing how many verses we can read in a year.
So as we study John 15 let us do so with heart longing to learn about God and His word. Looking to what God would have us to know as we walk in Him.
With that said lets turn to our passage. John 15. I am going to read the first six verses even though we are only going to be looking at the verse 1 today. “"I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. "Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. "You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. "If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.”
I want to begin our look into this passage by making note of the immediate context. All the words recorded in John 15 are the words of our Lord. These words are spoken sometime after the Passover meal Jesus has with His disciples. We know this because we have Judas leaving the Passover meal after being confronted by Jesus with the fact that he would betray our Lord. That happens back in John 13:30.
Some question exactly where these words are spoken. Some suggest that they are spoken in the upper room, while others suggest that they are spoken on the way to the garden of Gethsemane. The confusion comes from the way chapter 14 ends. Notice verse 31 where Jesus states; “Arise, let us go from here.”
But if you turn to chapter 18:1 you have the same type of words, “When Jesus had spoken these words (the words of chapters 15-17), He went out with His disciples over the Brook Kidron, where there was a garden, which He and His disciples entered.”
This has caused some folks to suggest that the material in John is out of order. They want to place chapters 15-17 before chapter 14. This however does damage to flow of the teaching of our Lord, and the material when examined simply does not make sense when rearranged this way. I believe a simpler answer can be given.
How many of you have ever been sitting down to dinner with friends or relatives, the meal is over and you are finishing up your coffee. You look at your watch and say, “Well, I have leave.” Then you get up to leave and what happens? You spent another ½ hour standing by the door chatting about one thing or another.
I believe this is what happens here in John 15-17. I read through chapters 15-17 and it took me 8 min. and 26.875 seconds to read. That is not all that long of a time. So it certainly is feasible that Jesus and his disciples stand to leave, and Jesus continues talking during that time, until they actually leave.
So I believe that it is safe to say that our Lord’s words here in chapter 15 are spoken in the upper room, immediately following the Passover meal Jesus has just celebrated with His disciples. Judas has left, and the Lord is preparing to go to the garden of Gethsemane. Keep all that in your mind as we look at what the Lord states in chapter 15. That is the immediate context.
With the context in mind notice what Jesus states, “I am the true vine”. I want to remind you that Jesus’ words here are spoken to a group of first century Jews. While the symbolism behind a vine may not mean much to us, it certainly would mean something to them.
Suppose for instance George Bush makes the statement, “I am the true eagle”, what would think about. What does the eagle mean to us? It is a symbol of our county. It carried with it a meaning of strength, patriotism. The American way. The image of an eagle for us, carries with it more then just a big bird. The image of a vine for the those first century Jews would carry more then just a plant.
The vine represented Israel itself. I have in my hand a couple of coins from the 1st Jewish revolt against Rome in 66-70. There are pictures of them with a drawing of the coins underneath. Notice the image of a vine. That was there nationalistic symbol, much like the eagle is for us. That image was placed on the coins to spur the people on to fight. They were fighting Rome for their freedom, for nationalistic pride. (They did end up losing and the temple was destroyed., fulfilling our Lord’s prediction in Matthew 24.)
That type of imagery, that type of symbolism is what I believe that Lord’s disciples would be thinking about.
What is interesting however is that in all the OT references to the nation of Israel being a vine, it symbolizes that fruitlessness of Israel. Listen to couple of references;
“Yet I had planted you a noble vine, a seed of highest quality. How then have you turned before Me Into the degenerate plant of an alien vine?” Jer. 2:21
Also Isa. 5:1-6; “Now let me sing to my Well–beloved A song of my Beloved regarding His vineyard: My Well–beloved has a vineyard On a very fruitful hill. He dug it up and cleared out its stones, And planted it with the choicest vine. He built a tower in its midst, And also made a winepress in it; So He expected [it] to bring forth [good] grapes, But it brought forth wild grapes. "And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, Judge, please, between Me and My vineyard. What more could have been done to My vineyard That I have not done in it? Why then, when I expected [it] to bring forth [good] grapes, Did it bring forth wild grapes? And now, please let Me tell you what I will do to My vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it shall be burned; [And] break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. I will lay it waste; It shall not be pruned or dug, But there shall come up briers and thorns. I will also command the clouds That they rain no rain on it."”
Notice what is stated. God plants a vineyard, He expects it to bring forth fruit to His glory. But instead it brings forth “wild grapes”. So now the judgment of God is upon the vineyard.
Again every reference in the OT to Israel being a vine of God has to do with their unfruitfulness and God’s judgment upon them. I believe we need to understand this symbolism if we are to understand what the Lord is talking about in John 15.
Jesus tells us that He is not simply the vine, but the “true vine”. He is the true vine in that unlike Israel He does the perfect will of the Father. He obeys the Father in all things.
That word true there means genuine, the real deal. In John 1:9 Jesus is called the “true light”, In John 6:32 Jesus tells us; "Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven.”
Jesus is the real deal! We not longer have the shadow, but the substance. Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law, the fulfillment of the OT. These passage in John tell us that Jesus genuine thing. No longer is God using symbols and types to point to the Christ, the Christ is here! The true vine is here, the true light is here, the true bread is here.
This part of what Jesus is saying here. This is what the Holy Spirit means in Col 2:16-17 “So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.”
I also do not want us to loose sight of the fact that the vine represented God’s people. But I must stress that Israel was a picture of God’s people. The Jewish people today are not God’s people. I know it is a popular teaching among some folks to continue to call the Jewish nation (or Israel), God’s people, but I believe this passage would teach otherwise.
Remember the vine symbolized God’s people. But Christ is the true vine, and those who are truly part of that vine, i.e. branches, do what? They abide in Christ, the true vine, and bear fruit!
I also believe we have another parallel here. You see not all those who claimed to be the in the vine of God in the OT were true believers in God, in fact most were not. For as Romans 9:6-7 states “…For they are not all Israel who are of Israel, nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham;”. In other words not all those who claim to be the children of God, were truly the children of God. Just being a born an Israelite did not make you a true child of Abraham.
The reason that they were fruitless is because they were not true children of God, they were not children of the promise. Their fruitlessness showed were there heart really was. The ran not after God, but after false gods.
As we will see the same is true today. This is made clear in John 15:2-6. There are those who claim to be Christians, they claim to be part of the vine. But because they bear no fruit their true nature is seen. Just as God’s judgment was upon those who were fruitless in the OT, His judgment will be on those who are fruitless today, as vs. 2 states, “"Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away…” But we will get to that later on.
The point is is that Christ is the true vine, and the God’s people are His through Christ, that is abiding in Christ, and when one abides in Christ, he or she WILL produce fruit!
I also believe that the symbolism of the vine goes beyond the nation of Israel. As I mentioned earlier this takes place in the upper room right after Jesus and his disciples have celebrated the Passover, or what we now call the Lord’s supper.
Think about what would be found on the table. Among other things there would be the Passover lamb, the bread and the fruit of the vine, or the wine.
I am not one to try to find some sort of symbolism in every passage of Scripture, but I do not believe the symbolism here should not go unnoticed.
As to the lamb, is not Christ the lamb of God. John 1:36, notice the words of John the Baptist, “And looking at Jesus as He walked, he said, "Behold the Lamb of God!"
Twenty-seven times in the book of Revelation is Jesus referred to as the Lamb of God. I will just give you one reference, Rev. 5:12 there were have those in heaven “saying with a loud voice: "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain To receive power and riches and wisdom, And strength and honor and glory and blessing!”
As to the bread, read chapter 6 of the gospel of John. Jesus is referred to several times as the bread of life. Example, John 6:35 “And Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.”
As to the wine, thought not mentioned in John specifically it is mentioned in the three other gospels. It is called the “fruit of the vine”. Speaking of the Lord’s supper Paul writes in 1 Cor. 11:25 “In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”
It is through the Lord’s supper that our Lord leads His disciples to turn from the symbols of the lamb, and the bread, and the fruit of the vine, and see Him as the fulfillment of those symbols. He is the reality of them, He is the Lamb of God, the bread of life, the true vine!
It is not the physical reality of these things, but the Spiritual reality that the represent, that is Christ.
In our passage our Lord begins to speak of the true vine, which is Christ himself. As He goes on to point out, the true branches have their unity in the vine. They have their life in the vine, they have their fertility to produce fruit in the Vine. Not the vine that was Israel, but the true vine, that is Jesus Christ.
As we will see as we continue to look at that passage our whole spiritual life must be about abiding in Christ. ITS ALL ABOUT CHRIST! As a church our unity is in Him, our Love for one another is in Him, our Love for God is in Him. It all goes back to the fact that He is the true Vine, and apart from us abiding in that true vine we have nothing.
As John verse 5 states "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.
As a church, as people of God, we are nothing without the true vine which is Christ our Lord.
So what I want you to get from this first part of the first verse of John 15, is the purpose of the symbolism that is used here. How those who are truly God’s people abide in the true vine which is Christ. As Christ goes on to expound on that thought in John 15, I want us to have some understanding of how we must abide in Christ if we are to do anything to the glory of God.
Notice now the second part of the verse; “…My Father is the vinedresser.” One thing that should be noted in the gospel of John is the how our Lord over and over make reference to the relationship that He has with the Father. The vine and the vine dresser are in perfect harmony with one another. The will is the same, their purpose is the same. The desire for the branches is the same.
Jesus states in John 5:30 "I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me.”
Also John 8:29 "And He who sent Me is with Me. The Father has not left Me alone, for I always do those things that please Him."
Jesus does the perfect will of the Father IN ALL THINGS. That true has far reaching implications that will are unable to get to here. But get this point, The Son and Father are in perfect harmony with one another, and with the Holy Spirit.
So the Father is the vinedresser. The Greek word literally means, “tiller of the ground”. As we see in the verse 3, which we will get to next week, the Action of the Father is decisive. The Father watches over the branches of the vine doing whatever it takes, (like any good gardener would do), to ensure that the branches will bear as much fruit as possible. The emphasis is placed on the production of fruit. As the passage states that Father prunes to make sure fruit ins produced. For if the branches are left to themselves they will grow wild.
There is a grapevine in my backyard. It has never been pruned, now it grows all over the trees, brush and so forth. There was no grapes on it this year, it produced no fruit. Why? Because it is allowed to grow wild.
The Father will NOT allow that to happen to the true branches of the true vine. Because the fruit of a Christian is not a result of our energy but the care of the vinedresser. Fruit results from the Father’s pruning. The Father’s care brings about fruit. Why, because through this pruning the Father is glorified.
As John 15:8 states, “"By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.”
That is why, and we will talk about this a greater length in another sermon, it is impossible for a true believer in Jesus Christ not to have any fruit in their lives. Because it would call into question what is being taught in this passage, and it calls into question that Father’s care and love as a the vinedresser.
We are going to wrap this up for today. What I would like you all to do during the course of this week, is read over John 15, at least the first 8 verses or so, in light of what we have talked about this morning. I pray that this morning’s message has given you a greater insight into what the Lord Jesus is communicating here.
I pray that this message has given you some food for thought as you reflect on what it means to be a branch abiding in the true vine that is Jesus Christ.
In closing I want to say that to abide in Christ means that you have professed Him as your Lord and Saviour. That you have trusted in His gospel, that Jesus died for your sins, that He was buried and that He rose again three days later. To abide in the true vine begins with a profession of faith in Christ. And I pray that every person as done just. That you have believed in that blessed gospel.
LET US PRAY
