Abiding in Jesus, Living in Him (10)

 

 

When we prune, among other things we look for dead and diseased wood. This is not the only wood we prune; we also prune to allow light and air into the tree, we prune for form, and we prune so that branches don’t interfere with each other and thus negatively affect the health of the tree.

 

Dead and diseased wood speaks to us of sin, of that which will make us sick, of disease, of what is death. We need our Father’s pruning when there is sin in our lives, we cannot deal with sin ourselves – all that we can to is to ask God for forgiveness and submit to His pruning, and even this is by His grace in Jesus Christ.

 

As with much else in the Gospel, the Scriptures speak to us of sin in a forensic sense and in an organic sense, just as salvation has its organic and forensic elements – failure to understand these distinctions leads to confusion. For example, justification presents salvation primarily in its forensic sense, while the new birth, having the Nature of God in us through Christ, speaks to us of salvation primarily in its organic sense. Then we have sanctification – that beautifully melds the organic and forensic into one, they cannot be separated (2 Cor. 5:11 – 21; Rom. 5:12 – 8:39).

 

In our current reflection on pruning, we’re going to ponder sin organically and this takes us back to Psalms 19 and 139…we are finally going to look at these passages.

 

“Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults. Also keep back Your servant from presumptuous sins; let them not rule over me; then I will be blameless, and I shall be acquitted of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Yahweh, my rock and my Redeemer.” (Psalm 19:12 – 14).

 

Now for those readers with eagle eyes, yes, the idea of being “acquitted” speaks to us forensically, of justification – we can’t really separate the forensic and organic, so let’s acknowledge that. Isn’t experiencing the Bible a grand experience!

 

Psalm 19:14 is a familiar verse to many people, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Yahweh, my rock and my Redeemer.” However, how did the psalmist get to this prayer? What led him to pray these words? What was working in his heart? What led the psalmist to pray verses 12 – 14?

 

If we have never pondered verses 12 – 14 in context, then we have never Biblically pondered these verses.

 

Is this not a prayer for pruning?

 

What do you see in Psalm 19? What is its theme? Its story? If you were speaking to children, how would you describe this psalm to them? If you were going to produce a play based on this psalm, how would you stage it? What do you “see”?

 

What do you see in verses 1 – 6? How might you describe what you see?

 

What do you see in verses 7 – 11?

 

What is the psalmist possibly experiencing in each of these two passages? What is he possibly experiencing in the passage as a whole?

 

What are you experiencing? What is Psalm 19 teaching us? What is the psalm’s central thrust?

 

How might the first two movements of this psalm (1 – 6 and 7 – 11) lead to the final movement of verses 12 – 14?

 

Please take some time to ponder this psalm and these questions and we’ll return to them in our next reflection, the Lord willing.

 

Shalom.

Abiding in Jesus, Living in Him (9)

 

 

In our previous reflection we asked, “What does the pruning of our Father look like?”

 

We concluded with the following passages:

 

“Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults. Also keep back Your servant from presumptuous sins; let them not rule over me; then I will be blameless, and I shall be acquitted of great transgression. Let the word of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Yahweh, my rock and my Redeemer.” (Psalm 19:12 – 14).

 

“Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me and lead me in the everlasting way.” (Psalm 139:23 – 24).

 

We also asked how these passages might relate to John 15:1 – 2 and how each entire Psalm (the context) helps us to see each passage more clearly. Let’s consider these questions.

 

Our Father’s pruning has many facets and I think this is something we often misunderstand because we fail to appreciate the purpose of our Father in our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Father desires that we might be conformed to the “image of His Son, that He might be the Firstborn among many brethren” (Rom. 8:29). Along with this, our Father desires that the Body of Christ might display the Head in all of His glory, and that the Bride of His Son might be glorious (see Eph. 4 and 5, and of course John 17 and Rev. chapters 21 – 22).

 

So here is something to ponder, while our Father’s pruning includes dealing with sin (at least I think it does), dealing with sin in our lives is not the primary focus of our Father’s pruning, in fact, for the disciple of Jesus Christ, as we grow in Him the issue of sin becomes less and less a focus, and whatever it may be it is not the center of our growth or of our pruning. God’s primary purpose in our lives is not that we live without sinning – it is that we be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.

 

Now you may have to think about this for awhile if you’ve never pondered it. This is along the line of the idea, expressed by Biblically – grounded teachers over the centuries, that we can “love God and do as you please.”

 

If we love God, if we truly love God and are devoted to Him, then what we please will be what pleases God, for our delight will be living in our Father’s will.

 

You see dear friends, we can be without sin – so to speak – and yet not be conformed to the image of the Firstborn Son. Conformity to the image of Jesus Christ is about the Life of Christ and the character of Christ…about the very Person of Christ…being manifested in us, being formed within us. Language falls short here for there are so many nuances, and our thinking is affected by the Fall – but consider that lifeless things, such as statues, are without sin; yet they hardly display the Firstborn Son.

 

Let’s consider Jesus, always a good thing to do. What do you see in Hebrews 5:8 – 9?

 

“Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation…”

 

Now then, we know Jesus was without sin (Hebrews 4:15; 2 Cor. 5:21). So sin is not an issue in Hebrews 5:8 – 9. What then do we have? We see that Jesus “learned” and we see that Jesus was “made perfect” or “complete” or “mature.”

 

Again, consider Hebrews 2:10 in which we see that the Father made “perfect the author of their [our] salvation through sufferings.”

 

We see that there was a process of learning and maturation in Jesus Christ. But again, how can this be since Jesus Christ is God? Here, I think, we must look to the mystery of the Incarnation; Jesus Christ was fully God and fully Man. Here also recall that mysterious passage in Philippians 2:7, that Christ Jesus “emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant.”

 

We know that Jesus Christ was sinless. We know that Jesus Christ was and is God and that God is perfect and complete within Himself. Therefore, Hebrews 2:10 and 5:8 – 9 must be speaking to us of the Man Jesus Christ when they speak of being perfected (Heb. 2:10) and of learning obedience and being perfected (Heb. 5:8 – 9).  Now this is a mystery indeed and we do not have language to adequately write about it, and we must not be foolish and engage in speculation as to how these things might be, we simply cannot know what we might call the dynamics of Jesus Christ being fully God and fully Man – it truly is beyond us.

 

What I hope we will see is that the fact that Jesus Christ learned obedience and was made perfect had nothing to do with sin because He has ever and always been sinless and pure, He has ever and always been holy, holy, holy.

 

If we only believed what the Gospel teaches us about justification and sanctification (being dead to sin and alive to God – Romans 6:11), if we only believed that we are holy in Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 5:21), then we would leave sin behind us and get on with life in Christ in service to Him and others. We would also realize that leaving sin behind does not complete the purpose of God in our lives, for His purpose is that we be “conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the Firstborn among many brethren” (Rom. 8:29).

 

In other words, if Jesus Christ, the Holy and sinless Lamb of God, fully God and fully Man, went through a process of learning obedience and maturation, we are also called to know Him in this same process in order that we may bear His Image – is He not the Vine and are we not the branches? (Jn. 15:1ff).

 

Well, as you can see, we have not yet explored Psalms 19 and 139 and we’ve done enough in this reflection – but we needed to raise an awareness that the pruning of the Father is not primarily about sin – for sin has been taken care of (Romans chapters 1 – 8; 2 Cor. 5:11 – 21). The Lord willing, in our next reflection we will consider sin and Psalms 19 and 139, for we do need to deal with the elemental before we move deeper into the intimacy of the Father’s pruning.

 

I realize that you may have never thought about what I’ve written in this reflection. I ask a couple of things. First, I ask that you read the Scriptures as they are written, allow the Scriptures to overcome our preconceptions, allow them to overcome what we’ve heard from others, and in doing so look to Jesus, always look to Jesus.

 

The other thing I ask is to refrain from speculation. Speculations leads us away from Jesus and the Bible, they are a distraction. We cannot grasp the glorious mystery of the Incarnation, we can't grasp it in Jesus Christ and we can't grasp it as it lives in us. Paul did not explain what He wrote in Philippians 2:7; the author of Hebrews did not explain what he meant in 2:10 and 5:8 – 9. Both writers made statements relevant to the subjects at hand as they were inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit gives us glimpses of the mystery of God in the Incarnation is these passage – let us not be so foolish as to speculate on the dynamics of Jesus being fully God and fully Man, let us rather fall at the feet of Jesus Christ.

 

Speculation leads us away from Jesus Christ. Please, don’t forget this. And perhaps this is part of the Father’s pruning, to learn to seek Jesus and receive Jesus – rather than speculations. If doing the will of the Father was Jesus’s food (Jn. 4:34), then doing the Father’s will as we live in Jesus Christ ought to be our food as well…don’t you think?

 

“The secret things belong to Yahweh our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law.” (Dt. 29:29).  

 

Abiding in Jesus, Living in Him (8)

 

 

What does the pruning of our Father look like?

 

I think it is vital that when we ponder this question, that we remind ourselves that we are talking about a relationship, we must view the question in the context of our relationship with our kind heavenly Father. We are not speaking of a “system” of spiritual formation or discipleship or religious development – we are not trying to make good Baptists or Presbyterians or Roman Catholics of Pentecostals of ourselves and others – we are focused on our union with Jesus Christ (the Vine) and of us being the sons and daughters of the Living God.

 

Our Father desires to form us into the image of His Firstborn Son, so that Jesus might be the “Firstborn among many brethren” (Romans 8:29). Let’s recall that the glorious purpose of the Incarnation is that our Father might bring “many sons to glory” through the Firstborn, Jesus Christ (Hebrews 2:10 – 11). In fact, as we ponder the Vine and the branches we see that the Incarnation continues on earth as the life of the Vine flows through the branches – Christ lives in heaven and on earth, the Body of Christ is transcendent, the communion of saints is glorious (Hebrews 12:18 - 24).

 

Since we are a family, we can expect that while there are commonalities in the ways our Father prunes and cleanses us, that there are also peculiarities, there are distinctives. Psalm 139 portrays the intimate knowledge our Father has with each one of us – we know Him as “our Father,” and we also know Him as “my Father.”

 

Sometimes we can help one another understand our Father’s pruning, for we are members of one another; then there are times all we can do is to “be there” for our brothers and sisters, for we are foolish to try to interfere with the working of the Holy Spirit.

 

“It is for discipline [think of pruning] that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?” (Hebrews 12:7). The writer of Hebrews is clear that the purpose of God’s discipline is that “we may share in His holiness” (Heb. 12:10).

 

Now consider that God is “holy, holy, holy (Isaiah 6:3), and then consider that our Father desires that we share in His holiness. Here is an element of how our Father brings many sons to glory, here is an outworking of the Incarnation and Atonement (which takes us back to Hebrews Chapter 2).

 

And here is something vital, we must be secure in God’s love for us in Jesus Christ – otherwise our insecurity will cause us to see our Father’s pruning as rejection – our relationship with the Father and Jesus is not conditional, it is not tentative – they have called us and justified us and given us a new nature and glorified us – and we now belong to God, we have been “bought with a price.” (See Romans chapters 5 & 8; 2 Cor. Chapter 5.) “Nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:39).

 

Well now, I suppose we can say that our Father’s pruning has at least two elements to it; dead and diseased elements of the branch need to be pruned, and healthy elements which do not contribute to the overall form and growth of the branch and vine also need to be pruned. Then there are times and seasons in which entirely healthy plants should be radically cut back to ensure flowering and long-term health.

 

“Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults. Also keep back Your servant from presumptuous sins; let them not rule over me; then I will be blameless, and I shall be acquitted of great transgression. Let the word of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Yahweh, my rock and my Redeemer.” (Psalm 19:12 – 14).

 

“Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.” (Psalm 139:23 – 24).

 

What do you see in these passages from Psalms 19 and 139?

 

How might they relate to our Father’s pruning in John 15?

 

How do the contexts of both these passages help us to understand them? In other words, how does the entirety of Psalm 19 help us understand and experience verses 12 – 14? How does the entirety of Psalm 139 help us understand verses 23 – 24?

 

We’ll look at this in our next reflection, the Lord willing.

 

Abiding in Jesus, Living in Him (7)

 

 

“Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes (καθαίρει) it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean (καθαροί) because of the word which I have spoken to you.” John 15:2 – 3.

 

When we arrive at 15:6 we will come back to the first part of verse 2, about the Father taking away branches.

 

Notice that the Greek word for “prunes” is closely related in Greek to the word for “clean.” The idea of pruning was connected with the idea of cleansing, we see this in the Greek text as John relates the words of Jesus, and this takes us back to John 13:10 – 11, in which Jesus says, “…and you are clean (καθαροί), but not all of you.”

 

We want to think about both pruning and cleansing, for while the two overlap, they are also distinctive, and let us keep in mind that the goal of pruning in our passage is that the branches “may bear more fruit” (15:2). “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples” (15:8).

 

Why is pruning connected to cleansing? Why, in our passage in Greek, can we as easily say that the Father cleans the branch as say that the Father prunes the branch? We actually have this same concept in English.

 

When we encounter a messy or unkempt situation, we can say, “This mess needs to be cleaned up.” Or “This situation needs to be cleaned up.” We can be talking about an untidy room in a house, or a relationship, or an organization in disarray, or a garden that is unattended. We can also look at a tree that has been allowed to languish on its own, with branches and suckers growing every which way, with the branches carrying extraneous shoots, with dead wood here and there, and we can say, “This tree needs to be cleaned up,” by which we mean that it needs pruning.

 

We prune for the health of the tree, for the health of the branch. We prune to maintain the strength of the tree. We prune that the tree, or bush, might flower and that fruit trees might bear healthy fruit. There are also seasons in which to prune; all trees and all bushes should not be pruned at the same time, it is important to know the times and seasons and the characteristics of each living plant.

 

We prune to promote air circulation. We prune so that the branches complement one another. We prune to allow sunlight into the plant. We prune to prevent disease. Some plants require radical pruning on an annual basis, and some do not. Plants that have not been cared for often require radical pruning to bring them back to health, and then they only require a maintenance type of pruning. All pruning is a type of cleansing, caring for the plant, promoting the health of the tree or shrub.

 

We prune because we care about the plant. To the untrained eye that only sees the short term, pruning may look like destruction, but to the master gardener or arborist, pruning is all about the health of the plant – and the arborist and gardener see the future of the plant even as they prune – they see what is to come and they are confident in their pruning.

 

Our passage speaks to us of our relationship with the Father and the Son. We see our relationship with the Son, the Vine, as we abide in Him and He abides in us (15:5). We see our relationship with the Father in His pruning us, shaping us, so that we will bear more fruit.

 

All branches are to give glory to the Vine, they are all to display the Life of the Vine. The fruit which the branches bear is to give glory to the Father, the Vinedresser. In order to Biblically think about our passage, we must be theocentric, God the Trinity must be at the center of our thinking and understanding, this is not primarily about us, we are not the center of the passage anymore than we are the center of the Bible, of the Gospel, or of anything else. Yes, yes, yes, we are the objects of our Father’s great love in Christ as His sons and daughters, and we don’t want to mitigate that glorious reality in which we partake of the Divine Nature – but the Lamb and the Father are ever and always our Great Light and Glory (Rev. 21:23; 22:5).

 

How might we experience the pruning of our Father?

 

The Lord willing, we’ll pick this back up in our next reflection.

Abiding in Jesus, Living in Him (6)

 

 

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.”

 

Having reflected upon the core verses (verses 4 and 5) of our passage (John 15:1 – 11), we’ll drop back to the beginning and work our way forward, remembering to ponder and reflect within the context of the entire Upper Room (chapters 13 – 17).

 

Our passage begins with the Son and the Father, while we are included in the passage, our inclusion is in the Vine, it is in the Son – our identity is in the Son. The Bible begins with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; the Bible concludes with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

 

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.” (Gen. 1:1 – 2).

 

“I saw no temple in it [the City], for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple…The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.’” (See Rev. chapters 21 – 22).

 

Also note that mankind, formed in the image of God in Genesis chapters 1 and 2, is revealed, and speaks, as the Bride in Revelation chapters 21 and 22.

 

Also please note that in Rev. 22:13 Jesus says, “I am the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” While it is right and true to say that when we read, “Then God said,” in Genesis 1:3 (and following) that we see the Word that John speaks of in John 1:1 – 18, “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being,” we actually first see the Son with the Father in Genesis 1:1. Can you see Him?

 

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” What do you see?

 

Let’s read it this way, “In the Beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

 

In Revelation 3:14 Jesus calls Himself, “The beginning of the creation of God.”

 

When God created in Genesis 1:1, He created in and through the Word, the Son; God created in the Beginning, in His Son, the Beginning of the creation of God. We need not wait until verse 3 of Genesis Chapter 1 to see the Son, we see the Son in the first verse, in the Beginning.

 

And so our passage also begins with the Father and the Son, with the true Vine and the Vinedresser.

 

Now why am I making such a big deal about this? Why have I gone from John 15 to Revelation chapters 21 – 22 and to Genesis chapters 1 -2? Why don’t we move along with our passage?

 

At least two reasons. The first is that we need the entire Bible to clearly see any given passage of the Bible, and that we need every passage of the Bible to understand the entire Bible.

 

The second reason is the main reason, the Bible is about Jesus Christ from Beginning to End, from the First to the Last, from the Alpha to the Omega. God reveals Himself to us through Jesus Christ, He redeems and reconciles us in and through Jesus Christ, and we share the very life of God, His Divine Nature, in and through Jesus Christ. We also experience the koinonia of the Trinity with one another as we live in Jesus Christ, the Vine.

 

We cannot see the glory of our salvation in Jesus Christ if we have a low view of Him. If Jesus Christ is not central to our Christianity, then we will be central, and if we are the center of gravity, if our traditions and doctrinal systems are central, if our wants and our needs and our feelings are central – then we cannot see the glory of sonship which Christ Jesus has brought to us.

 

Our passage is first about the Vine and the Vinedresser. We enter into the passage not as entities or persons distinct from the Vine, but as members of the Vine, as those who share the Divine Life of the Vine. While the Father, the Vinedresser, gives us individual attention and love as His daughters and sons (the branches), He does so because we are in the Vine, the very Divine Life of the Vine flows into us – we live by our union with the Vine.

 

I imagine that many of us have not thought of this before, for we tend to think of ourselves solely as individuals; but the Bible speaks to us as a People, and we are called to Christ as His People. While each one of us bears the image of God in Christ in a glorious, and I think unique, fashion – we need each other in Christ to become who we really are in Him. The glory of Vine is manifested through the branches, and the branches complement one another as they bring glory to the Vine and bear much fruit to the glory of the Vinedresser (see John 15:8).

 

But do we think like this? Do we see life like this?

 

Can we see the challenge here?

 

How shall we respond?

Abiding in Jesus, Living in Him (5)

 

“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so 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, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” John 15:4 – 5.

 

We are to live in Jesus Christ, the Vine, even as Jesus Christ lives in the Father (acknowledging the mystery of the Incarnation and also the mystery of the Trinity). If Jesus is telling us the truth when He says, “…for apart from Me you can do nothing,” then we cannot live the Christian life, only the Vine can live the Christian life. This means that we can give up trying to live the Christian life, and that we can abide in the Vine and allow Him to live His life through us.

 

Radical? Of course it is radical – not only is it radical, it is Divine. It is our Father’s purpose from eternity past to have a family of sons and daughters in His Beloved Son – and therefore Paul can write, “For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many are one body, so also is Christ” (1 Cor. 12:12).

 

Can we hear Jesus praying? “I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected into one…” (John 17:23a).

 

Consider the dynamic of Philippians 2:12 – 13:

 

“So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”

 

We are called to surrender and to submit to the will of God, the working of God, as we abide in the Vine, as the Vine’s Life lives in us and flows through us to others. I suppose the clearest and most succinct statement of this glorious Way of Life is found in Galatians 2:20:

 

“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” (See also Romans Chapter 6:1 – 7:4).

 

Sadly, we have pretty much become a Galatian church, thinking that having “begun with the Spirit” that we must now seek maturity “by the flesh” [our own efforts] (Gal. 3:1 – 3). We simply do not believe what Jesus says in John 15:4 – 5. We must be in control. We must be pragmatic, even though our pragmatism is opposed to the Cross and the wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:17 – 2:16).

 

We are so good at doing things on our own, both in our individual lives and in our church lives, that we don’t need the Holy Spirit, we don’t need to abide in the Vine – we dare not trust Jesus Christ to be the Head of His Church, His Bride, His Body. Sadly, we are on artificial life support and don’t know it. We would rather engage in culture wars than to be the Presence of Christ in our generation.

 

You see, dear friends, Christianity is about Jesus Christ, it about living in Christ Jesus and Christ Jesus living in us. It is about making disciples of all people groups, wherever they may be, whatever their current beliefs and backgrounds. Christianity is about the Person of Jesus Christ, it is not about a worldview, it is not about a particular nation, it is not about a political system, it is not even about a “Christian” religious tradition – it is about Jesus Christ and His People, and reaching people for Jesus, bringing them into the Ark of Jesus Christ.

 

When Jesus speaks to us of the Vine and the branches, He is drawing us into the koinonia of the Trinity – as we’ll see explicitly in John 17, and as we’ve already seen in John 14:17, 21 – 23. How foolish we are to trade our birthright as daughters and sons of the Living God for the things of earth. Did not Jesus say, “My kingdom is not of this world”? (John 18:37).

 

As Jesus came to reveal the Father, so we are called to reveal the Father and the Son, for Jesus sends us into the world even as the Father sent Him into the world (John 17:18; 20:21).

 

We cannot live the Christian life – but the Vine can, and the Vine will…as we abide in Him.

 

As a friend of mine likes to say, “We are becoming who we already are in Christ.”

 

Abiding in Jesus, Living in Him (4)

 

“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so 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, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” John 15:4 – 5.

 

Let’s return to our question, “How is 15:4 – 5 portrayed in the relationship of Jesus and the Father?”

What do you see about Jesus and the Father in the following verses?

 

“Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing, for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.” John 5:19.

 

“I can do nothing on My own initiative [from Myself].” John 5:30a.

 

“When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I Am, and I do nothing on My own initiative [from Myself], but I speak these things as the Father taught Me.” John 8:28.

 

“For I did not speak on My own initiative [out of Myself, of Myself], but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a commandment as to what to say and what to speak.” John 12:49.

 

 Do you see a connection between what Jesus says about His relationship with the Father and what Jesus says to us about abiding in Him, the Vine?

 

Can we see that Jesus lived life in the Father, that He did nothing out of Himself? He said, “I can do nothing out of Myself.” The Father was the very source of life for Jesus Christ, and Jesus says that He is to be our very source of life. This means that Jesus could do nothing on His own “initiative” (the word used by the NASB) just as He says, “…for apart from Me you can do nothing.”

 

As Jesus Christ lived in the Father, we are to live in Jesus Christ. As the Father was Jesus’ source of life, so Jesus is to be our source of life. As Jesus could do nothing of Himself (on His own initiative), so we can do nothing of ourselves – not really. (See 1 Cor. 3:10 – 15 to see the end result of our works).

 

We have actually seen this already in the Upper Room, and we will see it again, especially when we arrive in the Holy of Holies in John Chapter 17. For example, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” How are we to love even as Jesus loves? We cannot do it, we simply cannot do it – we are bound to fail…unless we are abiding in the Vine and therefore drawing our life from Jesus Christ. If we abide in the Vine as our Way of Life, then loving even as Jesus loves is our naturally – supernatural Way of living.

 

When we enter into the Holy of Holies, we see that we are called into the very koinonia of the Trinity (John 17:21 – 23). In that holy koinonia we partake of the Divine Nature, and the depth of what it means to abide in the Vine engulfs and dwarfs our comprehension, it is beyond our understanding, but it ought not to be beyond our experience in Christ!

 

Now let me say that there is much mystery in all of this, and we simply cannot understand the depths of it all. For example, to those who say, “Well Jesus could live the life He lived because He is God,” the answer is, “No. that is not true. Jesus lived in the Father, by the Father, and out of the Father; and He calls us to live in Him, by Him, and out of Him – the Vine.”

 

The Incarnation is a mystery in so many ways. Perhaps in one sense the simplest element of the Incarnation is the physical aspect of what we call the Virgin Birth, while the depths of mystery lie in the nature of the Incarnate Christ Jesus – fully God and fully Man.

 

Consider Philippians 2:5 – 10:

 

“Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, as He already existed in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied Himself by taking the form of a bond-servant and being born in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death: death on a cross. For this reason also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

 

What does it mean that Christ Jesus “emptied Himself” in the Incarnation? (See also Hebrews 2:9 – 18). Whatever it means, I do not think we can define it, but we can behold it throughout the Gospels. One of the ways we behold this “emptying” is in what Jesus says about living out of the Father and doing nothing on His own initiative, doing nothing of Himself. The life of Jesus in the Father is the model for the Vine and the branches – we cannot really understand either one, but we can see Jesus in the Father and we can live our lives in union with Jesus Christ.

 

And this brings us to one of the great liberating statements in life, an understanding that sets us free to live as our Father intended, “There is only One Person who can live the Christian life, and that is God.” This is what the Vine and the branches teaches us, that we must abide in the Vine, drawing our life from Him, and that apart from Jesus we can do nothing.

 

 

 

Abiding in Jesus, Living in Him (3)

 

 

“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so 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, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” John 15:4 – 5.

 

This is the heart of our passage (John 15:1 – 8) and so we will begin with it and then drop back (in future reflections) to verse 1 and work our way forward. There is also a sense in which it is the heart of the Upper Room, even though the trajectory of the Upper Room is the Holy of Holies in Chapter 17.

 

Can we see, in John 15:4 – 5, a connection, an affinity, with John 14:21 & 23? Can we see 15:4 – 5 in John 17:23?

 

In addition to 15:4 – 5 being the heart of the Upper Room, it also reaches back and pulls chapters 1 – 12 into itself, most especially the central focus of the Son and the Father. How might this be? How is 15:4 – 5 portrayed in the relationship of Jesus and the Father?

 

We might think of 15:4 – 5 as middle C on a piano, if we don’t know where middle C is our music will be off. Or think about what happens on a computer keyboard when your fingers are not positioned properly. What happens? Yjod od ejsy js[[rmd/ I meant to type, “This is what happens”, but my fingers were off by one key, just being off one key to the right created nonsense.

 

Jesus says, “Abide in Me, and I in you.” Then He says that unless we abide in Him, live in Him, dwell in Him, that we cannot bear fruit. Jesus says, “…apart from Me you can do nothing.” Do we believe that “the branch cannot bear fruit of itself”? Do we believe what Jesus is saying?

 

If we do not believe what Jesus is saying, and if our lives are not lived in Him as the Vine, as our sole source of life, then our fingers are misplaced on the keyboard and we will produce nonsense. If we give lip service to what Jesus says, but functionally live life on our own, then at best we produce nonsense and at worst we produce religious hypocrisy and death, leading others astray.

 

“Unless Yahweh builds the house, they labor in vain who build it, unless Yahweh guards the city, the watchman keeps awake in vain.” Psalm 127:1. What is true of the house and true of the city is true of you and me; Jesus must be our Author and Completer, our First and Last, our Alpha and Omega – and of course, everything in between.

 

Koinonia with Jesus Christ is often first “Me and Jesus,” then it is “Jesus and me,” and finally it is “Jesus.” Of course we also have the horizontal dimension of others which we see throughout the Upper Room, including in the Holy of Holies (see John 17:21 – 23; and let us not forget the beauty of 1 John 1:3).

 

Let’s return to the question, “How is 15:4 – 5 portrayed in the relationship of Jesus and the Father?”

 

The answer to this question is foundational to the Gospel of John. It is foundational to our life in Christ, both vertically and horizontally. While I am hesitant to use language that can be construed as sensational or overstatement or hyperbole, I will say this, that for the Christian, for the woman or man or young person who has come into a relationship with Jesus Christ, John 15:4 – 5 and the answer to the question about how the relationship of Jesus and the Father portrays these two verses, is the key to understanding and living the Christian life.

 

Abiding in Jesus, Living in Him (2)

 

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.” John 15:1.

 

Our passage is John 15:1 – 8, along with 15:9 – 11. I realize this is a strange way to present the passage. Why not say, “Our passage is John 15:1 – 11”? It is because I want us to see 15:1 – 8 in depth, as a deep pool of water; and then to see how it flows into verses 9 – 11, which in turn flow into verse 12 and beyond. Also, let’s please keep in mind that 15:1 flows from what precedes it – we are in one river, one main current.

 

I hope that we will read this passage again and again and again; that we will ponder it, meditate upon it and within it, and visualize our Lord Jesus speaking the words of this passage to us. Can we see ourselves in the Upper Room, seeing Jesus and hearing Him speak these words? Can we sense Him with us today, wherever we may physically be, speaking these words to us? Jesus says that He will always be with us, do we believe this? (Mt. 28:20; Jn. 14:17 – 23).

 

We are going to ponder this passage as a unit, first looking at the forest and then the trees – this is the way we ought to learn to read, preach, and teach, asking ourselves, “What is the image here? What is the message? What is Jesus saying to us? How are we to respond in obedience to Him? If we come away from any passage, having only considered individual words or sentences or verses, and have failed to see Jesus and the main message and image He is giving us of Himself and His Word, then we have abjectly come short of the glory and understanding our Father has for us. If we have only pondered individual trees in a forest and have not seen the forest, then we have not really understood the individual trees, for the individual trees are only fully understood in the context of the entire forest.

 

If we do not understand all the verses and passages in the forest, we can still live; if we do not understand the forest, if we do not “see” Jesus, if we do not see the primary Image the Bible is portraying to us…then we will fall short in our inheritance in Christ…we will live as babes and children…playing with things that do not matter.

 

Let me give you two examples of what I mean within our passage, one positive and one negative. On the positive side, the passage begins with, “I am the true vine.” Then we have “in Me” (v. 2), “abide in Me” twice (v. 4), “I am the vine…abides in Me” (v. 5), “abide in Me” (v. 7), “abide in My love” (v. 9), “abide in My love” (v. 10). Our abiding in Christ, the Vine, is clearly the central image of this passage – see verses 4 and 5. This is the forest we want to see, the image we want to permeate our souls, the central current of the river.

 

Also, note that the image of abiding is already with us in the Upper Room – see John 14:23. We want to keep in mind the entire forest of the Upper Room, we want to remember where the river has already taken us so that we can better appreciate where we are in John 15: 1 – 11. We want to experience the Upper Room holistically in Christ.

 

The negative example is, “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away…If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch…” (verses 2 and 6). These verses are trees in the forest, but they are not the forest; abiding in the Vine is the forest, it is the main current of the river of life. Therefore, we will focus on abiding in the Vine, we will meditate on the forest of our union with Jesus Christ, and then, once we have hopefully seen the beauty of abiding in the Vine as our sole source of life, we’ll ponder verse 2a and verse 6.

 

I have been in small groups and Sunday school classes that have gotten so hung up on verses such as John 15:6 that they have never seen the point of the passage – and hence year after year, Sunday after Sunday, their Christian lives remain pretty much the same…on the outside of the Temple looking in…if that…always babes, always children (1 Cor. 3:1 – 2; Heb. 5:11 – 6:3).

 

The Book is all about Jesus Christ, only that which is grounded in Jesus Christ, “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3), matters. When we engage in speculation and seek to satisfy our curiosity we are like puppy dogs chasing their tails…this is cute in puppy dogs, not so cute in professing Christians.

 

As we read John 15:1 – 11, may I ask please, “What is the nature of our life in Christ? What is the nature of our relationship with Jesus Christ?”

 

What is your response? How do you describe it, based on our passage, based on the words of Jesus?

How would you describe the nature of our life in Christ to a group of children? I ask this, because I've learned that children are my toughest audience - I can't fake it with children and they force me to know what I'm saying.