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?