Living in Jesus, Abiding in Him (20)

 

 

Having already pondered John 15:4 - 5 (in reflections 3 – 5 in this series), we are now going to consider verse 6 as well as the first part of verse 2.

 

“Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He [the Father] takes away…” 15:2a.

 

“If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them into the fire and they are burned.” 15:6.

 

The reason we first spent time in verses 4 and 5 is that they are the core of our passage, they are the center of gravity, they are our stabilizer, our gyroscope. If verses 4 and 5 cease to be our center of gravity, then we will lose focus and perspective and likely not view 15:2a and 15:6 in a healthy fashion. I think there are at least two reasons for this.

 

The first reason is that 15:2a and 15:6 are not about us; the rest of the passage is about us, abiding in Jesus and bearing fruit in Him and the Father’s pruning are about us, but 15:2a and 6 are not about us; we will try to understand, in some measure, who they are about, but they are not about us.

 

The second reason why we can lose perspective in considering 15:2a and 6 is that most of us have a propensity to look at other people and speculate about them – we judge others, and we tend to categorize them. We like sorting people out and labeling them. Keeping our focus on verses 4 and 5 reminds us that Jesus is to be our focus, not only in the sense of my relationship with Jesus, but just as importantly…in our relationship with Jesus. We are all in this together…in Jesus.

 

How are we to understand 15:2a and 6? What does it mean when Jesus says, “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit”? What does “in Me?” mean?  In verse 6, to whom is Jesus referring when He says, “If anyone does not abide in Me”?

 

At the outset I’ll say that we see through a glass dimly (1 Cor. 13:12), and I think that is good. I would much rather see the love of God in Christ clearly, and see the Cross clearly, than see certain other things clearly…tragic things. There are some things we really can’t bear, and if we only have glimpses then let us be thankful. Our kind Father knows what is best for His children.

 

When seeking to understand a passage it is best to begin within the Biblical book in which we find the passage. This is like looking at a complex piece of jewelry that has many gems, each gem has a role to play in complementing the other gems, as does the precious metal in which the gems are set. We can learn so much from a setting.

 

Jesus gives us great assurance in John’s Gospel, an assurance that leads us to the glories of the Holy of Holies in the Upper Room, particularly John Chapter 17. We have previously seen, in Chapter 14, how we are called into the koinonia of the Trinity, how the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit come to live within us.

 

In John Chapter 6 we read:

 

“All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out…This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day…No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:37, 39, 44).

 

As the author of Hebrews says, Jesus is indeed the “Author and Completer of our faith” (Heb. 12:2).

 

We see this assurance introduced in John 1:12 – 13: “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”

 

However we may understand the various elements of John 1:12 – 13, the ground of the passage is “but of God.” The source of our new life is God – no matter how we see anything else, we ought to begin and end with God and His action and will as our center of gravity and our blessed assurance. As John 1:9 declares, He [the Word] is the Light – we can’t produce our own light, our own understanding, we can’t see anything spiritually or morally…we are blind without God.

 

But now let us ponder two passages with a fair amount of nuance, ones in which we may see dimly. You will need to read these in their context to gain the most from them, but we’ll get a start on them.

 

“‘But there are some of you who do not believe.’ For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him. And He was saying, ‘For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.’

 

“As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore.

 

“So Jesus said to the twelve, ‘You do not want to go away also, do you?’ Simon Peter answered Him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. We have believed and come to know that You are the Holy One of God.’”

 

The above scene occurs at the conclusion of Jesus’ teaching on the Bread of Life. I hope you will read John 6:26 – 71 to gain a sense of the tension and challenge that Jesus presents His listeners.

 

Can you see the two distinct responses? On the one hand “many of His disciples” turn away from Him. On the other hand, Peter affirms the belief and commitment of the precious few, "Lord, to whom shall we go?”

 

I suppose that if Jesus were a pastor that His church would fire Him and call Him an idiot. After all, what kind of pastor preaches a sermon that drives people away? Apparently Jesus was uninformed about being “seeker sensitive.” I don’t imagine the session or elders or deacons would be pleased at the offering that morning. Someone should have done a better job training Jesus to preach and teach.

 

But you know, well of course you know, that when a brother or sister simply says, “To whom shall we go?”, that the sister or brother “gets it” concerning Jesus. The brother who asks, “To whom shall we go?” knows that living in Jesus is a matter of life or death.

 

When a professing Christian says to me, “To whom shall we go?”, I know he or she means business with Jesus, that she or he is all in for Jesus. They know that Jesus is indeed the Bread of Life, that He alone has “the words of eternal life.”

 

But note in 6:66 that “many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore.” In 6:60 – 61 these disciples are grumbling and Jesus meets their complaining head on, He does not sidestep the thrust of His teaching, He does not cater to them so as not to lose them – but rather continues His confrontation (O that someone would have trained Jesus better! He could have built such a nice church and congregation.)

 

The people “not walking with Him anymore” are not the crowds, they are disciples.

 

One of the things that I want us to see is how the term “disciple” is used. When we think of the term “disciple” we tend to think of those not only being taught by Jesus, but of those committed to Jesus. However, as we see in John 6:66 this is not necessarily the case. For that matter, when we read in John 13:5 that Jesus “began to wash the disciples’ feet” we know that Judas Iscariot is included in the term “disciples,” and he was hardly a committed follower of Jesus.

 

Can you see a correlation between the way “disciple” is used in John’s Gospel and the idea we find in John 15:2a and 6 of “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit”?

 

In other words, just as not all disciples were truly disciples, so not all who appear to be branches in Jesus are truly branches in Jesus. In both instances we are dealing with the distinction between appearances and the reality beyond the appearances.

 

Not only that but consider the progression (or regression?) in John 6:60 – 71 with respect to the many “disciples” who turned away from Jesus. Might this not be an example of the Father “taking away” branches that appear to be in the Vine because they are not bearing fruit? And consider, in this light, that in 6:65 Jesus reiterates that “no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.” Jesus is emphatic in His teaching, even if it means a diminished congregation and a meagre offering (O that He might have had better training and been more practical!).

 

In our next reflection we’ll ponder, the Lord willing, a similar passage, John 8:30 – 59. As you read John 8:30 - 59 what do you see? Do you see similarities between this passage and the scenario of John Chapter 6? How might John 8:30 – 59 help us understand John 15:2a and 6?