27.1 The Context of Abiding
© 2015 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
Abide in Me and I in you (John 15:3). There is no other commandment in the Bible. To abide in Jesus and He in us is to fulfill the entire Bible; not to abide in Jesus and He in us, even while attempting to do everything else God says, can only be death.
Abide means two larger things; it means to dwell in, to live in Jesus, and it means to remain in Jesus. We cannot take this commandment as figurative; it must be literal. We must literally and actually, spirit, soul, and body, live in, remain in, the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and He in us.
The True Vine
Let’s bring in the context.
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 (John 15:1-4).
I have two grape vines in my backyard trained over a trellis; there is nothing I like growing more than grape vines. It is the season, now, to prune the vines.
Branches and Fruit
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. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples (John 15:5-8).
The Father is not the vine, Jesus is. The Father stands in my role, that of selecting which branches to remove, and which branches to prune back.
Strong Warning
Although Jesus spoke strongly, contrasting bearing fruit versus piled up and burned, there was no thought of “eternal hellfire” in His mind, and thus the negative of His words is meant only to gently chide you and me regarding abiding in Him. Yes, we know the awfulness of attempting to live as Christians without abiding in Jesus; indeed, “branches being burned” is an apt description of the Christian Hades of always falling short of God.
Let’s consider briefly, however, the presence of such strong warning in so many New Testament passages, and especially here, in Jesus’ most important command, “Abide in Me.” Why does God use such strong words?
Always Falling Short
There is a dividing line in the ministry of Christ. I have noted over many years those who devote their ministry towards warning people against the dangers of falling short of God. What is the fruit of such a ministry? Those who are truly falling short never hear anyway for the simple reason that they don’t care. But those who are not falling short, but who anxiously hear the warnings, define themselves, then, as if they are always falling short, becoming the saddest of all Christians. Such fruit does not glorify the Father.
Knowledge or Life
The more I speak Christ my only life, the more I see how evil speaking “falling short” against one’s self or into God’s people really is. The more that light shines upon the darkness, the darker darkness is seen to be. Those who live in the tree of good and evil, speak about the good, yes, but spend more time warning against the evil. They will say, “Yes, the Bible says good things, but far more, the Bible warns against evil things.”
Those who live only in Jesus, see Him in all things; they are the only ones who are truly departing from the darkness of this world.
Seeing Christ Alone
One who is abiding in Christ sees Christ alone; their thoughts and words are filled with the glory of Christ their only life. Thus falling short of God never comes near their sight or their vocabulary. We abide in Christ; He abides in us. Falling short is the enemy of marriage union with Christ. We turn our backs forever on falling short BY turning our faces to our present and complete union with Jesus.
In this lesson, however, we want to develop the context of Jesus’ words, the illustration of vine, branches, and fruit. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit.
Vine – Branches - Fruit
Even though Jesus positions the Father as the caretaker of the vineyard, we can see, also, that Jesus is rooted in the Father. That is, Jesus draws all the life that is down there in Father, bringing it up in a form suitable for the branches.
You and I cannot access Father directly; God is a consuming Fire. Everything that is of God MUST come to us only through the Vine that is Jesus. In Jesus, all that is of Father flows through us; outside of Jesus, all we can produce is make-believe.
Union FIRST
Our total union with Christ comes first, from the very moment a person is born again, before any fruit can be real. Of course, the more that we know Christ inside of union, the more we discover that we have never been anywhere else.
It is Jesus, then, who draws out from Father all that we as branches need for our own life, for the leafing of ministry, and for the fruit of Christ. The fruit of Christ is Father revealed, the normal human life. In essence, it is Jesus Himself, not just as the vine, but as the life of the vine, that passes through us, the branches, becoming both ministry and fruit.
Vines
I know vines; my neighbor growing up had three huge vines in an arbor just behind his little house. The life and power in a vine is measured by its thickness; a vine three or four inches thick has unbelievable power in it.
But my neighbor refused to prune the branches and did not let me do it either; why, I don’t know. As a result, each summer, those three massive vines covered the little house, the huge walnut tree, and everything else within reach with a massive canopy of branches and leaves. And with very little fruit – and only on the branches closest to the vines.
Ministry and “covering” do not equal fruit.
The Season of Pruning
It is the season of pruning, again this January; I will soon prune my grapes. To do that, I look at the branches that are laid across the arbor in the directions I want the vine to grow. I then cut back all the green leafy branches to the larger permanent branches, all the stuff my chosen branches produced last year. Because I love fruit, I get carried away with whacking off last year’s growth. Yet I always leave room for each chosen branch to become larger and longer each season. Whacking off prior growth MEANS more and richer fruit.
An Excessively Jubilant Father
Those of you who are branches of Christ have no need for me to explain what having last year’s growth whacked off by an overly jubilant Father means in our experience. We used to imagine it to be awful; now we keep our eyes on FRUIT, on Father revealed. Father and us happily whack away together, not by “getting rid” of anything, but by seeing all things as Jesus.
The whacking, however, is not the main thing; consider the vine and the branch. I do not know where one ends and the other begins; you could say, here, or here, or here; it’s anyone’s guess. In other words, the connection is absolute.
Holding onto Nothing
Of truth, as I show you the branches chosen to remain across the arbor, you see that the branches are very much the Vine. Only the ministry that bore last year’s fruit is cut away, nothing of the branch itself. In other words, we hold no attachment to anything God brought forth through us yesterday. None of it belongs to us; that is, if we want this season’s fruit.
That’s the lesson here! Abiding in Christ means not holding onto anything produced through us as if it is “mine.” Abiding in Christ means always expecting new fruit.
The Fruit
What is the fruit? It is easy to see that the leaves are the ministry that produces the fruit, but when I go out for the harvest, I could care less about the browning leaves. My focus is only on the fruit. What is the fruit?
Fruit has three parts. The first part of fruit, its reason for existence, is the new seeds inside. Second is the flesh of the fruit that gives itself away to sustain those seeds as they sprout and grow. And third is the skin that protects seed and flesh.
Eating the Fruit
I am much practiced at putting away huge quantities of grapes. I pinch the grape so that the flesh containing the seeds pops into my mouth without the bitter skin. Then I swallow without chewing so that I do not taste the bitter seeds. By going really fast, one keeps a steady stream of succulent, sweet, flavorful, pulpy juice flowing through one’s mouth! The wine, the sweetness, comes from the flesh of the grape.
Houston, Texas is not a place to grow Concord grapes; I keep my vines because I love to tend grapes and because I want my children to know the meaning and taste of plucking and eating new grapes from off of the vine, even if it’s just a little bit.
The Seed of Christ in You
I receive emails from you who are taking this course. Over and over, I hear your testimony of the life of Jesus, your only life, become exceedingly sweet in the midst of great outward difficulties. You share how those difficulties are pressing ever more life and wonder and joy out of Christ who is all that you are. The bitterness of difficulty encases you; the seed of Christ is within you; the joy of Jesus is your present knowledge. In my thinking, that sounds like fruit. Yet I never imagine that you “belong to me,” or in any way come under me, thus I remain free to bear more fruit.
The Connection
The point of Jesus’ context of vine-branches-fruit, however, is not the fruit; the fruit is a given. The point is the no-boundary connection between vine and branch, a connection that cannot be measured or broken.
Union comes first; everything else of God follows. Christ is always all first, as all that we are right now, before anything that comes through us can be the fruit God desires.
But Christ Jesus IS Father revealed. And thus the same is true of us; our fruit is Father revealed. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit. – He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit.