John 15:1-4 (NIV)
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.”
In this first section of Jesus’ parable of the vine and the branches, He sets up the imagery: Jesus is the vine, His followers are the branches; and the Father is the gardener who tends the whole thing. The job of the gardener in a vineyard is to ensure that the vines produce grapes to their full potential.
It is significant that Jesus identifies Himself as the TRUE vine. If you would have asked anyone in Jerusalem that Passover night who or what the “vine” is, they would have unhesitatingly said, “Israel, the people of God.” This is based in large part on Psalm 80:8, where Asaph writes that God brought a vine out of Egypt, drove out the nations, and planted it, nurtured it, and caused it to grow, obviously referring to the people of Israel. Some of the prophets used this same imagery, often to show how the vine had gone wild instead of producing fruit for the one who planted it (Jeremiah 2:21, 6:9; Hosea 10:1; 14:7).
But by Jesus identifying Himself as the true vine, He is identifying Himself as the origin and root of the true people of God, and His followers, the branches, as the current core of that people. From the moment of Jesus’ appearance, the true people of God were no longer identified by their descent from Abraham (Matthew 3:9), but by their relationship with Jesus and their faith in Him (John 1:12). That relationship is pictured here as branches that are intimately connected to the vine, termed by Jesus “remaining” in the vine.
The clear understanding behind this parabolic illustration is that for a branch to be fruitful, to bear grapes, it must remain firmly connect to the grapevine. If it is detached, its fruit bearing days are over, and it quickly withers and dies.
Also understood is that, for the grape grower, the fruit is the goal. Showy leaves, no matter how lush, are of little value, and indeed they use up fruit producing sap in the process of growing. Any branches that don’t produce fruit, just leaves, are ruthlessly removed from the vine by the gardener. And any branches that produce leaves that extend beyond the fruit on the branch are ruthlessly pruned back, enabling the maximum amount of the plant’s resources to go into fruit production.
As Jesus points out with this illustration, even in the kingdom of God, the fruit, the saving of souls and the expansion of God’s kingdom (Matthew 28:18-20), is the goal. Leaves, scripted religious observations, empty rituals, good works done for show to attract the praise of the people, and these days showy buildings and worldly programs and activities that are not focused on reaching the lost, equipping the saints, and encouraging kingdom expansion, use the resources of the congregation to produce something other than the true fruit of the kingdom, and limit or even eliminate the potential for the true fruit to be produced.
But Jesus also cautions that the true fruit of the kingdom can’t be produced by people working in their own strength any more than a grape branch disconnected from the vine can produce fruit out of its own resources. Instead, if a branch is connected to the vine, the life-giving, fruit-producing sap flows through it, and fruit is the natural outcome.
Father, there is definitely more to this illustration than first meets the eye! It clearly points out that, if I am not producing the real fruit of the kingdom, the first place for me to check is my connection to Jesus, the true vine. And if I find that my connection has a problem due to sin, distractions, or other priorities that I have allowed to slip into first place, I need to repent, so that I can be reintegrated into the vine (Romans 11:23-24) and start producing fruit again. Thank You for this amazing picture. Amen.
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