Abiding is Fellowship; John 15:1-3

 

John 15 takes place after Jesus and the disciples have left the upper room. They are on the way from the upper room to the Garden of Gethsemane and it is along the way that Jesus gives the discourse on the true vine. This passage is one of those controversial passages that we run into every now and then that is subject to some misinterpretation. Sooner or later we run into someone who teaches that you can lose your salvation. But God doesn’t give things and then take them back. Salvation is a permanent gift, according to Romans 8:38,39. This whole analogy of the vine is to teach us about the believer’s vital relationship and fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ and what those benefits are. The focus of this vine analogy is to emphasize production in the spiritual life: what the passage refers to as bearing fruit.

 

John 15:1 NASB “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.” This is the seventh of what is referred to as the eight “I ams” in the Gospel of John. These are statements that Jesus makes regarding His person and His work. Some are analogy and some relate specifically to who He is and what He is to do.

 

John 6:35 NASB “Jesus said to His disciples, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.” What Jesus is claiming here is to be the sole source of life. Because of sin man is separated from the true source of life. Man has limited pleasures but unless he is in right relationship to God he cannot understand what real life is as God intended it.

 

John 8:12 NASB “I am the light of the world; he who follows me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life.” Light is revelatory, illuminating; it shines forth and shows the truth.’ Jesus is claiming He is the truth here, the one who illuminates in the darkness of sin in the world.

 

John 8:58 NASB “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I AM.” This was in the midst of a heated controversy with the Pharisees and Jesus referred to the fact that he knew Abraham because He was before Abraham. The significance of this is seen in the Greek where Jesus uses the imperfect tense of GINOMAI [ginomai] which means a past tense, that Abraham came into existence—GINOMAI is the Greek word for coming into existence. So the emphasis is on coming into existence. There was a time when Abraham did not exist and he came into existence and he died. Jesus said, “Before Abraham came into existence, I AM”—EGO EIMI [e)gw e)imi], the present tense emphasizing His continuous existence, that Jesus Christ is the eternal second person of the Trinity and he always existed. EGO EIMI is the Greek translation of the name of God from the Old Testament. When Moses was conversing with God at the burning bush he said, “By what name are you called, that the people might know that I have come from you?” And God said, “I AM who I AM.” The Lord’s name in the Old Testament is the sacred tetragrammaton, YHWH, which comes from the Hebrew verb meaning “existence.” So when Jesus said “I AM” He was claiming for Himself all of the attributes of,and in fact identity with, YHWH of the Old Testament. The Jews understood that He was making that claim, so they immediately reached down to pick up stones to kill Him.

 

John 10:7, 9 NASB “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep …. And shall go in and out, and find pasture” In a sheepfold there is only one way in and out. Jesus is claiming that he is the only way; He is the door for the sheep. He is the only way of salvation, and going in and going out is a picture of the Christian life and that feeding on the Word of God is based upon a right relationship with Jesus Christ.

 

John 10:11 NASB “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” The Greek word translated “for” is the preposition HUPER [u(per], the preposition of substitution—HUPER plus the genitive of advantage. He is the substitute for the advantage of the sheep. He will lay down His life as a substitute for the sheep. Jesus Christ died on the cross as a substitute for us.

 

John 11:25 NASB “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes on me shall live even if he dies.” Jesus is claiming to be the life. He is the only source of life and the way to appropriate that eternal life is through faith in Him. He is the object of our faith.

 

John 14:6 NASB “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through me.” Jesus claims exclusivity: the only way, absolute truth, and the life. Christianity claims to be unique among all of the world’s religions. All of the other world’s religions claim relationship with God on some form of human works, human obedience, human morality. But the Scripture claims that it is based on Jesus’ work, and on Jesus’ work alone.

 

John 15:1 NASB “I am the true vine.” Jesus develops the analogy of the vine. We have to understand the analogy of the vine. This is a metaphor. One of the problems is that when metaphor or analogy is used people try to push things too far. They try to make every single detail in the story stand up and walk on two legs. That is not true of analogy in any realm of illustration. You can’t force every detail to mean something. So we have to learn how the vine analogy is used.

 

1.             The vine here is the grape vine. The hills along the Kidron Valley outside of Jerusalem are covered with grape vines, and as Jesus and the disciples left the upper room and were walking along the hill side the hills were covered with grape vines. This isn’t by chance. God created the grape vine; He created the topography of Jerusalem. The fact that it is a growth area for the grape vine is not a chance encounter. God specifically designed things so that this event would take place, that Jesus would go by the grape vines, and he would use this as an analogy of the believer’s relationship to Himself.

 

2.             God created the grape vine in order to teach certain things about the Christian life and then Christian’s relationship to God. The same refers to the sheep. God created the sheep so that He could utilize it as an analogy to teach certain things about the life of the believer. One thing we learn about the vine is that the wood itself is useless. You can take the wood of the vine and burn it to make heat. You can’t use it to make furniture or to make weapons. The wood itself is virtually useless. It is good for only one thing: producing fruit. In the same way we could say that the believer is relatively useless. He is not good in and of himself, he is only good because of what Christ has done for him, and what He has supplied for him. What the believer is designed for is the production of fruit. Ephesians 2:10.

 

3.             The purpose for planting the vine is equivalent to salvation, but you don’t plant the vine just for the enjoyment of its growth. The purpose is in the end result which is the production of fruit.

 

4.             Only mature plants produce fruit. Immature plants are to continue to grow. The implications for this is profound. Think about it. The purpose of a plant is to produce fruit but it doesn’t produce fruit until it is mature. All the time it is maturing it has to be fed all the right nutrients under the right conditions, and then it absorbs all of that nutrition from the soil in order to produce fruit. The same is true of the believer. You don’t really start producing fruit in your life until you are a mature believer. In many churches fruit is defined as going to prayer meeting, having your daily devotions, reading your Bible every day, giving to the church, witnessing, etc. The Scriptures do not define that as production, that is the function of the believer’s priesthood, not production. It is not related to fruit. When talking about fruit—for example, in Galatians 5:22, 23—the fruit/production of the Holy Spirit is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,” etc. Production of fruit is character, an inner transformation of the soul into the character of Jesus Christ. That takes time, it take the proper nutrition, the proper feeding and handling. And what is that based on? Two things: the filling by means of God the Holy Spirit—Ephesians 5:18; and the content of that filling is the Word of Christ—Colossians 3:16, “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you.” 1 Peter 2:2 commands us to desire the sincere milk of the Word, “that you may grow by it.” It is only by means of the Word of God that we grow. Spiritual growth is the result of the right nourishment which comes exclusively from the Word of God under the filling of the Holy Spirit. So the believer is like a plant. He puts his roots down in that soil of Bible class, week in and week out, over and over again, so that his mind becomes saturated with doctrine, his soul absorbs those spiritual nutrients. The result of that is growth. It is slow, it takes time, and it may be imperceptible to the believer for a while, but the Holy Spirit (if you are filled with the Spirit) is working and over time transformation takes place. When a believer grows to maturity, then he sees the fruit.

 

5.       Fruit must be distinguished from the growth of the plant, its stem and its leaves. Don’t confuse the leaves, the buds and the stem with fruit, that is the immature believer going from infancy to maturity. Fruit only comes at maturity; it is the end result. Life doesn’t begin when we are an adult!

 

6.       The quality of the fruit is dependant on the nourishment plant. What is nourishing your soul? What is it that you spend time on absorbing into your soul? Is it the human viewpoint concepts of the cosmic system? Or is it Bible doctrine? Romans 12:2—“And do not be conformed to this world [cosmos], but be transformed by the renovation of your thinking” through the study of God’s Word.

 

John 15:2 NASB “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He [God the Father, the vinedresser] takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it, that it -may bear more fruit.” We have a major interpretive problem to resolve here. What does it mean to “take away”? What happens to this unfruitful branch? There are three ways that this is handled. First of all, some say that unfruitful means that this is merely a professing but not a genuine believer. John nowhere recognizes that kind of distinction in the Gospel. The second interpretive position that is taken on this is that the believers that are “taken away” are those who lose their salvation. The third position and the one that is the true position is that the unfruitful believers experience divine discipline. The words “taken away” is a mistranslation. The Greek word is EIRO [e)irw] which can mean to take away or remove, but it also means to lift up. In Israel, when you go out into the fields and see the vineyards out there, the lower branches on the vine that may be weak are propped up by rocks, so that by the elevation they are strengthened and then produce fruit. That is the meaning of this particular word. It does not have to do with removal (there is removal in verse 6 which has to do with the sin unto death). Unfruitful believers experience divine discipline in time and lose rewards in eternity.

 

In order to resolve these interpretive problems and to understand this so that we know what Jesus is talking about throughout this chapter we need to do some word study. Words are the substance of thought. Without words we can’t think. Words have significance and meaning. Jesus is going to choose His words carefully. The writer of Scripture says that every word is inspired by God. Since the New Testament was written originally in Greek we have to cross that language barrier. If we run past this we run the danger of false interpretation, so we have to stop and look at some terminology here.

 

The first phrase that is important is “in me.” Paul uses a phrase that is unique to him: “in Christ.” He uses the phrase to refer to our positional union with Christ. It is a forensic or legal term that is used to talk about the fact that at the moment of faith in Christ the believer is united with Christ inseparably for all eternity. That is a legal concept based upon justification. This is not how John uses the word; he has something different in mind. When Jesus uses this vine analogy (because “in me” is in the vine) is this the same significance as the vine analogy used throughout the Old Testament in reference to Israel. For example, in Psalm 80; Hosea 5:1-7; Jeremiah 5:10, and other passages, Israel is identified as the vine. The problem with going back into the Old Testament is that it is a different concept.

 

            Understanding the problem

 

  1. Remember we have to distinguish between Israel and the Church. They are two separate entities in human history. God has one plan and purpose for Israel and another plan and purpose for the Church. Israel was a covenant people viewed as a whole which included both saved and unsaved. The Church is just believers, the invisible body of Christ composed only of believers. So when Jesus speaks of those “in Me” it cannot include unbelievers.

 

  1. Neither the image of the vine nor the context of John 15 relates to the broad kingdom of God. We can’t read Matthew 13 into John.

 

  1. In the Gospel of John there is no concept of true and false believers. If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ you are saved, there is no concept of a false or a pseudo faith.

 

  1. We conclude it cannot include some form of sub group of true believers within a mass of professing believers. It is not showing us this false comparison of true and false believers.

 

  1. The preposition EN [e)n] in the Greek can have a variety of meanings but when it is used with the personal pronoun, like in “in Me”, it describes a close rapport or personal fellowship. So “in Me” is talking about “in fellowship with Me,” those who have a close personal relationship. He is not talking about salvation in this analogy. This is not talking about salvation, it is talking about the fact that fruit bearing is a consequence of being in fellowship with the Lord. If the believer is not drawing his nourishment from Christ on a day to day basis there is no growth, no advance, no fruit bearing.

 

  1. Paul uses the phrase to describe the believer’s position in Christ, but John uses the phrase simply to describe intimate relationship. Cf. John 10:38; 16:33; 17:21, 22, 23. If “in Me” in John was positional then Jesus would not be praying that it would be brought about, it would not be potential, be actual. It would have already existed from salvation onward. The conclusion that we must take from this is that “in Me” is not legal positional, i.e. phase one salvation, it is a relational term. That is our first clue to interpreting this passage. Jesus is talking about that relationship fellowship, He is not talking about salvation.

 

The next thing we need to look at is the word “fruit.” This is the Greek word KARPOS [karpoj] which can be translated “fruit” but the word “production” is preferable because that is what it signifies: the production in the life of the believer. Production in the spiritual life is always related to character, not activity. It is being transformed internally by the Word of God. “Every branch in me that does not bear fruit”—i.e. produce divine good. We need to look at verse 4 here because the other key word that we must understand in this text is found in the command of this verse: “Abide in me, and I in you.” What does it mean to abide in Christ? The Greek word here is MENO [menw], and the English word means to put up with, tolerate, to wait patiently for something, to be in store for something, to wait for something, to withstand. It is used intransitively to remain in place, to continue, to affirm, to dwell, to sojourn. The Greek word has basically the same range of meaning. In the Gospel of John MENO means to remain, to reside, to continue, to endure. One verse where this is used is very important for its understanding: John 6:56—“He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in Me, and I in him.”

 

  1. This is imagery, He is not talking literally. He uses the eating and drinking metaphor because every single person can do that. Everyone can eat and drink, these are non-meritorious activities that anyone can perform. They are a means to an end and are used to signify something specifically.

 

  1. Eating and drinking need to accept something. We accept something into our body, our system. Eating and drinking need to appropriate something. In the initial act of salvation it refers to that initial act of being nourished by our Lord at the point of faith alone in Christ alone. Jesus is referring in 6:56 to faith in Christ at salvation. Cf. verse 53, aorist active subjunctive. The aorist tense summarizes everything as one event, a specific decision. The subjunctive mood is potential. The indicative mood is reality. It depends upon volition whether or not one will eat or drink. The eating and drinking refer to that point in time when you trust Christ as saviour. But down in verse 56 eating and drinking are no longer in the aorist subjunctive, they become present participles: indicating continuous action. So verse 56 is talking about continual nourishment on Christ as necessary for spiritual growth; verse 53 focuses on that initial nourishment at the point of trust in Christ as saviour.

 

  1. Eating and drinking are present active participles in verse 56, whereas the verb MENO in verse 56, to abide, is a present active indicative.

 

  1. John 6:53 describes through the use of the aorist active subjunctive the initial appropriation of eternal life.

 

  1. If we put that together we come to the conclusion that John 6:56 uses the present active participle to indicate continuous action. So Jesus is saying, “Whoever continues to be nourished by me stays [MENO], remains in close fellowship to me.” If “abide” means to believe, as some people argue it does, then we have a redundancy in verse 56. It would make the verse say, He who accepts Christ as saviour accepts Christ as saviour.

 

6.   If eating and drinking describe the metaphor belief then MENO must mean something beyond initial saving faith. Therefore faith cannot be equated to remaining. Faith is not the same thing. MENO doesn’t mean to believe, to accept Christ as saviour.

 

7.   Even though someone believes in Christ and currently maintains a close relationship with Him the indication here is that the potential remains to discontinue that fellowship. If true belief prevented breaking fellowship there would be no need to command them to abide. People are commanded to abide only if the potential is there to break fellowship and stop abiding.

 

8.    A believer remains in Christ’s love by obeying commandments—such as abide in Christ. If abide means to accept Christ as saviour the conclusion is that salvation would be by works, because in John 15:9, 10 Jesus is saying that “the one who loves Me keeps my commandments.”

 

  1. If abide means to believe then Jesus’ statement in 15:5 becomes absurd. It would then be read as (changing “abide” to “believe”): “he who believes in me, and I [believe] in him.” Why would Jesus want to believe in him? Abide means relationship, fellowship; not salvation.

 

So when we look at this we see that the substance of John 15 is how the believer is to have a life of fellowship, and the importance of that life of fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. What, then, are the conditions for fellowship with Christ? First of all one has to enter into union with Christ—faith alone in Christ alone. We initiate salvation and begin that salvation in fellowship with the Lord. But we can break fellowship through sin. Sin grieves the Holy Spirit and quenches the Holy Spirit, so that restoration to fellowship is through 1 John 1:9.

 

Another characteristic of fellowship with the Lord and abiding is the continuous application of the new commandment: the believer is to “love one another.” 1 John 2:10—fellowship is related to the application of impersonal love or unconditional love for all mankind.

 

Another is walking in dependence upon God the Holy Spirit following the precedent set by the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ. 1 John 2:6; 1:7; Ephesians 5:8.

 

Another is having our minds saturated with the Word of God—1 John 2:14, “the Word of God abides in you.” That is the key. There has to be a relationship with the Word of God continuously.

1 John 3:24—the one who keeps His commandments abides in Him. So fellowship is related to continuous obedience.

 

The one who abides does not depart from the doctrine taught from the beginning. 1 John 2:24—“Let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning.” That is the doctrine of the New Testament.

 

Abiding is fellowship. “Every branch that is in Me,” i.e. every believer that continues in fellowship, who wants to have a relationship with me, “but does not bear fruit, He takes away.” He’s going to lift it up. God is going to work in the believer’s life to produce fruit; “every branch that does bear fruit [grows to maturity and produces], He prunes it, that it may bear more fruit”—through discipline, through suffering, through adversity. The pruning is so that it puts all of its energy into fruit bearing and isn’t distracted by other things. We get distracted in life with all kinds of wonderful things to do in life, but God wants to prune us and get the focus on the purpose for which He saved us, which is to bear fruit.