The Vine — E.A. Johnston

Jesus as the True Vine

I remember addressing a group of pastors years ago at the Stephen Olford Center in Memphis, Tennessee. I was speaking out of Our Texas Evening, out of the passage from John chapter 15, and their faces became suddenly quite altered.

One by one, they became gripped with something much greater than my message for God was at work in our midst that evening as he did business with each of us, and it is my prayer, friends, that God will be in our midst this evening as well, and that we will be gripped by the one who holds our lives into balance and who has our best interests at heart.

I want to read us this familiar passage of Scripture at this time. Here now is the word of God, and may the Spirit of the Lord be pleased to attend the reading of his holy word. I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.

Let me pause here, friends, to say, in the Greek transliteration it reads, in contradistinction to anyone else, I am the genuine vine, and my Father is the tiller of the soil. That Christ is like no other.

All others are fakes and phonies and cheap imitations of the pearl of great price. As he shines brilliantly above all on heaven and earth, he is genuine. Jesus is the real thing, friends, and that the Father is the tiller of the soil speaks of God's divine care over each one of his children.

The Father as the Divine Gardener

As a father would have the best interests at heart toward his only child, so too does our Father in heaven exercise the greatest care over each of us as a gardener would cultivate the vines to bring forth the richest grapes.

In the preceding chapter, in John 14, the word Father is mentioned 23 times. Just get out your pens and draw a circle around the word Father in John 14 to see the emphasis placed on the filial relationship between God and his children.

There is a saying in Latin, which was found inscribed on a stone in 1260. It reads, Observe, Christian, such honor, the heavenly farmer, due to a defect in the vine, the son not sparing, exposed him to the destruction of death, that to the captives half-dead from torment, life he gives, and crowns them with himself on heaven's throne.

Pruning the Branches for Greater Fruitfulness

Well, let's get back to our text. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you.

Abiding in Christ as the Key to the Christian Life

As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same, bringeth forth much fruit.

For without me ye can do nothing. I will stop there. The thought I want to focus on this evening, friends, is found in the word abide. The Greek word for abide is the word meno. And its meaning is what I want to draw out before us in all its richness, and as the Greek language is much more rich than our own English language, and it is this word meno, which I believe is the key to the Christian life.

For all our happiness and power and usefulness and fruitfulness is wrapped up in this wonderful word meno. Oh friends, if we could only make this truth a living reality in each of our lives, what a difference it would make.

That word meno means to stay in a given place, to remain and to dwell there. It speaks of a person dwelling or lodging in a place, with the emphasis on staying in one place. Is this not the meaning Jesus was conveying to his disciples by their own life experience from the three and a half years that they were in his presence, abiding in him?

The Disciples' Dependence on Jesus

Just look in the Gospels at that band of men as they followed Jesus. As Jesus speaks these words to them here in John chapter 15, they're on their way to Gethsemane where he will be violently taken from them to be no more in their company while on earth.

But now he is yet in their midst as he speaks of the relationship between them in the imagery of the vine and the branch. As he speaks, they can yet hear him, they can yet see him, they can yet still reach out and touch him, all is well so long as he is in their midst and they enjoy close fellowship with him.

But just go look in the Gospel record and you will see that it's only when he is away from them that they fall into unbelief and sin. When he is on the mountain praying and they are out on a raging sea, rowing in their human strength to no avail, they need a power higher than them.

They need a force much larger than them. Christ is relating to his men in the imagery of the vine and the branch that they should already know from their personal experience and trying extremes that they can do absolutely nothing without their master, without him.

They are at times like little children caught out in a sudden thunderstorm without their parent and they tremble beneath the claps of thunder and crowd terror at the flashing streaks of lightning. But when he is with them, all is changed.

A great transformation occurs in their life situation. They are secure, at peace, as they enjoy close fellowship with their Jesus. Is this not the same with us, friends, when we are troubled and our spirit is in unrest?

Faith Through Storms and Trials

Is it not because we have taken our eyes off Jesus like Peter out on the rolling waves, first walking by faith and sinking in unbelief? Jesus has been training his men all this while through their personal experience of him.

This great truth of the vine and the branch spills out into, where is your faith? He asks the drenched, fearful disciples after he calmed the storm, O ye of little faith, we hear him say from time to time, all the while Jesus has been building faith in them.

And do you know what, friend? Jesus has been training you all the while through your own personal storm, says he has been building faith in you. The Father is always at work in the garden, digging here and there, pruning back a branch once more, so it can bear more luscious fruit for him.

Resting in God's Loving Pruning

God's activity in our life is constant, O that we can only lay hold of that truth and rest in the knowledge that no matter how hard life gets and how hard pressed we are beneath our burdens, that the Father is behind it all, digging a little deeper here with his divine spade and pruning more here and there with his divine pruning knife, all for our good and his glory.

That word meno is the key that unlocks the reality of a close walk with God, to stay in a given place, a place of close intimacy with Christ as we abide in him, in a vital love relationship with him, a meno.

What wonder is in that word! Jesus, O what a wonderful Savior he is! Let us pray.