'I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.'

'By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.'

John 15:5, 8

We are coming to the end of our studies in the seven 'I am' sayings of John's Gospels. These words cast their own unique light on Jesus as our unique, unchangeable Saviour. He is the great I am, the one who bears Jehovah's name.

John is very fond of the number seven; when he comes to write the Book of Revelation there are many 'sevens'. Indeed, the number seven is significant throughout the Scripture. From the beginning, a pattern of seven was established in our routine. It is a perfect number, and this is the last of them -- 'I am the vine'.

To capture the full significance of this, we need to remember what is happening here. Jesus has been in the upper room with his disciples, and he has been comforting them. At the end of chapter 14 it is obvious that Jesus is leaving the upper room. He calls them to leave. By the beginning of chapter 18, he has spoken to the disciples about the father, and to the father about the disciples; now he comes to the garden of Gethsemane.

Different commentators interpret the sequence of events differently, but it seems to me that at the end of chapter 14 they leave the upper room, and everything spoken in chapters 15 through 17 is spoken between room and garden, along the pathways of the Mount of Olives. There are vineyards all around; as one commentator puts it, 'Israel was a land of vineyards'. These vineyards and olive-groves in this setting may have suggested this picture to Jesus, as he and the disciples walked towards Gethsemane (a name which itself, incidentally, means 'wine-press'). The industry around the vineyards and olive-groves of Israel, therefore, was much in Jesus' mind as he said 'I am the true vine'.

But more than his physical surroundings was in his mind when he uttered these words, for there are many passages in the Bible which refer to vineyards. Psalm 80:7, for example, refers to Israel as a vine which was transplanted, taken out of Egypt and planted in another location. God's church, God's vineyard took root in the land of Canaan and spread its branches all over the world. The prayer of Psalm 80 is that God would visit his own vine.

The prophets again and again take up the theme comparing God's people to a vineyard. But often the theme is taken up by the prophets in order to charge God's people with unfaithfulness and disobedience to the Lord. Both Isaiah and Ezekiel take up these themes. According to Isaiah 5:7, 'the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel'; yet the context of the passage is that the vineyard has not given the fruit for which it was designed; instead of giving grapes, it yielded wild grapes (Isaiah 5:4). Instead of justice God found bloodshed, and an outcry instead of righteousness (5:7). Similarly in Ezekiel 15 the prophet declares that Jerusalem is a useless vine, fit only to be used for firewood. God is going to reject his people as worthless and valueless vines. They are fit for nothing.

Passages like Isaiah 5 and Ezekiel 15 feed into the seventh 'I am' saying; when Israel failed to serve God as they ought, Jesus comes and says 'I am the true vine', the true servant, the obedient servant who has come to give his life a ransom for many. When Jesus describes himself in this way, it is in contrast with all that has gone before; God's people failed to honour and serve him; God needs to act decisively to provide a Saviour. This saying enlarges on that picture.

Jesus is the true vine, and God the Father is compared to the person who dresses the vines, looking after them, pruning and caring for them so that they will bear good fruit. The Father tends to the vines. It is an important emphasis; everything that Jesus is doing he is doing in obedience to the Father. That emphasis runs throughout John's Gospel. The last thing he said in leaving the upper room was that he was going to show the world how much he loved, and loved to obey, his Father.

We must never lose sight of the fact that our salvation is the result of Jesus' relationship to his Father. God loved the world and gave his Son. The Son loved the Father and gave himself. Without the revelation of God as intra-personal and triune, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, there is no Gospel. Jesus loves the Father. He loves to obey the Father. He did not come to do his own will but the will of the Father (John 6:38). When we follow Jesus all the way to Calvary, we see him doing what the Father wishes him to do.

The Father is superintending all the events that lead up to the cross. Jesus is willingly going to the cross as the servant of Jehovah. So what does this Father do? He has come now to look after the vine, and to tend to the vineyard? Well, every branch that does not bear fruit he casts off; and every branch which does bear fruit he prunes in order to make it even more fruitful.

There has been a lot of needless discussion over these words. Does Jesus mean to teach in these words that it is possible to be in him, and yet to be lost? The surface meaning of the words is that -- branches in Christ that are fruitless are cast away. It does seem to teach that it is possible to be in the vine, but to be lost through fruitlessness.

But of course that cannot be true. Otherwise it would contradict other, clear passages of Scripture which teach the eternal security of the believer. The point of the passage is not to teach temporary salvation. It is not possible to be saved today and lost tomorrow. To be in Christ at all is to be in Christ for ever. Salvation depends not on us but on him. It depends on his grace. And once grace unites a sinner to the Saviour, there is nothing -- nothing on earth, or in Heaven or in Hell can disunite or separate us from him.

The relationship between Jesus and his people is secure for ever. But Jesus is using the analogy of someone looking after the vine to illustrate one aspect of Christian living -- the pruning work of God as a means of leading to further usefulness and fruitfulness. He wants to concentrate on the most important part of this -- those who are in Him are looked after and tended by the Father.

Having said that, I can't read these words without thinking that perhaps on the mind of Jesus was the disciple who, to all intents and purposes, gave every impression that he was in Christ. There was a disciple of whom, if we were to see him, we would say, 'There is a good living man, a good Christian, a good believer.' We would comment on the time he spent in Jesus' company and in the company of the other disciples. We might comment on the responsibilities he carried as a member of the disciple band. We might comment on his busyness; yet for all these things, he was lost. Visibly he was in Jesus, but not actually.

Judas Iscariot gave every impression that he was actually a true believer in Christ, but it was all apparent. To look at him you would think that this was a good man; if ever there was a believer, you would say that this was a believer. He was looking after the money, after the purse, and every practical need of the disciples. Yet all of this belied the truth; John tells us about Judas that he went out into the night because Satan entered into him (John 13: 27). Christ pronounced upon him the curse of the covenant -- 'The Son of man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would have been better for that man if he had not been born' (Matthew 26:24).

Judas stands before us as a stern warning. No, it is not possible for anyone to be genuinely converted and then actually lost; but it is possible for someone to be apparently converted and then actually lost. It is not enough that I give every apparent indication that I am a true believer. I may be a stranger to God's grace, though apparently saved. I may be admitted visibly into the church, and be part of her life and structure and work in the world; to that extent I may be like a branch in the vine. But if I am not spiritually united to Christ my connection to his church will stand for nothing.

We do not assume that a person is a believer because of church blessings and privileges. The means of grace -- Bible reading, Gospel preaching, family prayers -- are great privileges, but we cannot assume conversion or genuine Christianity because of them. God has been good to many of us, but his goodness will only condemn us if we do not come to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

What a terrible thing for Judas to have had such exposure to Jesus, such time with him, and such knowledge of his teaching, and then to be lost. The vine passage about fruitless branches being cast away without thinking of Judas Iscariot going out into the night to do Satan's work, and not the work of Jesus.

So what is Jesus teaching in this passage? Jesus expands on the analogy of the vine and the branches. I want to study the passage in reverse, and to ask certain questions.

First, I want to ask -- WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE GOSPEL? What is the thing that makes the Good News good? What is God wanting of us when he gives us the Bible and tells us about the way of salvation? What is behind it all? What is God looking to as the end result of everything in and around the Bible?

The answer to that question is in this passage: the ultimate aim to which all of this is pointing is that we will glorify God. That is why the first question of the Shorter Catechism is what it is. Man's chief purpose, and the main aim and end of his life, is to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever.

That is what the Gospel is about. God deserves to be glorified, and ought to be glorified by us. The tragedy of our sin is that we fail to glorify him as we ought.

Paul puts it like this in Romans 1 -- instead of glorifying God as they ought, men turned away from God to worship the creature and the creation rather than the Creator. That is where our world is, and where our generation is. We are living in a world of man-worship; yet the whole end and purpose of our lives is that we will glorify God. 'By this is my Father glorified...' he says.

That is what Jesus is doing with his life -- he is giving glory to the Father in obedience and service to him. Why is Jesus coming all the way to the cross? Why is he laying down his life for people like us? He is doing it to glorify his Father, so that God will be honoured and magnified in his life. If we are to be like Jesus, that must be the aim of our lives. By nature we turn away from God to man, away from the Creator to the creature -- we come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).

But God gave his Son in order that we might glorify the Father. The blood was shed at Calvary precisely so that we might glorify the Father; in our life and in our death we are asked to give all the glory to God.

Is this happening in our lives? Have we come to recognise that this is the end of the Gospel -- that we will give glory to the Father?

Secondly, then, I ask -- HOW DO WE GLORIFY THE FATHER? What will glorify the Father? Jesus tells me in 15:8 that what gives glory to the Father is if I bear much fruit. Listen to what Jesus is saying -- if I am to realise my chief purpose, and give glory to God in my life, it can only be as my life becomes a garden, where choice fruits grow, a place where there will be fruit to glorify him.

Jesus draws on the illustrations of the vineyards -- the olives, the grapes, the fruit-bearing trees with which Israel was familiar -- and he emphasises the need for fruit-bearing. I need to be a fruit-bearer; and I cannot be a fruit-bearer unless I have the life of God in my soul. That is the whole point of the analogy: the branch is where the fruit is borne, because the life in the vine extends into the branches, and that life is seen in the fruit, and the fruit glorifies the Father.

Let me extend the analogy. What do you think when you see a well-kept garden? You stand admiring it, admiring the order, the loveliness, the scheme. What do you think? You praise the gardener! You realise that this does not happen by itself. Someone has been busy. Leave the ground to itself and it bears thorns, and thistles and weeds, and it is ugly. But work it, get a hand involved it, get someone to prepare the ground and sow the seed, planting, arranging, watering, pruning -- then there will be something new, something glorious and beautiful.

Jesus uses the same analogy here. What is it that will enable others to say that God has been at work in my life? Will they praise the extraordinary if I just live the way the world lives, living an empty, meaningless life that simply gets carried by the stream? No -- there are so many lives that are being lived that way, growing wild like a wilderness. But if your life is different it is because someone has been at work in it. A gardener has been at work.

Isaiah and Jeremiah describe God's people as being like 'well-watered gardens'. Take a holy life, a life lived for the glory of God, a life that goes against the stream, that is not taken up with the meaninglessness of a fallen world, one that has found something worth living and dying for, and you will say that the hand of the gardener has been at work in it. God is glorified because there is fruit there that does not appear where the ground has been left wild and uncultivated.

The call of the Gospel is the call of the old prophet who says 'It is time to break up the fallow ground, to seek the Lord'. It is time that your life and mine were cultivated by the gardener so that the work of his hand and the seeds of his planting will be evident. Bearing fruit for God -- that is the test. Is there anything in our life to show that there is something spiritual, other-worldly, Christ-centered and God-glorifying there?

This, says Jesus, will glorify my Father -- you bear much fruit and be my disciples.

Thirdly, I need to ask another question: HOW CAN I BEAR FRUIT? If I cannot do it by myself; if my life needs to be changed, what must happen? What do I need more than anything else? How am I going to bear fruit?

There is only one answer to that question -- I need to be in the vine, as a branch in the vine. The branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine. I need to abide in Christ if I am to be a fruit-bearer. Apart from Christ we can do nothing.

This is where the vine analogy is taking us -- to the most fundamental issue of all, at the heart of the Gospel. It is saying that we need to be united to Jesus Christ. It is saying that by ourselves we are helpless and hopeless. NO matter what effort we make, and what good things we are able to do ourselves, we can do nothing. Maybe the first step to real, genuine conversion has to be that sense of absolute and utter helplessness. If I am to glorify the Father, it must be by fruit-bearing, and if I am to bear fruit I need to be in him.

Jesus says, 'If I am in you, and you are in me, then you will bear fruit'. Then the life that is in Jesus will flow into us, and we will bear fruit. Jesus is talking about a relationship between himself and his people that parallels and is analogous to the relationship between himself and his Father. As the Father loves the Son and is in him, so he loves and is in us.

Think of that -- think of the life of the Father in the Son, and that of the Son in the Father, interpenetrating one another in perfect harmony, union and reciprocity, and now Jesus says that I must have the same kind of relationship with him as he has with the Father. The one is in the other: there is perfect fellowship and unity between Father and Son, and there must be the same union between us and Christ. Sin wants to prevent that union ever taking place.

Take the marriage imagery of Psalm 128, where the blessing of God is seen in the fruitfulness of the union. The wife is as a fruitful vine as a consequence of her union with the husband. The union of marriage is a mystery -- two become one. That is how it is, Paul says, between Jesus and his church -- two become one. The branch in the vine. Study the branches of a tree. Where does the branch begin? It grows out of the trunk. It is possible to distinguish trunk from branch, yet impossible to say where the one stops and the other begins. They are one entity, fused together and naturally joined together so that the same life is in both.

That is how it is between saved sinner and Saviour. If God is to be glorified and we bear fruit, it is because of that union. We are not Jesus, of course, but is it possible for people to look at me and say 'There is where Jesus stops and Iain D. begins'? We should be one flesh, one entity. I should be in him, bearing much fruit. Are we so united to him that he fills our lives, and we are absorbed with him, and he becomes our very existence, so that we can say with Paul that 'for us to live is Christ'?

What is it all about? It is about the Father being glorified in our lives.

How is the Father glorified in our lives? If we bear fruit?

How do we bear fruit? By being in the vine.

Who is the vine? Jesus says: I am the vine.

It all comes back to him, and it comes down to him. What do we think of Christ? What is our relationship to him? It is not a matter of church involvement, or Bible knowledge, or theological ability, but a living, personal relationship with Jesus. He has life in himself, and it is the glory of the Gospel that the life that is in himcan flow into us. If it doesn't we remain dead in our trespasses and sins. Like Jerusalem in Isaiah's allegory and in Ezekiel's preaching, like the branch that does not bear fruit, then we are fit for nothing but to be cast away.

It's wonderful to think of Jesus, to spend time studying these great 'I am' sayings, to see him and watch him among me. But we need to be in him. We come into the world without him, far away from him, separated from him by our sin. We need to be in him, as branches in the vine. We can only come to be in him by grace. Then the marriage union will be complete, and it will go on until the day that we are with him, as all his people shall be.

Tis a point I long to know

Oft it causes anxious thought,

Do I love the Lord or no,

Am I his or am I not?

Are we in him, in the vine, a fruit-bearing branch, glorifying the Father. Nothing else matters quite like this. In him there is everything -- life in its fullness and the blessing of God Almighty. May we have grace to seek him while he may be found, and to call on him while he is near.

Who are you Jesus?

I am the vine, you are the branches.