“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, NKJV)
Lord Jesus said: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.” – John
15:1. What does Jesus mean that He is the true vine? In the O.T, the vine is
Israel, as we can read for example in Isa. 5:1, 27:2, Ps. 80:8-9, Jer. 6:9, 12:10
13, and Ezek. 15:1-8. God planted Israel, the vine. He tended it and
expected good fruit from it, but it did not yield any fruit. The Bible says that
Israel produced מישאב beushim (Hebrew for stinking, useless, and wild grapes).
Hos. 10:1-2 says that abundant fruit produced abundant altars, (speaking of
adultery, mainly of northern Israel).
a noble vine, of the purest seed… The Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament,
uses the words for wine and true – Greek ampelos = vine and alethinos =
real/true. Jesus uses the same words in John 15: 1 = ampelos = vine and
alethinos = real/true, when He describes Himself.
or takes up or raises, and every one bearing fruit He (kathairo) cleanses.” As
Eph. 5:26 says – “He might sanctify having cleansed her (katharias) by the
washing of (hudatos) water by rhemati (the Word).” If we are not bearing
fruit and are withered for some reason, God will not cut us off or take us
away from Christ. The original text says that God will raise us up and
cleanse us. If the branch of the vine begins to go down into the ground, it
will go down into the dust and dirt of the earth. It will not reach the sunlight,
but God will raise that branch up again into the sunlight.
In John 13:5 we read how Jesus washes the feet of his disciples. During our daily walk, the Word of God will wash our minds clean from the filth of this world – what we hear and what we experience. That is why it is important that we read the Bible a lot, so that God can cleanse us. Sometimes it may be that we do not understand the Word of God, but the Word still works in us.
There is a story which tells of a son to whom the father gave a basket and asked the son to fetch water from the river with it. The son did so and each time the water rushed out through the basket as it could not hold it. The son told his father about it, but the father asked the son to fetch water from the river with the basket again which yielded the same result. The water ran through the basket quickly. The father asked his son a third time to fetch water from the river with the basket, but again the result was the same. Of course there was no water left in the basket! The son told his father this and the father answered him by saying that the basket was now truly clean.
guides, and equips us.
Sari Leskinen