John 15

John 15:1

P. Jesus, the True Vine (15:1-11) 15:1 In the OT, the nation of Israel was depicted as a vine planted by Jehovah. But the nation proved unfaithful and unfruitful, so the Lord Jesus now presented Himself as the true vine, the perfect fulfillment of all the other types and shadows. God the Father is the vinedresser. 15:2 Opinions differ as to what is meant by the branch in Him that does not bear fruit. Some think that this is a false professor. He pretends to be a Christian but has never really been united to Christ by faith. Others think it is a true Christian who loses his salvation because of his failure to bear fruit. This is clearly impossible because it contradicts so many other passages which teach that the believer has an eternal salvation. Others think that it is a true Christian who becomes a backslider. He gets away from the Lord and becomes interested in the things of this world. He fails to manifest the fruit of the Spiritlove, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Exactly what the Lord does to the unfruitful branch depends on how the Greek verb airo is translated. It can mean takes away as in the King James tradition (also translated that way in Joh_1:29). Then it would refer to the discipline of physical death (1Co_11:30). However, the same word may mean lifts up (as in Joh_8:59). Then it would be the positive ministry of encouraging the fruitless branch by making it easier to get light and air, and hopefully, to bear fruit. The branch that bears fruit is the Christian who is growing more like the Lord Jesus. Even such vines need to be pruned or cleansed. Just as a real vine must be cleaned from insects, mildew, and fungus, so a Christian must be cleansed from worldly things that cling to him. 15:3 The cleansing agent is the word of the Lord. The disciples had originally been cleansed by the word at the time of their conversion. Just as the Savior had been talking to them, His Word had had a purifying effect on their lives. Thus, this verse may refer to justification and sanctification. 15:4 To abide means to stay where you are. The Christian has been placed in Christ; that is his position. In daily walk, he should stay in intimate fellowship with the Lord. A branch abides in a vine by drawing all its life and nourishment from the vine. So we abide in Christ by spending time in prayer, reading and obeying His Word, fellowshipping with His people, and being continually conscious of our union with Him. As we thus maintain constant contact with Him, we are conscious of His abiding in us and supplying us with spiritual strength and resources. The branch can only bear fruit as it abides in the vine. The only way believers can bear the fruit of a Christ-like character is by living in touch with Christ moment by moment. 15:5 Christ Himself is the vine; believers are vine branches. It is not a question of the branch living its life for the Vine, but simply of letting the life of the Vine flow out through the branches. Sometimes we pray, Lord, help me to live my life for You. It would be better to pray, Lord Jesus, live out Your life through me. Without Christ, we can do nothing. A vine branch has one great purposeto bear fruit. It is useless for making furniture or for building homes. It does not even make good firewood. But it is good for fruit bearingas long as it abides in the vine. 15:6 Verse 6 has caused much difference of opinion. Some believe that the person described is a believer who falls into sin and is subsequently lost. Such an interpretation is in direct contradiction to the many verses of Scripture which teach that no true child of God will ever perish. Others believe that this person is a professorone who pretends to be a Christian but who was never born again. Judas is often used as an illustration. We believe that this person is a true believer because it is with true Christians that this section is concerned. The subject is not salvation but abiding and fruitbearing. But through carelessness and prayerlessness this believer gets out of touch with the Lord. As a result, he commits some sin, and his testimony is ruined. Through failure to abide in Christ, he is thrown out as a branchnot by Christ, but by other people. The branches are gathered and thrown into the fire, and they are burned.

It is not God who does it, but people. What does this mean? It means that people scoff at this backslidden Christian. They drag his name in the mud. They throw his testimony as a Christian into the fire. This is well illustrated in the life of David.

He was a true believer, but he became careless toward the Lord and committed the sins of adultery and murder. He caused the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme. Even today, atheists ridicule the name of David (and of David’s God). They cast him, as it were, into the fire. 15:7 Abiding is the secret of a successful prayer life. The closer we get to the Lord, the more we will learn to think His thoughts after Him. The more we get to know Him through His Word, the more we will understand His will. The more our will agrees with His, the more we can be sure of having our prayers answered. 15:8 As the children of God exhibit the likeness of Christ to the world, the Father is glorified. People are forced to confess that He must be a great God when He can transform such wicked sinners into such godly saints. Notice the progression in this chapter: fruit (v. 2), more fruit (v. 2), much fruit (v. 8). So you will be My disciples. This means that we prove to be His disciples when we abide in Him. Others can then see that we are true disciples, that we resemble our Lord. 15:9 The love which the Savior has for us is the same as the love of the Father for the Son. Our hearts are made to bow in worship when we read such words. It is the same in quality and degree. It is a vast, wide, deep, unmeasurable love, that passeth knowledge, and can never be fully comprehended by man. It is a deep where all our thoughts are drowned. Abide in My love, said our Lord. This means we should continue to realize His love and to enjoy it in our lives. 15:10 The first part of verse 10 tells us how we can abide in His love; it is by keeping His commandments. There is no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey. The second half of the verse sets before us our Perfect Example. The Lord Jesus kept His Father’s commandments. Everything He did was in obedience to the will of God. He remained in the constant enjoyment of the Father’s love. Nothing ever came in to mar that sweet sense of loving fellowship. 15:11 Jesus found His own deep joy in communion with God His Father. He wanted His disciples to have that joy that comes from dependence upon Him. He wanted His joy to be theirs. Man’s idea of joy is to be as happy as he can by leaving God out of his life. The Lord taught that real joy comes by taking God into one’s life as much as possible. That your joy may be full, or fulfilled. Their joy would be fulfilled in abiding in Christ and in keeping His commandments. Many have used John 15 to teach doubts concerning the security of the believer. They have used the earlier verses to show that a sheep of Christ might eventually perish. But the Lord’s purpose was not that your doubts may be full, but that your joy may be full.

John 15:12

Q. The Command to Love One Another (15:12-17) 15:12 The Lord would soon leave His disciples. They would be left in a hostile world. As tensions increased, there would be the danger of the disciples’ contending with one another. And so the Lord leaves this standing order, Love one another, as I have loved you.15:13 Their love should be of such a nature that they should be willing to die for one another. People who are willing to do this do not fight with each other. The greatest example of human self-sacrifice was for a man to die for his friends.

The disciples of Christ are called to this type of devotion. Some lay down their lives in a literal sense; others spend their whole lives in untiring service for the people of God. The Lord Jesus is the Example. He laid down His life for His friends. Of course, they were enemies when He died for them, but when they are saved, they become His friends. So it is correct to say that He died for His friends as well as for His enemies. 15:14 We show that we are His friends by doing whatever He commands us. This is not the way we become His friends, but rather the way we exhibit it to the world. 15:15 The Lord here emphasized the difference between servants and friends. Servants are simply expected to do the work marked out for them, but friends are taken into one’s confidence. To the friend we reveal our plans for the future. Confidential information is shared with him. In one sense the disciples would always continue to be servants of the Lord, but they would be more than thisthey would be friends. The Lord was even now revealing to them the things which He had heard from His Father. He was telling them of His own departure, the coming of the Holy Spirit, His own coming again, and their responsibility to Him in the meantime. Someone has pointed out that as branches, we receive (v. 5); as disciples, we follow (v. 8); and as friends, we commune (v. 15). 15:16 Lest there be any tendency for them to become discouraged and give up, Jesus reminded them that He was the One who chose them. This may mean that He chose them to eternal salvation, to discipleship, or to fruitfulness. He had appointed the disciples to the work which lay before them. We should go and bear fruit. Fruit may mean the graces of the Christian life, such as love, joy, peace, etc. Or it may mean souls won for the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a close link between the two. It is only as we are manifesting the first kind of fruit that we will ever be able to bring forth the second. The expression that your fruit should remain leads us to think that fruit here means the salvation of souls. The Lord chose the disciples to go and bring forth lasting fruit. He was not interested in mere professions of faith in Himself, but in genuine cases of salvation. L. S. Chafer notes that in this chapter we have prayer effectual (v. 7), joy celestial (v. 11), and fruit perpetual (v. 16). That whatever you ask … . The secret of effective service is prayer. The disciples were sent forth with the guarantee that the Father would grant them whatever they asked in Christ’s name. 15:17 The Lord was about to warn the disciples about the enmity of the world. He began by telling them to love one another, to stick together, and to stand unitedly against the foe.

John 15:18

R. Jesus Predicts the World’s Hatred (15:18-16:4) 15:18, 19 The disciples were not to be surprised or disheartened if the world hates them. (The if does not express any doubt that this would happen; it was certain.) The world hated the Lord, and it will hate all who resemble Him. Men of the world love those who live as they dothose who use vile language and indulge in the lusts of the flesh, or people who are cultured but live only for themselves. Christians condemn them by their holy lives, therefore the world hates them. 15:20 Here servant literally means slave. A disciple should not expect any better treatment from the world than his Master received. He will be persecuted just as Christ was. His word will be refused just as the Savior’s was. 15:21 This hatred and persecution is for My name’s sake. It is because the believer is linked to Christ; because he has been separated from the world by Christ; and because he bears Christ’s name and likeness. The world is ignorant of God. They do not know that the Father sent the Lord into the world to be the Savior. But ignorance is no excuse. 15:22 The Lord was not teaching here that if He had not come, then men would not have been sinners. From the time of Adam, all men had been sinners. But their sin would not have been nearly so great as it now was. These men had seen the Son of God and heard His wonderful words. They could find no fault in Him whatever. Yet they rejected Him. It was this that made their sin so great. And so it was a matter of comparison. Compared with their terrible sin of rejecting the Lord of glory, their other sins were as nothing. Now they had no excuse for their sin. They had rejected the Light of the world! 15:23 In hating Christ, they hated His Father also. The Two are One. They could not say that they loved God, for if they had, they would have loved the One God sent. 15:24 They were not only responsible for having heard the teaching of Christ; they also saw His miracles. This added to their condemnation. They saw works which no one else had ever performed. To reject Christ in face of this evidence was inexcusable. The Lord compared all their other sins to this one sin, and said that the former were as nothing when placed alongside the latter. Because they hated the Son, they hated His Father, and this was their terrible condemnation. 15:25 The Lord realized that man’s attitude toward Him was in exact fulfillment of prophecy. It was predicted in Psa_69:4 that Christ would be hated … without a cause. Now that it had happened, the Lord commented that the very OT which these men prized had predicted their senseless hatred of Him. The fact that it was prophesied did not mean that these men had to hate Christ. They hated Him by their own deliberate choice, but God foresaw that it would happen, and He caused David to write it down in Psalms 69. 15:26 In spite of man’s rejection, there would be a continued testimony to Christ. It would be carried on by the Helperthe Holy Spirit. Here the Lord said that He would send the Spirit from the Father. In Joh_14:16, the Father was the One who sent the Spirit. Is this not another proof of the equality of the Son and the Father? Who but God could send One who is God? The Spirit of truth … proceeds from the Father. This means that He is constantly being sent forth by God, and His coming at the day of Pentecost was a special instance of this. The Spirit testifies concerning Christ. This is His great mission. He does not seek to occupy men with Himself, though He is one of the members of the Trinity. But He directs the attention of both sinner and saint to the Lord of glory. 15:27 The Spirit would testify directly through the disciples. They had been with the Lord from the beginning of His public ministry and were especially qualified to tell of His Person and work. If anyone could have found any imperfection in the Lord, those who had been with Him the most could have. But they never knew Him to commit a sin of any kind. They could testify to the fact that He was the sinless Son of God and the Savior of the world.