Jesus’ command is for his disciples to remain in him and his love. The way to do this is by obeying his command to love one another.
I am sure that many of you love gardening. And my recollection about gardening is that when you have rose bushes, as autumn comes on, you need to prune them back, and cut them back hard. Why? Because next spring, you want to get all of those lovely blossoms, those beautiful fragrant roses. And so you have to fertilise the bush, and prune it. Pruning, of course, must be a bit of a shock to the system for the rose bush, because not only are we cutting off the dead branches that will not bear flowers, but we are also pruning the living, green, healthy stems, so that they will bear flowers.
We are looking at some of Jesus’ last words to his friends: not his sayings from the cross, but his sayings from the upper room, and as he walks and talks on the night before he died, the night of the last supper.
We’ve been looking through the lens of John’s Gospel at Jesus’ works and words. In John chapters 1 to 11, John the apostle gives us an account of seven signs that Jesus performed. And John recorded these particular signs with a very clear purpose. John wants his readers to believe that Jesus is the Christ, and that by believing in him, we have life in his name (John 20:30-31). That is why John wrote his Gospel, so simple, yet so profound.
Jesus’ works for John are not just ‘miracles’, they are ‘signs’: the water to wine; healing a boy far away with a word; commanding a paralyzed man to walk; feeding 5000 men; walking on water; healing the man born blind. In chapter 11, John records the death of Jesus’ friend, Lazarus, and how Jesus, through his own tears and deep anger and outrage at death, grief, and human unbelief, calls his friend back to life. It was perhaps the most dramatic of his signs during Jesus’ three year ministry, besides his own death and resurrection. The resuscitation of Lazarus is the climax of Jesus’ earthly ministry: a four day dead man shuffling out of a cave at the call of Jesus, a visible representation that Jesus himself is the resurrection and the life, and that whoever believes in Jesus will live even though he dies, and whoever lives and believes in Jesus will never die (John 11:25-26). We can see why this verse is one of the first verses read in the funeral service in our Green prayer books. But why leave it till then? We need to know this now, so we can believe.
There are others of Jesus’ deeds, other things Jesus did, that weren’t recorded, by John or anyone else. John says that the world doesn’t have enough books to contain them all. For many of the signs, John gives us an explanation. Perhaps the explanation originally fell from Jesus’ lips, following the sign, and John faithfully recorded it for us. Perhaps it was an explanation that came from careful, apostolic, Spirit-inspired reflection on the events.
So Jesus heals on the Sabbath, explaining that he himself is God always at work. Jesus fed 5000, and then he calls himself ‘the bread of life’. Jesus heals the blind man, showing he is ‘the light of the world’, giving sight and light to the spiritually blind. Jesus raises Lazarus, demonstrating he is the resurrection and the life.
But in John’s Gospel, these signs don’t just evoke faith, the trust in Christ Jesus we must have to receive eternal life. They also evoke opposition. John has 21 chapters. Chapters 1 to 10 have Jesus showing himself as God and Christ. Chapters 11-20 show him heading for his death and resurrection. The raising of Lazarus is the trigger for the plots of powerful people to kill Jesus (John 11:45-57, 12:10).
So Jesus is heading for death on a cross, his gory glory, where he will be lifted up and draw all people to himself (John 13:31-32, cf. 3:13-16).
In John chapters 13 to 17, we have Jesus’ extended explanation of the meaning of his death, resurrection, and ascension. It is the night of the last supper, but if we only had John’s Gospel, we would never know about the last supper, because John doesn’t even mention the institution of the Lord's Supper in his account of the last supper. This is interesting, because John says that what he has written is enough to to believe and have eternal life. Instead, John records Jesus’ words to his friends, his disciples. Jesus is explaining that he is going to go away (John 14:28) and is giving them instructions for them to follow while he is away.
In verses 1-10, we are eavesdropping on Jesus’ instructions immediately after he has told his disciples to leave from the upper room with him. Perhaps they are the final words of Jesus as the disciples get their things together and as they linger at the door of the upper room. Perhaps they are the words that Jesus speaks as he leads them along the dark narrow streets of Jerusalem to the garden that they had frequented so often. Perhaps they brushed past vine plants en route, and this affords Jesus an object lesson. Chapter 15 verse 1, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.” Again chapter 15 verse 5, “I am the vine, you are the branches”.
Perhaps Jesus has seen a vine growing along the way. This would not really be surprising. After all, we have seen Jesus appropriate everything he finds, and says it is about him. He sees water, and says, "I will give you living water". He feeds them bread, and says, "I am the bread of life". He sees their light show, and says, "I am the light of the world". He's in the temple, and he says, "My body is the true temple". He sees their sheep and their sheep pens, and says, "I am the good shepherd" and "I am the gate for the sheep". So it really wouldn't be surprising if Jesus saw a vine along the way, and it sparked an opportunity for Jesus to teach.
Here Jesus gives an analogy. Jesus is the vine. The Son is the true vine. This is an appropriation of Psalm 80 from our Old Testaments. In the Old Testament, Israel was the vine that God had brought out of Egypt. But she was torn down and burned in God’s judgement. But Jesus says, “I am the true vine, I am the Son that God has raised for himself, I am the Son at God’s right hand” (cf. Ps 80:15, 17).
The Father the Gardener Who Prunes (vv. 1-3)
The Father is the diligent gardener who cuts off the dead branches and prunes the living branches (vv. 1-2). What might this pruning be that the Father, the gardener, does?
It might be the discipline of hardship that God in his sovereignty sends his people. We know that those God loves, he disciplines (e.g. Heb 12:5-11). That is, there are some people that look like true disciples and seem true Christians, but are, sad to say, in fact dead wood. The test of time and the sufferings we experience are the Father’s secateurs. Do these branches withstand difficulty, or are they cut off? Does the desire for other things bring their faith undone, or instead in spite of the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth, do these saints persevere?
The true branches are pruned. In other words, God does not spare true Christians. Every branch receives its loving but painful cut. And pruning back and cutting off look remarkably similar. But for God’s elect, the saints who persevere, the painful cut leads to abundant plumage and vigorous growth, which would not have been there without the savage cut.
Many years ago now I attended a funeral of a dear Christian woman. She was repeatedly abandoned by a faithless husband, and forced to provide for the children without support. Added to this were horrific disabilities. And she shone through it, and left an enduring legacy of faithfulness to those children and all who knew her. The Lord pruned her so that she would bear fruit. And I’m sure that you can think of those who were cut back by the Lord, seemingly cut back to the roots, and who’ve blossomed as a result. May this be your story and mine, too.
And on the other hand, we can think of those dead branches that have fallen to the ground at the sight of the Lord’s secateurs, those people who leave church life and Christianity altogether. The Bible says to save sex for marriage and be faithful to your spouse. And the dead wood falls to the ground. Off they go, no more in Christianity. The bible says be content with what you have, and that branch is cut off, and we don’t see them anymore at church. Maybe they are not finally cut off, maybe it’s just a pruning. Only time will tell. After all, verse 16, the disciples did not choose Jesus, but Jesus chose the disciples, and those disciples chosen will persevere.
But there is something that is specifically associated with the pruning of the branches, which is the cleansing of Christians, and that is the word of Christ. Verses 2 and 3:
15:2He removes every branch in me which does not bear fruit, and he prunes clean every branch which bears fruit, so that it bears more fruit. 15:3Now you are clean, because of the word which I have spoken to you.
There is a play on words in the original which is hard for us English readers to grasp, because the pruning God the Father does as gardener (v. 2) is the same as the cleansing the word of Jesus does for his disciples (v. 3). So the secateurs that God uses as the gardener are associated with the word of Christ. It is possible that Jesus is changing the metaphor, or perhaps the link with the Father's pruning is that the word of Christ is that which cleanses the disciples.
Remain in the Vine (vv. 4-10)
So the command for the branches is, “Remain in the vine”. Verses 4 to 10:
15:4“Remain in me, and I will remain in you. Just as the branch is unable to bear fruit by itself unless it remains in the vine, in this same way will you not bear fruit unless you remain in me.
15:5“I am the vine, you are the branches. The one who remains in me, and in whom I remain, bears much fruit, for apart from me you cannot do anything.
15:6Anyone who does not remain in me is a branch that is cut off and withers, and they gather them up and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.
15:7If you remain in me, and my word remains in you, you can ask whatever you want, and it will happen for you.
15:9 […] Remain in my love.
15:10If you keep my commands, you remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.
Christians are united to Christ by faith. We enjoy union and fellowship with Jesus. We have every spiritual blessing in our union with Christ. Yes, we are chosen before the foundation of the world, but this does not mitigate our obligation to remain in Christ. The command is remain—not to ‘let go and let God’, not ‘once saved always saved’. It’s not, “I believed at one point, therefore I am OK. I signed a card, prayed the prayer, went forward, was baptized, confirmed, therefore I am saved”. All of these are good things in themselves, but none of them nullify the command to “remain” in Jesus”. So remain in Jesus’ love. Keep going, persevere, don’t give up on trusting in Jesus, for that is what the saints do.
Remaining in the Love of Jesus By Loving One Another (vv. 11-17)
But how do I remain in Christ? How do I stay united to Jesus? There is something you can do. It requires action. In verse 7, it requires making sure that the word of Jesus remains in us. In verse 10, it requires keeping the commands of Jesus so that we remain in his love.
There is a clear condition here to remaining in Jesus’ love: obedience to Jesus Christ. You believe in Jesus? Good. Show your belief by obeying him. For trust and obedience go hand in hand. Trust is not obedience, for trust believes promises and rests upon persons, and obedience obeys commands. There is an element of trust in obedience. But trust and obedience are different, and have different offices, and and we must do both.
Some Christians feel concerned when they hear that Jesus’ love is conditional. “Isn’t Jesus’ love unconditional? God is the God of unconditional love, isn’t he?”
There is a grain of truth in this, but it’s only a grain. It is true that God showed his love for us ‘while we were still sinners’ (Rom 5:8-9). It is true that God’s example of love is that we love him because he first loved us. God’s love is freely given, not earned or deserved. But God’s love has only been received by the one who obeys Christ’s commands—these are the ones who remain in God’s love.
This is the way the Son remains in the Father’s love. The Father loves the Son because the Son obeys the Father. The Son willing submits to the Father. That’s what verse 10 says:
15:10If you keep my commands, you remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.
I love my children, but unless they obey me, there is a sense where they will not remain in my love. Suppose they disobey me. We have to suppose this because this never happens in real life, does it? And suppose there are tears over a smacked bottom by the end of it, or the removal of screen ‘privileges’ (yes, they are not yet ‘rights’). They feel and indeed are in a sense outside my love, even though a smacked bottom or confiscated ipod is sometimes the most loving thing a parent can do. They have earned the flip side of my love, which is my anger. For he who doesn’t discipline his son hates him.
What of the Christian parent who cannot tolerate their son coming home drunk, and so he ends up on his own, on the streets if necessary. In one sense, conditional love, yes, but real and tough love. What of the Christian husband or wife who will not tolerate adultery or domestic violence, and so separates, still being open to restoring the marriage on repentance and public accountability, even legal action if required. Yes, that is appropriate conditional love.
Now what is Jesus’ command that we must obey to stay in his love? What must we do to remain in his love? Verses 12 to 14:
15:12This is my command, that you love one another just as I love you. 15:13No one has greater love than this, that they lay down their life for their friends. 15:14You are my friends if you do what I command you.
That is how we can remain in Christ’s love. The command is “love”, the object is “each other”, and the standard is, “as I have loved you.” That is how we remain in the vine. Love each other as Christ has loved us. No one is saying that it is an easy commandment, to love one another. Look around you. These are the ones you are called to love, not just the ones you get on with, not just the ones you like, not just those in your circle, your friends, but “each other”, those whom God has thrown together with you at church. We are called to love the socially awkward as much as the sociable, the difficult as well as the delightful, the prickly one who always seems to hurt you with their words, as well as the one you naturally gravitate to, the one whose wrath you fear as well as the mild, the one that seems proud, arrogant, and over-confident, as well as the meek, humble, and trembling. Love them all. The one who ignores you, overlooks you, avoids you, love them too.
How much should I love them? To the extent that they love me? No, that is not the standard. To the extent that Christ loved me? Yes, that much. Does the standard extend to death, giving up your life for them. Yes, that is what Jesus calls us to do. He calls us to die for other Christians, to give up our lives for the sake of the church, the body for which he died. Talking to that awkward, annoying person is not dying for them, so it should be within my range of competences.
Sometimes we Protestants think ‘you can be a Christian and not go to church’. ‘You don’t have to go to church to be a Christian.’ Yes you do. I’m not now talking about people for whom getting to church is a physical impossibility. We must take church to them. And hopefully you know by now that by the word ‘church’ I don’t mean this building, I mean God’s people. It seems to me, with these riders in mind, there is no such thing as a Christian who doesn’t church. If people willingly stay at home when church meets week after week, it is because they are ignoring Jesus’ command to love one another, and they are not remaining in Jesus love. How can you love one another if you never see one another? Can I love my family by never turning up to see them? Can I love my Christian brothers and sisters by never seeing them? No. And that’s just where the loving starts. For going to church is not the end of it, but the beginning of a loooong, costly process of loving others. Because such love is complete only when each of us has laid so much of our lives for other Christians that it has killed us.
That’s how we remain in Jesus the vine and his love.
My Translation
15:1“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 15:2He removes every branch in me which does not bear fruit, and he prunes clean every branch which bears fruit, so that it bears more fruit. 15:3Now you are clean, because of the word which I have spoken to you.
15:4“Remain in me, and I will remain in you. Just as the branch is unable to bear fruit by itself unless it remains in the vine, in this same way will you not bear fruit unless you remain in me.
15:5“I am the vine, you are the branches. The one who remains in me, and in whom I remain, bears much fruit, for apart from me you cannot do anything. 15:6Anyone who does not remain in me is a branch that is cut off and withers, and they gather them up and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. 15:7If you remain in me, and my word remains in you, you can ask whatever you want, and it will happen for you. 15:8In this my Father will be glorified, so that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.
15:9“In the same way that the Father loves me, I also love you. Remain in my love. 15:10If you keep my commands, you remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.
15:11“I have spoken these things to you so that my joy might be in you, and your joy might be complete. 15:12This is my command, that you love one another just as I love you. 15:13No one has greater love than this, that they lay down their life for their friends. 15:14You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15:15I no longer call you ‘servants’, because a servant does not know what his master is doing. But I call you ‘friends’, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. 15:16You did not choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you to go and bear fruit, and that your fruit might remain, so that I might give you whatever you ask the Father in my name. 15:17I am commanding you to do these things, so that you love one another.