The Story

We all know grapes. Do we know where grapes come from? On what kind of a tree or plant they grow? They grow on vines, on grapevines. Some of us have seen grapevines, planted in rows in a field, or on a hillside, or climbing over an arbor. The large leaves make a good shade, and as the clusters of grapes grow they hang down under the leaves, and as they ripen they become sweet and juicy.

The disciples were still with the Lord at the table, or perhaps they were leaving the house and were going through the street and out by the city gate to the garden of Gethsemane, on the lower slope of the Mount of Olives. "I am the true vine," He said. "I am the vine, ye are the branches." Sometimes in His lessons the Lord called people trees, trees with fruit and trees without fruit, or vines, fruitful and unfruitful. We are like a fruitful tree or vine when we learn of some useful thing that we might do and make plans for doing it, and finally do the useful thing, which is the fruit. The Lord Himself was like a very fruitful tree or a very fruitful vine, for He knew so well the useful things to do and how to do them, and filled His days so full of works of kindness - the good fruit. How could the disciples be fruitful trees and vines? They did not know, as the Lord did, what was good and useful. No, but they could learn of Him. And they had not strength to do useful works as He had. No, but He gave them the love and the strength to do them. The Lord means this when He calls Himself the vine and His disciples the branches. We must read what He said about the branches that draw strength from the vine and are fruitful, and branches that forget to draw strength from the vine, which bear no fruit and are cut off and wither. (Verses 1-6)

The Lord went on to tell how we can be fruitful, by keeping His commandments and by loving one another. It was not a sad life that the Lord was showing them and asking them to live, but a happy, joyful life. "These things have I spoken unto you," He said, "that My joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full."

Can we learn about grapevines and vineyards from other parts of the Bible, as we learned about the shepherds and the sheep? The vines were growing on the hillsides in that country. There are still good vineyards there, and in neglected places we may sometimes come upon terraces where there once were vineyards, or a vat, like a bathtub, cut in the rock which was once a wine-press where grapes were trodden to make wine. Remember the great cluster of grapes which the spies brought back to Moses from near Hebron. (Numbers 14:23, 24) We remember Naboth's vineyard at Jezreel. (1 Kings 21) The Lord spoke a parable of a vineyard with a hedge about it, with a watch tower and a wine press and vines to be cultivated. (Mark 12:1-9) Read the song of the vineyard in Isaiah 5:1-7, and the Psalm of the vineyard, Psalm 80:8-19. We think of figs and vines shading the doorways when we read of sitting under the vine and fig tree. (1 Kings 4:25; Micah 4:4)

The vines need care. They must have supports to cling to by their tendrils, to lift them from the ground into the air and sunshine. They must have careful pruning so that they will not exhaust themselves in too many branches, but will put their strength into the branches that will bear the best fruit. Such thoughts about the vines and vineyards were familiar to the disciples when the Lord spoke to them about the vine and its branches.

The Lord's great love for doing good to men would prevent His having any idle interests or any thoughts not leading to the doing of useful works. (Verses 1, 2) We too ought to be such vines. In verses 4-8, the Lord changes the picture and draws us closer to Himself, saying that He is the vine and that we are the branches. We are not independent vines, for we do not live of ourselves; we are not wise of ourselves; we are not strong of ourselves. We must have life and wisdom and strength from the Lord if we are to be fruitful. With the Lord we can bear much fruit; without Him we can do nothing.

As we read on from verse 8 we keep in mind what the Lord has said about the vine and the branches, and we see that He is telling us how to be fruitful branches, how to live useful and joyful lives. First, by continuing in His love, and this by keeping His commandments; also, by loving one another so much that we are willing to give up our selfish ways and give our lives to others. It was the way the Lord was living and the way He will help us to live. The Lord does not call us servants, but calls us friends. He takes us into His confidence and explains to us the useful life that He wishes us to live. The Lord has Divine purposes for us and work for us to do, but there must be willingness on our part, and cooperation on our part, if the Lord's purposes for us are to be realized, if we are to be the fruitful branches which He wishes us to be.

1. What parables do you think of in which a man or the church is likened to a vine or to a vineyard?

2. When are we branches abiding in the vine and bearing much fruit?

3. When are we branches cut from the vine and withered and burned in the fire?

4. What joy does the Lord speak of in verse 11?

5. How can everyone prove his love by laying down his life for his friends?

Spiritual Study

In many places in the Bible, as in the first Psalm, a man is likened to a tree. The tree represents especially his intelligence, growing stronger and reaching out more widely from year to year, and bearing the fruits of good works. The grapevine, among the trees, is the type of a spiritual intelligence leading to good uses that are sweet with heavenly charity. A spiritual tree may need pruning, and even a spiritual vine, for intelligence must be checked from running wild, and its strength must be concentrated upon the best uses. The Lord was the true vine as He gained all spiritual wisdom; and the vine was pruned and corrected by the Divine Husbandman as the Lord gave up all idle enjoyment in intelligence, and devoted the power only to doing the works of the Divine love, and to doing them fully and perfectly. Read verses 1 and 2. (A. 1069, 5113, 9139)

But here, as in the previous chapter, the Lord speaks of Himself and His relation with the Father, that He may extend the lesson to us and to our relation with Him. We also are branches in the vine. We may receive from Him something of spiritual intelligence, something of the wisdom of good heavenly uses, and may do uses from Him. The abundance of such fruit is told in verses 5 and 8. The endless possibilities of it are suggested in verse 7. The joy of it is told in verse 11. But all this fruitfulness, with the strength and the joy of it, is from the Lord, not from ourselves. Apart from Him we are like branches cut from the vine, which can bear no fruit. As the branches wither, so our intelligence must fail. The branches are also cast into the fire and are burned. If intelligence is not acknowledged to be from the Lord, and is not applied to good uses for His sake, it is destroyed by being joined with evil. Read verses 3 to 8. Memorize verse 5. (R. 883)

All that the Lord did in His coming into the world, He did for the sake of men. He overcame all evil, that He might help men to overcome. He brought down into His human life the Divine love of every good thing, that He might give of this love to men. By the same way that the Lord gained that love, He enables us to gain it - by keeping the Divine commandments, and so providing vessels into which the Divine love can flow and in which it can abide. The Lord did this in an infinite degree, and it was His glorification. He makes it possible to us in our limited degree, and it is our regeneration. Read verses 9 and 10. Again, as if to make still more simple the duty that is required of us, the Lord tells us that love for one another is the form that the Divine love and the Divine commandments take when they come down to the plane of human life. Only let that love be great, to the extent of giving up the life for others. Such is His love, and such is love in us if we have it from Him. Read verses 12, 13. (T. 70)

The Lord's regard for our freedom, His desire that we shall keep His commandments and receive His love, but that we shall do so freely and find the happiness that comes only with willing service, is beautifully shown in His calling the disciples not servants but friends. It is His choice for us, and what He brings to pass so far as we consent, that we shall bear fruit of lasting value, and that our lives shall have the strength and indefinite increase which comes from union with Him. Read verses 14-19. (E. 409)

Worldly influences from without and from within oppose and hate this life of charity, as they hated it in the Lord. We are not ignorant of the good life; the world is not ignorant of it; then it would not be to blame. But the Lord has shown us the beautiful life and has told us about it. We are to blame if we neglect it and despise it. The Lord works in two ways to bring us to the life of charity, by His Holy Spirit from within, and by the witness of His life which the Gospels give us; and by the example of Christian men and women, from without. (Verses 20-27; T. 153, 154)

Have you thought what is represented by the manner of growth of a vine, not standing alone, but climbing on a tree or wall or other support to lift it into the air and sunshine? This suggests an intelligence that relates itself closely with some other intelligence or interest. Many vines are decorative, representing intelligence which knows how to do something gracefully; how to preach a sermon gracefully (Grace must not be excessive, or the vine may kill the tree on which it grows); how to treat gracefully the legal rights (the iron fence) between my ground and my neighbor's. But the grapevine is more than decorative, it bears sweet fruit. A grapevine on the walls of the house (Psalm 128:3) and over the door represents the spiritual intelligence which applies itself to the conditions of domestic life and of social life to find in them opportunity for uses of spiritual charity. (E. 340)

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