AS THE BRANCH IN THE VINE.
AS THE BRANCH IN THE VINE. *I am the Vine, ye are the branches. ' — John xv. 5.
IT was in connection with the Parable of the Vine that our Lord first used the expression, 'Abide in me.' That parable, so simple, and yet so rich in its teaching, gives us the best and most complete illustration of the meaning of our Lord's command, and the union to which He invites us.
The parable teaches us the nature of that union. The connection between the vine and the branch is a living one. No external, temporary union will suflBce; no work of man can effect it: the branch, whether an original or an engrafted one, is such only by the Creator's own work, in virtue of which the life, the sap, the fatness, and the fruitfulness of the vine communicate themselves to the branch. And just so it is with the believer too. His union with his Lord is no work of human wisdom or human will, but an act of God, by which the closest and most complete life-union is effected between the Son of God and the sinner. *God hath sent forth the spirit of His Son into your hearts. ' The same Spirit which dwelt and still dwells in the Son, becomes the life of the believer; in the unity of that one Spirit, and the fellowship of the same life which is in Christ, he is one with Him. As between the vine and branch, it is a life-union that makes them one.
The parable teaches us the completeness of the union. So close is the union between the vine and the branch, that each is nothing without the other, that each is wholly and only for the other.
Without the vine the branch can do nothing. To the vine it owes its right of place in the vineyard, its life and its fruitfulness. And so the Lord says, 'Without me ye can do nothing.' The believer can each day be pleasing to God only in that which he does through the power of Christ dwelling in him. The daily inflowing of the life-sap of the Holy Spirit is his only power to bring forth fruit. He lives alone in Him and is for each moment dependent on Him alone.
Without the hranch the vine can also do nothing, A vine without branches can bear no fruit. No less indispensable than the vine to the branch, is the branch to the vine. Such is the wonderful condescension of the grace of Jesus, that just as His people are dependent on Him, He has made Himself dependent on them. Without His disciples He cannot dispense His blessing to thew^orld; He cannot ofiFer sinners the grace of the heavenly Canaan. Marvel not! It is His own appointment; and this is the high honour to which He has called His redeemed ones, that as indispensable as He is to them in heaven, that from Him their fruit may be found, so indispensable are they to Him on earth, that through them His fruit may be found. Believers, meditate on this, until your soul bows to worship in presence of the mystery of the perfect union between Christ and the believer.
There is more: as neither vine nor branch is anything without the other, so is neither anything except for the other.
All the vine possesses belongs to the branches. The vine does not gather from the soil its fatness and its sweetness for itself, — all it has is at the disposal of the branches. As it is the parent, so it is the servant of the branches. And Jesus, to whom we owe our life, how completely does He give Himself for us and to us: 'The glory Thou gavest me, I have given them;' 'He that believeth in me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works shall he do.' All His fulness and all His riches are for thee, 0 believer; for the vine does not live for itself, keeps nothing for itself, but exists only for the branches. All that Jesus is in heaven. He is for us: He has no interest there separate from ours; as our representative He stands before the Father.
And all the Iranch possesses ielongs to the vine.
The branch does not exist for itself, but to bear fruit that can proclaim the excellence of the vine: it has no reason of existence except to be of service to the vine. Glorious image of the calling of the believer, and the entireness of his consecration to the service of his Lord. As Jesus gives Himself so wholly over to him, he feels himself urged to be wholly his Lord's. Every power of his being, every moment of his life, every thought and feeling, belong to Jesus, that from Him and for Him he may bring forth fruits. As he realizes what the vine is to the branch, and what the branch is meant to be to the vine, he feels that he has but one thing to think of and to live for, and that is, the will, the glory, the work, the kingdom of his blessed Lord, — the bringing forth of fruit to the glory of His name.
The parable teaches us the olject of the union. The branches are ton fruit ^indi fruit alone. 'Every branch that beareth not fruit He taketh away.* The branch needs leaves for the maintenance of its own life, and the perfection of its fruit: the fruit itself it bears to give away to those around. As the believer enters into his calling as a branch, he sees that he has to forget himself, 'and to live entirely for his fellowmen. To love them, to seek for them, and to save them, Jesus came: for this every branch on the Vine has to live as much as the Vine itself. It is for fruity much f7^uit, that the Father has made us one with Jesus.
Wondrous Parable of the Vine, — unveiling the mysteries of the Divine love, of the heavenly life, of the world of Spirit, — how little have I understood thee! Jesus the living Vine in heaven, and I the living branch on earth! How little have I understood how great my need, but also how perfect my claim, to all His fulness! How little understood how great His need, but also how perfect His claim, to my emptiness! Let me, in its beautiful light, study the wondrous union between Jesus and His people, until it becomes to me the guide into full communion with my beloved Lord. Let me listen and believe, until my whole being cries out, 'Jesus is indeed to me the True Vine, bearing me, nourishing me, supplying me, using me, and filling me to the full to make me bring forth fruit abundantly.' Then shall I not fear to say, 'I am indeed a branch to Jesus, the True Vine, abiding in Him, resting on Him, waiting for Him, serving Him, and living only that through me, too, He may show forth the riches of His grace, and give His fruit to a perishing world.
It is when we try thus to understand the meaning of the parable, that the blessed command spoken in connection with it will Come home to us in its true power. The thought of what the Vine is to the branch, and Jesus to the believer, will give new force to the words, * Abide in me!' It will be as if He says, 'Think, soul, how completely I belong to thee. I have joined myself inseparably to thee; all the fulness and fatness of the Vine are thine in very deed. Now thou once art in me, be assured that all I have is wholly thine. It is my interest and my honour to have thee a fruitful branch; only Abide in me. Thou art weak, but I am strong; thou art poor, but I am rich. Only abide in me; yield thyself wholly to my teaching and rule; simply trust my love, my grace, my promises. Only believe: I am wholly thine; I am the Vine, thou art the branch. Abide in me.'
What say est thou, 0 my soul? Shall I longer hesitate, or withhold consent? Or shall I not, instead of only thinking how hard and how difficult it is to live like a branch of the True Vine, because I thought of it as something I had to accomplish — shall I not now begin to look upon it as the most blessed and joyful thing under heaven? Shall I not believe that, now I once am in Eim, He Himself will keep me and enable me to abide? On my part, abiding is nothing but the acceptance of my position, the consent to be kept there, the surrender of faith to the strong Vine still to hold the feeble branch. Yes, I will, I do abide in Thee, blessed Lord Jesus.
0 Saviour, how unspeakable is Thy love! *Such knowledge is too wonderful for me: it is high, I cannot attain unto it. ' I can only yield myself to Thy love with the prayer that, day by day. Thou wouldest unfold to me somewhat of its precious mysteries, and so encourage and strengthen Thy loving disciple to do what his heart longs to do indeed, — ever only wholly to abide in Thee.
AS YOU CAME TO HIM, BY FAITH.
IN these words the apostle teaches us the weighty lesson, that it is not only by faith that we first come to Christ and are united to Him, but that it is by faith that we are to be rooted and established in our union with Christ. Not less essential than for the commencement, is faith for the progress of the spiritual life. Abiding in Jesus can only be by faith. There are earnest Christians who do not understand this; or, if they admit it in theory, they fail to realize its application in practice. They are very zealous for a free gospel, with our first acceptance of Christ, and justification by faith alone. But after this they think everything depends on our diligence and faithfulness. While they firmly grasp the truth, *The sinner shall be justified by faith,' they have hardly found a place in their scheme for the larger truth, *The just shall live by faith.' They have never understood what a perfect Saviour Jesus is, and how
He will each day do for the sinner just as much as He did the first day when he came to Him. They know not that the life of grace is always and only a life of faith, and that in the relationship to Jesus the one daily and unceasing duty of the disciple is to believe, because believing is the one channel through which Divine grace and strength flow out into the heart of man. The old nature of the believer remains evil and sinful to the last; it is only as he daily comes, all empty and helpless, to his Saviour to receive of His life and strength, that he can bring forth the fruits of righteousness to the glory of God. Therefore it is: ^Asye have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him: rooted in Him^ and stablished in thefaith^ abounding therein.' As you came to Jesus, so abide in Him, by faith.
And if you would know how faith is to be exercised and thus abiding in Jesus, to be rooted more deeply and firmly in Him, you have only to look back to the time when first you received Him. You remember well what obstacles at that time there appeared to be in the way of your believing. There was first your vileness and guilt: it appeared impossible that the promise of pardon and love could be for such a sinner. Then there was the sense of weakness and death: you felt not the power for the surrender and the trust to which you were called. And then there was the future: you dared not undertake to be a disciple of Jesus while you felt so sure that you could not remain standing, but would speedily again be unfaithful and fall. These difficulties were like mountains in your way. And how were they removed? Simply by the word of God. That word, as it were, compelled you to believe that, notwithstanding guilt in the past, and weakness in the present, and unfaithfulness in the future, the promise was sure that Jesus would accept and save you. On that word you ventured to come, and were not deceived: you found that Jesus did indeed accept and save.
Apply this, your experience in coming to Jesus, to the abiding in Him. Now, as then, the temptations to keep you from believing are many. When you think of your sins since you became a disciple, your heart is cast down with shame, and it looks as if it were too much to expect that Jesus should indeed receive you into perfect intimacy, and the full enjoyment of His holy love. When you think how utterly, in times past, you have failed in keeping the most sacred vows, the consciousness of present weakness makes you tremble at the very idea of answering the Saviour's command with the promise, 'Lord, from henceforth I will abide in Thee.' And when you set before yourself the life of love and joy, of holiness and fruitfulness, which in the future are to flow from abiding in Him, it is as if it only serves to make you still more hopeless: you, at least, can never attain to it. You know yourself too well. It is no use expecting it, only to be disappointed; a life fully and wholly abiding in Jesus is not for you.
Oh that you would learn a lesson from the time of your first coming to the Saviour! Eemember, dear soul, how you then were led, contrary to all that your experience, and your feelings, and even your sober judgment said, to take Jesus at His word, and how you were not disappointed. He did receive you, and pardon you; He did love you, and save you — you know it. And if He did this for you when you were an enemy and a stranger, what think you, now that you are His own, will He not much more fulfil His promise? Oh that you would come and begin simply to listen to His word, and to ask only the one question: Does He really mean that I should abide in Him? The answer His word gives is so simple and so sure: By His almighty grace you now are in Him; that same almighty grace will indeed enable you to abide in Him. By faith you became partakers of the initial grace; by that same faith you can enjoy the continuous grace of abiding in Him.
And if you ask what exactly it is that you now have to believe that you may abide in Him, the answer is not difficult. Believe first of all what He says: 'I am the Vine.' The safety and the fruitfulness of the branch depend upon the strength of the vine. Think not so much of thyself as a branch, nor of the abiding as thy duty, until thou hast first had thy soul filled with the faith of what Christ as the Vine is. He really will ie to tliee all that a vine can ie^ — holding thee fast, nourishing thee, and making Himself every moment responsible for thy growth and thy fruit. Take time to know, set thyself heartily to believe: My Vine, on whom I can depend for all I need, is Christ. A large, strong vine bears the feeble branch, and holds it more than the branch holds the vine. Ask the Father by the Holy Ghost to reveal to thee what a glorious, loving, mighty Christ this is in whom thou hast thy place and thy life; it is the faith in what Christ is^ more than anything else, that will keep thee abiding in Him. A soul filled with large thoughts of the Vine will be a strong branch, and will abide confidently in Him. Be much occupied with Jesus, and believe much in Him, as the True Vine.
And then, when Faith can well say, 'He is my Vine,' let it further say, 'I am His branch, I am in Him.' I speak to those who say they are Christ's disciples, aud on them I cannot too earnestly press the importance of exercising their faith in saying, 'I am in Him.' It makes the abiding so simple. If I realize clearly as I meditate: Now I am in Him, I see at once that there is nothing wanting but just my consent to be what He has made me, to remain where He has placed me. / am in Christ: This simple thought, carefully, prayerfully, believingly uttered, removes all diflBculty as if there were some great attainment to be reached. No, / am. in Christy my blessed Saviour. His love hath prepared a home for me with Himself, when He says, * Abide in my love;' and His power has undertaken to keep the door, and to keep me in, if I will but consent. I am ^V^ Christ: I have now but to say, * Saviour, I bless Thee for this wondrous grace. I consent; I yield myself to Thy gracious keeping; I do abide in Thee.'
It is astonishing how such a faith will work out all that is further implied in abiding in Christ. There is in the Christian life great need of watchfulness and of prayer, of self-denial and of striving, of obedience and of diligence. But *all things are possible to him that believeth. ' *This is the victory that overcometh, even our faith.' It is the faith that continually closes its eyes to the weakness of the creature, and finds its joy in the sufficiency of an Almighty Saviour, that makes the soul strong and glad. It gives itself up to be led by the Holy Spirit into an ever deeper appreciation of that wonderful Saviour whom God hath given us, — the Infinite Immanuel. It follows the leading of the Spirit from page to page of the blessed Word, with the one desire to take each revelation of what Jesus is and what He promises as its nourishment and its life. In accordance with the promise, *If that which we have heard from the beginning abide in you, ye shall also abide in the Father and the Son,' it lives by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. And so it makes the soul strong with the strength of God, to be and to do all that is needed for abiding in Christ.
Believer, thou wouldest abide in Christ: only believe. Believe always; believe now. Bow even now before thy Lord, and say to Him in childlike faith, that because He is thy Vine, and thou art His branch, thou wilt this day abide in Him.
*"I am the True Vine." He who offers us the privilege of an actual union with Himself is the great I Am, the almighty God, who upholds all things by the word of His power. And this almighty God reveals Himself as our perfect Saviour, even to the unimaginable extent of seeking to renew our fallen natures by grafting them into His own Divine nature.
'To realize the glorious Deity of Him whose call sounds forth to longing hearts with such exceeding sweetness is no small step towards gaining the full privilege to which we are invited. But longing is by itself of no use; still less can there be any profit in reading of the blessed results to be gained from a close and personal union with our Lord if we ielieve that union to te practically 'beyond our reach. His words are meant to be a living, an eternal precious reality. And this they can never become unless we are sure that we may reasonably expect their accomplishment. But what could make the accomplish-
ment of such an idea possible — what could make it reasonable to suppose that we poor, weak, selfish creatures full of sin and full of failures might be saved out of the corruption of our nature and made partakers of the holiness of our Lord — except the fact, the marvellous, unalterable fact that He who proposes to us so great a transformation is Himself the everlasting God, as able as He is willing to fulfil His own word. In meditating, therefore, upon these utterances of Christ, containing as they do the very essence of His teaching, the very concentration of His love, let us, at the outset, put away all tende7icy to doubt. Let us not alloiu ourselves so much as to question whether such erring disciples as we are can le enalled to attain the holiness to which we are called through a close and intimate union with our Lord. If there be any impossibility, any falling short of the proposed blessedness, it will arise from the lack of earnest desire on our part. There is no lack in any respect on His part who puts forth the invitation; with God there can be no shortcoming in the fulfilment of His promise.' — The Life of Fellowship; Meditations on John XV. 1-11^ by A. M. James.
It is perhaps necessary to say, for the sake of young or doubting Christians, that there is something more necessary than the effort to exercise faith in each separate promise that is brought under our notice. What is of even greater importance is the cultivation of a trustful disposition towards God, the habit of always thinking of Him, of His ways and His works, with bright confiding hopefulness. In such soil alone can the individual promises strike root and grow np. In a little work entitled the Encouragements to Faith ^ by James Kimball, there will be found many most suggestive and helpful thoughts, all pleading for the right God has to claim that He shall be trusted. The Christianas Secret of a Happy Life is another little work that has been a great help to many. Its bright and buoyant tone, its loving and unceasing repetition of the keynote, — we may indeed depend on Jesus to do all He has said, and more than we can think, — has breathed hope and joy into many a heart that was almost ready to despair of ever getting on. In Frances HavergaPs Kept for the Master's Use there is the same healthful, hope-inspiring tone.