John 15:1. I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.
Not only the Mosaic law, but the whole creation is full of types of Christ. All the vines that we see in this world are only as it were typical; but Christ is the substance,-the substance of nature as well as of grace: «I am the true vine,» and the real Husbandman, who watches over everything, who has the whole Church, yea, the whole universe, under his care, is the great Father: «My Father is the husbandman.»
John 15:2. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away:
It has no right to be there, for it is not there by a vital union; it will only harbor mischief if it is allowed to remain, therefore let it be taken away; and taken away it certainly will be by the Husbandman who makes no mistakes.
John 15:2. And every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
So there is taking away for the fruitless branches, and pruning for the fruit-bearing branches. Are you suffering under the pruning knife just now? Accept it joyfully. How much better that the knife should cut off your superfluities than that it should cut you off! The mercy is that, although God will purge and prune his vine-branches, he will not destroy them.
John 15:3. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.
Christ had so dealt with his disciples that he left them like a pruned vine, ready and prepared for fruitfulness.
John 15:4. Abide in me, and I in you.
The pruning is nothing without the abiding in Christ. You may suffer again and again; but no good can come of it except you have vital, continuous, everlasting union with Christ. You cannot take a branch away from the vine for a little while, and then put it back again; its life depends upon the perfect continuity of its union. So is it with us and Christ: the branch is in the vine, and the vine is in the branch. The very essence and sap of the vine are in the branch even as the branch is part and parcel of the vine.
John 15:4-5. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches:
You are not the vine; do not think that you are; and if God blesses you, and makes you of some importance in the Church, yet do not dream that you are the Church, that you are the very root and stein of it. Ah, no! at the utmost, « ye are the branches.»
John 15:5. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit:
Oh, what a searching word is this! Are we bringing forth much fruit? I trust, dear brethren, that we are bringing forth some fruit; but, oh! what a test is this, «He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit.» Christ expects much from those who have this doubly high privilege of having him in them, and of being themselves in him.
John 15:5-6. For without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
And are there sufficient of them for that? It is enough to bring tears into one's eyes to think that there should he enough fruitless, unabiding, merely nominal members of Christ to pay for gathering up to make a fire. Oh, sad, sad thing is this! It is the grief of the Church, it is the sorrow of God's ministers, it ought to call for great self-examination in our own hearts that mere professors, those who apostatize after having made a profession of religion, do not seem to have been thought by the Saviour to be here and there one, but to be so many that «men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.»
John 15:7. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
Power in prayer is dependent upon full enjoyment of union and communion with Christ. It is not every man who can ask of God what he wills, and get it; but it is such a man, and such a man only, as shall be found abiding in Christ, and having Christ's words abiding in him. If we do not take notice of what Christ says, can we expect that he will take notice of what we say? If we do not obey him when he asks this and that of us, how can we reckon that he will give us this and that when we ask it of him? No, this is the condition of power in prayer, «If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.»
John 15:8. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.
You shall be known to be the disciples of the much fruit-bearing Saviour. He was no moderately good man, he was not one who was only a little useful in the world; but our blessed Master was perfectly consecrated, he abounded in every good word and work; and unless we are the same, how shall men think that we are his disciples?
John 15:9. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you:
Matchless, matchless word! The love of God the Father to the Son is the immeasurable measure of the love of Christ to his people,-without beginning, without end, without change, without bounds. As the Father loved Christ, so has Christ loved us.
John 15:9. Continue ye in my love.
Abide in it, live in it as the fish lives in the stream, enjoy it, do nothing contrary to it.
John 15:10-11. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.
When Christ cannot rejoice in us, you may rest assured that we cannot rejoice in ourselves; but when his grace so operates upon us that he sees that in us which gives him content, then it is that we shall feel a blessed content ourselves.
John 15:12. This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.
I am sure you will never love each other too much. You cannot go beyond this rule: «Love one another, as I have loved you.»
John 15:13. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
What more has he that he can lay down when, having given up all else, he gives life itself for them?
John 15:14. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.
You cannot be his friends if you are disobedient to his commands. An act of disobedience is unfriendliness; ay, and the omission of obedience is unfriendliness to Christ. I wish we would always remember that every sin either of omission or of commission, is an unfriendly act towards our best Friend.
John 15:15. Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.
The law made man do this and that, but it communicated very little of the secret counsels of God; but there is a holy familiarity between Christ and his people, a sacred confidence which Christ has manifested towards us in revealing the very heart of God to us, and therefore we are put upon a very high standing, not as servants now, but as friends. O friends of Christ, show yourselves friendly by your entire obedience to his gracious will!
John 15:16. Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that their fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.
Fruitfulness, perseverance, and power in prayer, these are the priceless boons that come to us through our being one with Christ.
John 15:17. These things I command you, that ye love one another.
As if there were many things in one in that command; It is but one command, but it is so comprehensive that all the commandments are fulfilled in this one: «that ye love one another.»
John 15:18. If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.
So you need not be at all surprised if the world hates you.
John 15:19. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
Therefore expect it, in some form or other, for you will be sure to meet with it. The seed of the serpent never will love the seed of the woman.
John 15:20-21. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me.
«If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin,»-as if all the rest would scarcely have been sin at all in comparison with that sin against the light which men committed after Christ had spoken to them. What a wonderful thing it is that the very word which is the creation of all good should, through the perversity of men's will, become also the creation of evil!
John 15:22-23. If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin. He that hateth me hateth my Father also.
There is a hatred of God in all hatred of the Mediator. Men may say that they love God, and yet despise Christ, but it cannot be so. Christ is so truly God, and so clear a manifestation of God, that, if men knew God, they would certainly hate him if they hate Christ.
John 15:24-27 , If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause. But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me: And ye also shalt bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning.