John 15:1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the farmer. I. THE VINE. 1. The method of Christ's teaching seems to have depended largely on chances and occasions. Seeds of truth were blown from Him who is the Truth by every breeze of circumstance, like thistledown by the wind. This allegory was suggested, perhaps, by a portion of a trellised vine outside, peeping in through the latticed window, rustling in the evening breeze, or showing through its veined, transparent leaves the golden light of the setting sun; or, more probably still, the wine cup before Him on the supper table. 2. But while the form of Christ's teaching was determined by the accident of the moment, it fell in with the general analogy of Scripture teaching. The vine is one of the most familiar images in the Old Testament. No less than five of our Lord's parables refer to it. 3. The Land of Promise was a land of vineyards; and Juaea especially, with its temperate climate, and elevated rocky slopes, was admirably adapted for the culture of the vine. A vineyard on a terrace or brow of a hill is the first object that strikes the eye of the traveller when he approaches Judaea from the desert. A vineyard on a hill, fenced and cleared of stones, was the natural emblem of the kingdom of Judah; and this heraldic symbol was engraved on the coins of the Maccabees, on the ornaments of the Temple, and on the tombstones of the Jews. It is not without significance that the vine should be thus peculiar to Judaea. One of the most perfect of plants, it belongs to one of the most perfect of countries as regards its physical structure. Contrast the grapes of Eshcol with the variegated scenery of that valley, and its geological conformation, with the hard dry woody fruits of the parched plains of Australia: a low type of fruit with a low type of country. There is a close typical relation between the character of a country and the character of its productions; and this relation ascends even into the world of man. As the monotonous plains and innutritious fruits of Australia reared the lowest savages; so the picturesque mountain scenery, and the rich nutritious grapes, pomegranates and olives of Palestine developed the noblest of the human races. II. THE FITNESS OF THE VINE FOR OUR LORD'S PURPOSE. 1. He wished to represent — (1) The permanent spiritual union of His disciples with Himself; and therefore a perennial and not an annual plant must be selected, a dicotyledonous tree with branches, and not a monocotyledonous tree without branches. The image of the lily suited Him when His own personal loveliness, purity, and fragrance, and His own short-lived single life on earth were intended to be shadowed forth; and the image of the palm tree, which has no branches, suited the disciples when their own individual excellence was portrayed. (2) The fruitfulness of Christ and of believers in Him; and hence the plant that can do this adequately must be a cultivated one — not a mere herb of the field, like corn, yielding fruit only on the top of a stalk, but a tree yielding fruit on every branch. (3) The subordinate relation to and dependence of Christ upon His Father in the days of His flesh; and this idea manifestly excludes all fruit trees that are capable of standing alone and unsupported, such as the apple — the pomegranate, or the fig tree. (4) Believers exhibit, with general features of resemblance, considerable personal differences; and the plant which is to represent this quality must admit of considerable variability within certain distinct and well-recognized limits. All these qualifications meet in the vine, and in the vine alone. 2. The vine belongs peculiarly to the human period, and was planted in the earth shortly before its occupancy by man. It came into the world along with the beautiful rose, and the fruitful apple, and the fragrant mint, and the honey-laden bee, to make an Eden of nature for man's use and enjoyment. The former ages were flowerless; green, monotonous tree ferns and tree mosses, destined to become fuel for man, alone covered the land. Prophesied by all previous vegetable forms, whose structure approached nearer and nearer to its type, the vine appeared in the fulness of the earth's time; just as He whom it shadowed forth was announced in type and prophecy from the foundation of the world, and appeared in the fulness of human history when the world was ready for His reception. And thus the symbol and the Person symbolized belong peculiarly to the human world, and were destined specially for human nourishment and satisfaction. 3. A strict correlation exists between the culture of the vine and the intellectual and spiritual development of humanity. Wherever the grape ripens, there flourish all the arts that chiefly tend to make life nobler and more enjoyable. The spread of the Christian religion, as a general rule, has been co-extensive and synchronous with that of the vine, so that wherever the allegory of our Saviour is read, there the natural object may be seen to illustrate it. 4. In the symbol of the vine our Lord recognizes the prefiguration in plants of animal forms and functions. In the stem, branches, and foliage of the vine, we discern the ideal plan on which our own bodies are constructed: the stem being the spinal column; the branches the ribs and members: the leaves the lungs; while the sap vessels, filled with their nourishing fluid, correspond with the veins and their circulating blood. The functions, too, which all these parts and organs in the vine perform are precisely analogous to those which similar parts and organs perform in the economy of man. III. CHRIST THE TRUE VINE. 1. St. John's Gospel has several peculiar terms — such as the Word, the Light, the Life, the Truth, the World, Glory, Grace — which, perhaps more than all others, bear upon them the clear stamp of the Divine signet. To these may be added the word "true," which occurs no less than twenty-two times in this Gospel, as against five times in all the rest of the New Testament. By us the word is commonly employed to represent, and so confound, two distinct ideas; viz., the true as opposed to the false, and as distinguished from the typical or subordinate realization. Our forefathers recognized this distinction, and expressed the former idea by "true," and the latter by "very." The man who fulfilled the promise of his lips was a true man; but the man who fulfilled the wider promise of his name was a very man, a man indeed. God is the true God, in the sense that He cannot lie; but He is the true God, inasmuch as He is all that the name of God implies, in contradistinction to false gods. The phrase is still retained in the Nicene creed, "very God of very God." In Greek the distinction is clearly indicated by the use of two words, alethes true, and alethinos very, which are never used indiscriminately. The word here is alethinos, and should be rendered "very," for it indicates the contrast, not between the true and the false, but between the imperfect and the perfect — between the shadowy and the substantial, the type and the archetype, the highest ideal and a subordinate realization or partial anticipation. And in this connection it is interesting to notice that the Saxon word "tree" is etymologically cognate with "true," signifying that which is firm, strong, or well-established. 5. Israel was a vine, but not the true vine of God. Though not altogether false and fraudulent, it was an inferior and subordinate realization, a partial and imperfect anticipation of the truth. It did not come up to God's ideal of a vine. But Christ was the True Vine of God; He fulfilled to the utmost the purposes of His existence. The vineyard of Israel was to be taken from the wicked husbandmen. But out of this Jewish vineyard was to grow one Vine, which should endure when all the peculiar institutions of Judaism had perished, and become the starting point of a new and higher religious growth. While the Law was given by Moses, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. 3. Christ is also the "True Vine," as distinguished from the false or counterfeit vine. There are many species of vine, but there is only one grapevine; so error is multiform, but truth is one. And just as the wheat is imitated by the tares — the poisonous darnel — which closely resemble it in every respect; so the True Vine is imitated by the vine of Sodom, with its poisonous fruit. 4. But there is another aspect still in which the phrase may be viewed. It is as if Christ had said, "I am the unconcealed Vine."(1) Israel was a concealed vine. Its full significance was not known until Christ, the True Vine, revealed it. And — (2) The natural vine is a concealed vine. Men could not understand its symbolical meaning, they misinterpreted its lessons; they thought that it had no higher uses than the mere material, utilitarian ones. It was only when Christ appeared that the parable was explained, and the mystery, hid from ages and generations, revealed. Our Lord's first miracle at Cana was effected by the direct and immediate agency of the True Vine. It revealed the power which enables the natural vine in the vineyard to change the rains and dews of every summer into wine in its grapes. And what is thus asserted of the vine is equally applicable to bread, to light, to water — to every natural object. They all had a concealed meaning — a reference to Christ — from the beginning. Our Lord does not say, "I am like the vine." That would have been to use a mere metaphor, or figure of speech. But He says, "I am the True Vine;" and this declares that the vine is the actual shadow of His substance. IV. THE QUALITIES IN CHRIST WHICH ARE ADUMBRATED BY THE VINE? 1. The vine is the most perfect of plants. (1) Some plants possess one part, or one quality, more highly developed; but for the harmonious development of every part and quality — for perfect balance of loveliness and usefulness, there are none to equal the vine. It belongs to the highest order of the vegetable kingdom. Painters tell us that to study the perfection of form, colour, light, and shade, united in one object, we must place before us a bunch of grapes. It is perfectly innocent, being one of the few climbing plants that do not injure the object of their support. It has no thorns — no noxious qualities; all its parts are useful. Its foliage affords a refreshing shade from the scorching sunshine. Its fruit was one of the first oblations to the Divinity, and, along with bread, is one of the primary and essential elements of human food. In common with other plants, it purifies the air — feeding upon what we reject as poison, and returning it to us as wine that maketh glad the heart, and in the process maintaining the atmosphere in a fit condition for our breathing. (2) In all these aspects the vine is the shadow of Him who is altogether lovely — who unites in Himself the extremes of perfection — who is continually doing good — who beautified our fallen world by His presence, changed its wilderness into an Eden, and made the polluted atmosphere of our life purer by breathing it, and is now transforming our evil into good, and our sorrow into a fruitful and strengthening joy. 2. The words distinguish between nature and that which is above it. To Pantheism nature is God. The pronoun "I" in it leads us up to the Personal Origin of all creation, shows to us that creation is not eternal, but springs from a Person. How, then, can anyone expect to be able to interpret the meaning of the vine, without the personal knowledge of the Living Being who is working and speaking to us through its instrumentality? Without the knowledge of His person we cannot have the knowledge of His work in its fulness. But once united to Him by a living and loving faith, we have the proper view point of the universe. (H. Macmillan, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. |
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