I am the vine

Don: We have studied several of the “I am” statements of Jesus, including:

• “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12) which emphasizes God’s creative power. God created light in the Genesis, and he will create a world of light in the Revelation.
• “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35) which emphasizes God’s sustaining power. “Give us this day our daily bread” shows that we need his spiritual sustenance each and every day.
• “I am the door” (John 10:7) which emphasizes God’s facilitative power, in that entry into the kingdom of heaven is only through him.
• “I am the good shepherd” (John 10:11) which emphasizes God’s redemptive power. He, the shepherd, is willing to lay down his own life to save the sheep.
• “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:35) emphasizes God’s re-creative, restorative, power through his power to override natural law with supernatural law, to replace cause-and-effect with grace. Because of grace, we do not get what we deserve.

The next statement is “I am the vine”:

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. (John 15:1-8)

What does it tell us about God? The passage has four actors: Jesus—the vine; the Father—the vinedresser; the disciples (representing ourselves)—the branches; and “They”—the gatherers and burners of the dried branches. The latter are the same reapers encountered in the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares, whom God instructed:

“First gather up the tares [i.e., the weeds, the fruitless, worthless growths] and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn.” (Matthew 13:30)

The key to understanding the “I am the vine” statement is to understand the function of the vine, which is to produce grapes, to bear fruit. God implicitly emphasized this when he told Ezekiel:

“Son of man, how is the wood of the vine better than any wood of a branch which is among the trees of the forest? Can wood be taken from it to make anything, or can men take a peg from it on which to hang any vessel? If it has been put into the fire for fuel, and the fire has consumed both of its ends and its middle part has been charred, is it then useful for anything? Behold, while it is intact, it is not made into anything. How much less, when the fire has consumed it and it is charred, can it still be made into anything! (Ezekiel 15:1-5)

In short, the vine is worthless as wood; its value lies in its fruit—the grape. Grape, olives, and figs are referenced often in scripture. Clearly they were very important. Noah planted a grapevine immediately after the flood (Genesis 9:20). Israelite spies cut down cluster of grapes from an enemy vine, so heavy the cluster had to be carried on a pole by two men (Numbers 11:23). All told, there are perhaps as many as 70 references to vines, grapes, vineyards, wine, etc. in scripture.

What picture, what immutable characteristic of God was revealed by Jesus when he said “I am the vine”?

Jay: The metaphor, like that of the tares, has overtones of judgment about it. The branches that don’t bear fruit go the way of the tares, into the fire. It marks a distinction and a sorting of good and evil.

Don: It seems like a very weak “I am the fire, I am the storm, I am the wrathful avenger, I am the stern judge” statement that could only have come from Jesus!

Alice: It would be nice to think there were no judgment, or at least if there were only the type of judgment posited by a preacher I saw on TV who said that at the End Time we will not be judged on our everyday sins—Jesus redeemed those—but when God will no longer tolerate the oppression of his people.

David: That reminds me of Charles’ comment last week that at the End Times all sins will be expunged and there will be judgment. I was wondering what, if sin is expunged, is left to judge? Will God ignore how evil we have been and only judge on the basis of how good we were? How will some soul fare who scored 2 out of 10 on the goodness scale compared to another soul who scored 9 out of 10?

Jay: This seems to be related to the fruit-bearing function of a vine. The vine is the conduit to judgment of the crop at harvest time.

Don: The vine is like a foundation for bearing more or less (or no) fruit—for being more or less (or no) good:

According to the grace of God which was given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building on it. But each man must be careful how he builds on it. For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.

Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are. (1 Corinthians 3:10-17)

There is a sense here that even if the person is not good—was not fruitful, built his life out of perishable straw—his soul will nevertheless be saved. This all seems to run counter to the traditional interpretation of judgment.

Alice: It can be interpreted as the vine of God that grows within each of us needs to be pruned of dead branches (i.e., of sin) to keep it healthy and ultimately fruitful.

Jay: On the face of it, the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares—which Jesus went to unusual lengths to explain—appears to be a judgment parable. It certainly has overtones of judgment, but we noted previously that perhaps if was more a lesson about how God distinguishes between good and evil than about how he judges good people and bad people. The parable makes it very clear that the good/evil distinction is God’s alone (or his angels’) to make—we cannot do it. It is a supernatural distinction, not a natural one. We are quick to condemn the person who builds using straw instead of brick; but to God, as long as we build our structure—our lives—on the foundation of Jesus, that is all that matters.

David: Was the fire to which the tares were consigned the unconsuming, everlasting, though nevertheless painful fire of hell? In the case of the dead branches of vine, it seems the fire is a consuming fire, and once consigned to it, the branches cease to exist. The general view of Judaeo-Christianity of judgment seems to be that hell—where tares, dead vines, convicted souls are consigned—is a place of everlasting torture by fire, but the “I am the vine” statement seems to overturn that interpretation.

Alice: If the vine is good, why do some branches do well and bear fruit while others wither and dry?

Jay: That’s the crux of the matter. Something happens to the connection between vine and branch—between God and Man, Creator and creature. Presumably something evil. But what? If God is love and is in everyone, why don’t we all bear the fruit of love in abundance? Is it God’s fault for not pushing us hard enough? Is it our fault?

Alice: Is it sin that separates us?

Jay: We are all connected to God and we are all sinful. We are like the soil in the Parable of the Seeds: Some of us are more or less fertile, some of us are stony.

David: The seed and vine metaphors seem different presentations of the same Godly principle or characteristic.

Robin: In a way, it is encouraging that we are not born equal in that sense. It is not fair to compare the fruitfulness of fertile versus stony ground and judge them accordingly. Hence, we cannot and should not try to judge others.

Jay: Religions don’t think that way. They set arbitrary bars and then judge all by how they measure up to the bar. The passage from Corinthians says essentially that everyone has an unique, personal bar. That seems like anarchy—to religions, but not to God.

Alice: All branches of the vine start out well. It’s only some that turn dry. Something happens to them.

Don: The vine does not reject the dry branches; they are pruned. We’ll continue this discussion next week.

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