All That Remains

In chapters 13-16 of John's Gospel, Jesus, just hours before his betrayal and murder, turns to his disciples and breaks the horrible news that he will not be with them for much longer. It is a heartbreaking and confusing revelation for these eleven men who have spent the last three years of their lives under the impression that, with their teacher leading the way, they would turn their world upside down and inside out. We can imagine the confusion and even disappointment these men might feel at that very moment. But he does not leave them room for despair. In addition to this bombshell, Jesus gives his disciples a message and a mission of hope.

Drawing upon a metaphor that is well known to the Jewish people, he calls himself the "True Vine" and his Father "the Gardener" in chapter 15. It is a metaphor that has deep rooted significance to the Israelite identity. Isaiah calls the house of Israel the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts (5:7). Jeremiah teaches that God planted Israel as a "choice vine" (2:21). Similarly, Hosea titles Israel as a "luxuriant vine" (10:1). Over history, the vine became a symbol for the nation as a whole. It was the emblem on the coins of the Maccabees. One of the glories of the Temple was a great golden vine that decorated the entrance to the Holy Place. When the Temple was built by Herod the Great, people would line up for the honor of giving up their gold to be forged into this great national symbol. And with this sentimentality in mind, Jesus tells his disciples that it is he who is the "True Vine" and God the Father is the "Gardener". He then explains our role as the branches is to bear fruit, and if we do not, the Gardener will cut us off from the Vine (v. 2). And for those who do bear fruit, they will be pruned so that we can bear more fruit. But it is the first part that, upon first glance, causes me confusion.

It was just five chapters ago in John 10, that Jesus gives us that picture of us resting secure in the hand of God unable to be snatched away from his grasp. Is Jesus now contradicting himself? If so, then our understanding of this passage runs antithetical to Scripture as a whole. We learn in Romans 8 that nothing can separate us from the love of God. In Philippians 1 we are promised that God is faithful to complete the good work of salvation he began in us. It would seem that apart from our understanding of John 15, the Bible teaches that Jesus cannot and will not lose one of his Christians. But still we read this passage and interpret it in such a way that God has demanded some unknown quota of work from us and if we do not fulfill it, we are cut off from Jesus and burned as firewood in hell according to 15:6. With this mindset, it's easy to nurture our legalism and boast about our works. We teach new Christians that they must read their Bibles and pray so many hours during the day and that we can measure our fruitfulness by how many people we "lead to the Lord". We show our faithfulness by how many times we attend church during the week or how many ministries we serve in. We define our Christianity by how many hours we subject ourselves to horrible Christian pop music written by musicians that only produce three cord, happy-clappy songs that have poor theology and even worse sentimentalism.

So what do we say? Should we ignore this passage? Should we interpret it in such a way that promotes a Gospel of Works instead of the Gospel of grace taught by the rest of Scripture? Or could it be that it is actually saying something else? What happens if we read the rest of the passage? Well, Jesus teaches that we have already been pruned by Jesus' teaching and his word. And that if we remain in him we will bear "much fruit". He makes it clear that he is the one who gives us the ability to bear fruit and apart from him it is impossible to be fruitful. He also states that he has chosen us and appointed us to bear fruit that will last.

The raw truth of this passage is that Jesus is asking the impossible of us. We cannot bear good fruit. History teaches us that when faced with the choice between good and evil, we will always choose evil. We bear poor fruit, that is, unless we are empowered to do good by something outside of our own compulsions. That something is Jesus. With this in mind the passage falls in place with the entirety of Scripture. The fruit we are expected to bear is provided by the True Vine, who is Jesus. Now our ability and skill at being a Christian is inconsequential. This is not because we don't have to produce good fruit, but because the source of our good works (our desire to pray and read our Bibles, our love for one another and our neighbor) is Jesus. If it is not, then our work is pointless at best and selfish at worst. That is why Jesus stresses so adamantly that we must remain in him. Without him there is no grace to do the good works he has prepared for us to do. The fruit that we bear gives glory to him because he is the author and perfecter of our faith and our actions. When we remain in him and bear the fruit that he has empowered us to bear, then the glory of our actions belongs to him, not us. John the Baptist had an amazing goal in life: it wasn't to build the most successful ministry or have the most followers. It was not even to send out the most missionaries/church planters. His goal was to decrease so that Jesus would increase. That should be the goal of every Christian. For as we decrease and remain in Jesus, in the end, Jesus will be all that remains.