I AM Bible Study (Part 6)
Notes
Transcript
I Am the Vine (John 15:1,5)
I Am the Vine (John 15:1,5)
Last week we began looking at Jesus’ final words to His disciples in the Upper Room Discourse. In this section of John, Jesus gives His very last words to the disciples before going to the cross. He is preparing them for His death, but also for His resurrection and the new Life in Him that will come after He has conquered sin and death.
The Upper Room Discourse contains two I AM Statements. Last week we looked at the first:
John 14:6
I AM the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.
With this one simple statement Jesus unified, in Himself, three powerful themes about God’s salvation from the Psalms. Jesus is the One whose death and resurrection provide the only way to the Father. He is the Truth who teaches us how to live in that way of God. And He is the One who, through His death and resurrection, gives eternal life to our body and soul.
This week we’ll be looking at the second I AM Statement in the Upper Room Discourse. Whereas last week’s statement taught how Jesus provides salvation and life with the Father, this week’s statement will show us how to live in the Way of Jesus; live out the Truth of Jesus, and experience the Life of Jesus even now.
This week we’ll examine Jesus’ claim to be “the vine.”
Let’s begin by reading John 15:1-8.
Discussion:
Who is Jesus talking to? Are His words here for everyone?
What do the symbols in this passage represent? What is the job of each symbol?
vine
vinedresser
branches
What reason does Jesus give for telling his disciples this teaching?
How do we ‘remain’ in him?
We must remain in the community that knows and loves him and celebrates him as its Lord. There is no such thing as a solitary Christian. We can’t ‘go it alone’. But we must also remain as people of prayer and worship in our own intimate, private lives. We must make sure to be in touch, in tune, with Jesus, knowing him and being known by him.
According to Jesus, one of two things will happen to a branch. What are these things?
What is the deciding factor to what happens to the branch? What does this “factor” mean?
Why does the vinedresser prune the branches?
John for Everyone, Part 2: Chapters 11–21 The True Vine (John 15:1–8)
Someone told me how when I was young and I’ve never forgotten. In fact, I not only know how to do it, I even know why (well, more or less). A rose bush, left to itself, will get straggly and tangled, and grow in on itself. It will produce quite a lot of not-so-good roses rather than a smaller number of splendid ones. It will, quite literally, get in its own light. It needs help to grow in the right directions and to the right ends. So you prune it to stop it wasting its energy and being unproductive. You cut out, particularly, the parts of the plant that are growing inwards and getting tangled up. You encourage the shoots that are growing outwards, toward the light. You prune the rose, in other words, to help it to be its true self.
As far as I understand it, more or less the same thing works with vines. (We were once given a vine, but we moved house before pruning-time came around. The last I heard, it had grown right out of the greenhouse door, which can’t have done the vine, or the greenhouse, much good.) Vines, too, need to focus their energy on producing good quality grapes, rather than lots of second-rate ones. Vines, too, need to grow towards the light rather than getting in a tangled mass. Left to themselves, they produce a lot of superfluous growth which must be cut away if the vine is truly to be what it’s capable of.
(N.T. Wright, John for Everyone)
Read Romans 5:3-5
Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
How do these passages help shed further light on Jesus’ teaching in John 15?
What happens to the branch that does not bear fruit? What does this mean?
Read John 6:37 & John 10:27-30.
All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”
How do we reconcile these promises with John 15:6
If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.
First, we see that the fundamental fault of these branches is not their failure to bear fruit, but their failure to “remain in the vine.”
Joseph Dongell, John: A Bible Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition (Indianapolis, IN: Wesleyan Publishing House, 1997), 185.Either they never did belong to him - or this is a strong warning. “Branches that decide to ‘go it alone’, to try living without the life of the vine, soon discover their mistake. They wither and die, and are good for nothing but the fire” N.T Wright
Let’s now see how this teaching connects with the Old Testament and the overarching story of God.
Read Psalm 80:8-18
You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it. You cleared the ground for it; it took deep root and filled the land. The mountains were covered with its shade, the mighty cedars with its branches. It sent out its branches to the sea and its shoots to the River. Why then have you broken down its walls, so that all who pass along the way pluck its fruit? The boar from the forest ravages it, and all that move in the field feed on it. Turn again, O God of hosts! Look down from heaven, and see; have regard for this vine, the stock that your right hand planted, and for the son whom you made strong for yourself. They have burned it with fire; they have cut it down; may they perish at the rebuke of your face! But let your hand be on the man of your right hand, the son of man whom you have made strong for yourself! Then we shall not turn back from you; give us life, and we will call upon your name!
Discussion:
What is the vine out of Egypt?
What happened to it?
Read Isaiah 5:1-7
Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and briers and thorns shall grow up; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting; and he looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, an outcry!
Discussion:
Identify the symbols in this poem. What does each represent according to the passage?
My Beloved
The Vineyard
Grapes
Wild Grapes
To whom does the vineyard belong and how was it cared for?
In the Hebrew text, the word for grapes (anavim) is not the same word used to describe the “wild grapes” (beusim) which literally means stinking things. In the cultural context, a vineyard producing “wild grapes” would be worthless.
How does the vineyard owner react to what was produced?
Given what the symbols represent, what was Isaiah predicting would happen to Israel and Judah?
In light of this passage what do you think Jesus means when He says that He is the “true vine?” What comparison is He making?
John for Everyone, Part 2: Chapters 11–21 (The True Vine (John 15:1–8))
Within Jewish tradition, the vine was a picture of Israel. God brought a vine out of Egypt, and planted it in the promised land (Psalm 80:8–18). It had been ravaged by wild animals and needed protecting and re-establishing. The vineyard of Israel, said Isaiah in chapter 5, has borne wild grapes instead of proper ones. Other prophets used the same picture.
Now Jesus is saying that he is the ‘true vine’. This can only mean that he is, in himself, the true Israel. He is the one on whom God’s purposes are now resting. And his followers are members of God’s true people—if they belong to him and remain ‘in’ him. The picture of the ‘vine’ isn’t just a clever illustration from gardening. It is about who Jesus and his people really are, and what is now going to happen to them as a result.
Next Week: I AM the Door John10:7-10
