Theological Foundations for Fruit-bearing

Introduction

What is the chief and highest end of man? Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God and fully to enjoy Him forever. How does one glorify God? Jesus provides the answer in John 15:8.

John 15:8 NASB95

“My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.

Jesus is clear: you glorify God by bearing much fruit, thereby confirming your discipleship of Him. And what is the prerequisite for bearing much fruit?

Paul picks up the argument in Romans 7:4

Romans 7:4 NASB95

Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.

Paul’s answer: to bear fruit, one must be joined to Him who was raised from the dead, the living Christ. And what is the nature of this joining?

We return to the words of our Savior, who gives us what John Flavel calls an elegant and lively metaphor, to help the nature of this mystical union into our understandings.

John 15:1–5 NASB95

“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.

Union with Christ produces God-glorifying fruit, enabling the Christian to achieve their highest purpose on this earth.

This morning, I would like to answer two simple questions: why do we bear fruit, and how do we bear fruit? I believe Jesus gives us the answers to those questions in our text today, so if you would, turn to the gospel of John, chapter 15. We will read verses 1-8, but focus our attention primarily on verse 5.

Our first three points will seek to build an argument that answers the first question, and the last two points will build the argument that answers the second question. You can see those points on your outline that was passed out.

Christ’s Divine Authority

This statement, first made in vs 1 and then repeated in vs 5, is one of a dozen statements that stand as pillars in the overall argument of John in His gospel that Jesus of Nazareth is, although certainly truly human, also truly God. Time and time again in John’s gospel record, Jesus uses “I am” language. For the Jewish reader in the first century, and also for us, this should immediately send a siren off in our head. Jesus is not just describing himself as a vine or as the bread of life or as the good shepherd. He is linking himself to the covenant name of God as declared by God Himself in the Old Testament. This would have been clear to any educated Jews in Jesus’ day. When Jesus says “I am…” the discerning hearer would have been immediately reminded of that covenant name.

What is that covenant name? It is declared by God in Exodus 3:14, when Moses asks God His name. God says “I am who I am.” The English cannot accurately capture the gravity of this statement. Allow me to explain. The double repetition indicates a weight, a greater level of certainty. In other words, what God is saying is that He absolutely is. We abuse the word absolute, so let’s camp on that term for a while to remove the veil of familiarity, so we can see the reality that is going on here. When I say God absolutely is, I mean that He absolutely exists. He exists apart from any other person, being, or idea. He is utterly, completely independent from all other things. His existence is unquantifiable, and unqualifiable. This is a unique characteristic of God, known as his aseity. If you don’t get anything from this, get this: God’s aseity is his absolute existence. In theology this characteristic is part of a list of “non-communicable” attributes. In other words, other created beings cannot emulate or embody this characteristic. It is not part of the imago Dei, the stamp of divinity that every human being bears. In a word, God’s existence is predicated only on himself. He is self-existent. God is. Not was, not will be. God simply is. And He is, to an infinite degree. Thus, He is who He is. I am who I am.

Perhaps this point has not hit you in your head and in your heart yet. Let us consider our own existence, many of us Americans thinking highly of our own independence and ability to “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps.” Could you exist without oxygen? Could you exist without parents? How about a body? How about a mind, a brain? The answer to each of those questions is, of course, no. You need these things to exist.

The next question is, can you create these things for yourself? Can you create your own body? Your own mind? Clearly not. Thus, your existence is dependent on something or someone else. At the most basic biological level, you are reliant on your parents. But they each are reliant on their parents, so on and so forth. Ultimately, you must trace all that exists back to something which is not reliant on a prior or greater cause to begin the process of life. By declaring “I absolutely am,” God also declares himself to be that “Uncaused cause,” that “immovable mover.” Your existence is dependent on an independent provider, and that independent provider is Yahweh, God very God, the Great I Am.

What Jesus is doing here, then, in our text, is declaring Himself to be one and the same with Yahweh. To a pious Jew, this is blasphemous. But to a discerning believer, this designates Jesus as not merely a good teacher, or a faithful prophet, but the promised Messiah, the son of God and son of Man, the one who would fulfill all prophecy, the lynchpin upon whom all of history turns. He is declaring his divinity, his Godship, his authority as self-existent creator of all things.

Jesus, by using only two words, establishes his divine prerogative, his self-existence as the one true and living God, his authority. Thus, we can answer the question “Why do we bear fruit?” first with this answer: we bear fruit because Christ in His divine authority has ordained and commanded that we do so.

Christ has established His divine authority. But he also must establish Himself as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy.

Christ’s Prophetic Fulfillment

We know that Jesus fulfilled hundreds of prophecies during his life and ministry, as well as proved Himself to be the fulfillment of every jot and tittle of the Law and the Prophets. Further, Jesus also spent much of his ministry explaining the true sense of the Old Testament, and we see throughout the gospel accounts that He spent much of his public ministry correcting misconceptions about God and the Old Testament. He wasn’t teaching anything that wasn’t already in the Old Testament, he was simply expounding that truth, taking it deeper in the hearer’s mind and heart.

Thus, when Jesus expands on this “I am” statement by saying “I am the vine,” we cannot lose sight of the fact that this is a monumental theological statement, if we understand the Old Testament context.

I want to take you to three passages that would have immediately come to the mind of the careful Jewish listener when Jesus mentions “the vine.” Not just “a vine,” but “the vine.”

The first is Psalm 80 written by Asaph. Asaph was a contemporary of David and wrote many Psalms. This one in particular is a prayer to God for deliverance from enemies. As is typical of the Psalmists (and by way of simple application, should be typical of our own prayers to God), Asaph devotes a considerable amount of papyrus space to recounting God’s works, specifically the initial fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant, through the Exodus and conquest, thereby giving Israel the land that He promised to Abraham. But Asaph uses very poetic language to convey his point. Look with me at Psalm 80:8-11

Psalm 80:8–11 NASB95

You removed a vine from Egypt; You drove out the nations and planted it. You cleared the ground before it, And it took deep root and filled the land. The mountains were covered with its shadow, And the cedars of God with its boughs. It was sending out its branches to the sea And its shoots to the River.

He doesn’t say that God brought a nation, or a people out of Egypt. He says that God brought a vine. He then extends the analogy all the way through verse 14.

Psalm 80:12–14 NASB95

Why have You broken down its hedges, So that all who pass that way pick its fruit? A boar from the forest eats it away And whatever moves in the field feeds on it. O God of hosts, turn again now, we beseech You; Look down from heaven and see, and take care of this vine,

Clearly Asaph meant his readers to understand the vine to be Israel.

A second passage that refers to Israel as the vine is in Isaiah 5:1-7

Isaiah 5:1–7 NASB95

Let me sing now for my well-beloved A song of my beloved concerning His vineyard. My well-beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill. He dug it all around, removed its stones, And planted it with the choicest vine. And He built a tower in the middle of it And also hewed out a wine vat in it; Then He expected it to produce good grapes, But it produced only worthless ones. “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? Why, when I expected it to produce good grapes did it produce worthless ones? “So now let Me tell you what I am going to do to My vineyard: I will remove its hedge and it will be consumed; I will break down its wall and it will become trampled ground. “I will lay it waste; It will not be pruned or hoed, But briars and thorns will come up. I will also charge the clouds to rain no rain on it.” For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel And the men of Judah His delightful plant. Thus He looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; For righteousness, but behold, a cry of distress.

Isaiah, in harmony with Asaph who wrote centuries earlier, recounts the planting of the vine. But Isaiah’s analogy diverts away from Asaph’s about halfway through, when he begins to prophesy of the destruction of the vine, the very thing Asaph prayed would not happen. As good Biblical scholars, we must ask why Asaph’s inspired prayer was not answered. Why did God not keep His promise? Let us allow the weeping prophet, our friend Jeremiah, to add his voice to the conversation, approximately another hundred years down the line from Isaiah.

What Isaiah spoke looking forward to the future, Jeremiah confirms as he looks back to the past. Jeremiah 2:21

Jeremiah 2:21 NASB95

“Yet I planted you a choice vine, A completely faithful seed. How then have you turned yourself before Me Into the degenerate shoots of a foreign vine?

So then, according to Jeremiah, Asaph’s prayer was not answered and Isaiah’s prophecy was fulfilled. The vine was destroyed because of her disobedience. Because she turned to false gods. Because she was unfaithful. Because she trespassed the covenant.

But now along comes Jesus in John 15. What does he do? He brings the analogy back, but this time he applies it to himself. But he states it a little bit differently. In verse 1 he calls himself the true vine. When Jesus says that, in the Old Testament context, he’s declaring himself to be the true Israel. Where Israel failed, Christ succeeded. Israel was continually disobedient, Christ obeyed the will of His father perfectly. Israel was meant to be a light to the nations, and instead became like the nations. Christ was the light of the world, and the darkness did not overcome it. Israel was given a temporary system to atone for sin, Christ atoned for sin once and for all.

This is what Christ meant when He said He has come to fulfill the law and the prophets, to fulfill all righteousness. God designed Israel to be the platform out of which Jesus would come, in order that He might, as a representative, fulfill God’s will for Israel and for the world.

Let’s take a step back for a minute and breathe. That’s a lot to take in. When Jesus says “I am the vine,” I hope you realize just how much depth of truth is packed into that statement. In four words Jesus declares Himself first to be God very God, truly divine and truly human, as well as being the fulfillment of the entire Old Testament and the only one who can truly carry out the purpose of Israel that God laid out in the Law and Prophets.

Reflect on that. Does your heart tremble at the greatness of Christ? Does your soul lie prostrate when you behold Him in His glory? If you cannot answer those questions with a resounding yes, I encourage you today to meditate on who Christ is. Dwell on the truths of His character as revealed in His Word. Don’t stop until you see Christ as so great, so awe-inspiring, so worthy of your total, unmitigated obedience and devotion, that you fall flat on your face and cry out with Thomas “My Lord, and my God!” There can be none other in your life. Have you acknowledged Him as the king of the universe and the Lord of your life? I urge you, friends, if you are holding up some lesser person, some lesser idea as having utmost authority in your life, whether that’s yourself, your schedule, your relationships, even your church, BURN IT DOWN. Christ is greater. He has been given all authority in heaven and on earth.

Christ has established Himself as divinely authoritative, and as the fulfillment of the entire Old Testament. He is far beyond and far above us. Thus we can answer our question “why do we bear fruit?” a second way: because Christ is the true and better Vine.

But now is where things get interesting for you and I as believers and as disciples of Christ. Christ is not just an aloof, authoritative, divine king. He has a close and intimate connection with his people. He is the giver of life. Let’s look at the next phrase to see what that relationship looks like.

Christ’s Relationship with His People

Jesus has established Himself as the vine, and we have looked closely at the depth of meaning contained within that statement. We have seen that it’s far more than just an analogy, that Jesus being the vine has great theological significance and extensive practical application. But in this next phrase, Jesus establishes His relationship with His people as part of the vine motif.

So what does Jesus say? “You are the branches.” Obviously, in context Jesus is speaking privately with his disciples, but this statement applies not just to them but to all of Christ’s, whether they lived in the first century in Israel or were called from Ur of the Chaldeans, or go to a community church in 2018 in Santa Clarita. I just mentioned that this is far more than just an analogy, though it does serve that purpose. When you understand the theological implications of “I am the vine,” you must also understand the theological implications of “you are the branches.” By saying this, Jesus is not only tying Himself to all of redemptive history, but He is also tying all of His people to redemptive history as well.

We love individualism in America. We’ve been told since before we were born that we are unique and special and no one in the world is like us. We stand alone in our identity. I am me, and no one else is me. Now I affirm that each of us are image-bearers and we all reflect different and unique aspects of the character of God, and as believers we are all gifted uniquely for worship and discipleship. What I am getting at here is that I think there are times when we lose the splendor of what it means to be one of billions of pieces in God’s plan to redeem a people for Himself, beginning with Israel, then the addition of the church, to form a unified, holy ekklesia, a community of blood-bought brothers and sisters from every tribe, tongue, and nation. You are part of that! And isn’t it so much more beautiful, so much more fulfilling to humbly recognize that you are merely just a part of something so much bigger, so much grander than yourself? When the writer of Hebrews calls us to run with endurance the race set before us, he calls us on the grounds that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses! Our forebears, the ones who have run and finished the race before us! We are family. That’s the theological truth that Jesus is getting at when He calls us the branches of His vine. We are so much more than mere individuals. We are part of a story that spans millennia, a story that has God the Father as it’s author and His son Jesus as the hero. We are part of what Asaph prayed for and what Isaiah and Jeremiah prophesied about. We are included because we are connected with Christ. Because we are in Christ.

John Piper says those who are in Christ gain six things.

In Christ we are given grace before the foundation of the world.

In Christ we were chosen by God before creation.

In Christ we are loved by God with an inseparable love.

In Christ we are redeemed and forgiven for all our sins.

In Christ we are justified and the righteousness of God in Christ is imputed to us.

In Christ we have become new creations and sons of God.

Meditate on these truths, these promises that are yours if you are a branch of Christ’s true vine.

Jesus has established his divine authority, he’s established his fulfillment of the Old Testament, he has connected His people inextricably with himself. These three points answer our first question: why do we bear fruit as Christians? Simply put, it’s because we are part of the True Vine, Christ. His life is our life. His fulfillment of the Old Testament has brought us in and numbered us among the people of God.

Now, we must turn to the answer to our second question: how do we bear fruit?

The Lifestyle of a Fruit-bearing Branch

In this next phrase, Jesus says “whoever abides in Me.” I want put that word abide under a microscope. What does it mean to abide in Christ? Clearly Jesus views that as the key to this whole fruit-bearing equation from a human perspective, and so we also must view it as key to the fruit-bearing equation in our own lives. This idea of abiding is at the heart of the answer to our second question: how do we bear fruit? He’s already told us who He is in two ways, and told us that we are connected to Him, and now he works that out by using this word abide. Fundamentally the word abide means to live. Think about it. If you abide somewhere, that’s where you live. People often talk about their abode. That’s just the noun version of abide. An abode is where you live, it’s your home. If you abide in something, you live there.

The whole idea is connected back to the idea of the vine-branch relationship. So in order to understand abiding, let’s look closely at the vine-branch relationship and how that teaches us truth about our relationship to Christ, and what it means to abide in Him, to live in him.

The tree and the branch share the same life

A tree and a branch are not separate organisms. They are one and the same, sharing the same light, the same nutrition source, the same arborist. The life of the tree is the life of the branch. If the tree dies, the branch dies.

The branch cannot live without the tree, but the tree can live without the branch

Despite being the same organism, you can cut a branch off of a tree and the tree will be just fine. The branch, on the other hand, will rot and die.

The branches only grow and produce fruit as long as they are attached to the tree

The tree is the sole source of livelihood for the branches. They cannot live without it, they cannot do anything without it. They wither and die if they are not attached to it.

All of these truths are analogous to Christ’s relationship with his people. Christ and His people both share the same life, the life of the Spirit of God. It is only by His breath in our lungs that we are alive. There is no spiritual life without Christ. We have already established that Christ, as God, is completely self-existent. He needs nothing to function eternally, truly, and perfectly. We, on the other hand, must rely fully on Him for our life. Finally, we only grow and produce fruit to the degree that we are connected to Christ. The stronger the connection, the greater the growth, and the more fruit is produced.

So now it’s time to turn the cannon of application on ourselves. Do we make our home in Christ? Do we sleep, eat, and live our lives in Him? Or is He a place that we visit, maybe on Sunday, or on Thursday nights at 6:30pm because we make our homes, our dwelling, our abiding, somewhere else? Maybe in our schedule or in our jobs, or in our church involvement, or in our friendships. Brothers and sisters, we must abide in Him! We must make Him our hiding place, the place where we run when we are tired, when we are weary, when the world has turned it’s back on us, when friends betray us, when thieves break in and steal, when pandemics hit and governments oppress and gas prices are high and food is running low! If we run anywhere else, we’re not abiding in Him. And if we’re not abiding in Him we’re not bearing fruit. And if we’re not bearing fruit, we’re not accomplishing the chief and highest end of our existence: glorifying God.

May our whole lifestyle be saturated in Christ. Meditate on who he is, praise him for what he’s done, worship him and obey him. Only by abiding in Him will we bear fruit for the kingdom. And that brings us to our next point, where Jesus says that the abiding person is the fruit-bearing person.

The Outcome of a Fruit-bearing Life

Jesus is clear. The abiding person is the fruit-bearing person. Only by sharing in Christ’s life, the way that a branch shares the life of the vine, do we ever bear fruit. This is why I wanted to introduce the series this way. We will never be true fruit-bearers for the glory of God if we do not build every piece of fruit that we bear upon this theological truth: apart from Christ we can do nothing.

We give a lot of mental assent to this idea, but practically we aren’t too good at it. We love to focus on growth and on greater holiness and greater obedience, but we try to do it apart from a close and intimate, abiding relationship with Christ. We try to be like Him without meditating on who He is, without soaking in his truth. That’s why I don’t believe in “practical Christian living” books. Paul didn’t either. That’s why he devotes 11 chapters of his most monumental work to theology, and only after 11 chapters of declaring the greatness of God in Christ does he talk about the one-anothers and the fruit of gospel transformation in your life. So if you spend your life trying to cultivate all of this fruit in your life, and you focus on the fruit itself and not on the source of the fruit, you’ll spin your wheels!

Much has been made in recent years of the importance of Christian involvement in the affairs of our communities. Christians who take seriously the call to seek the good of the city where God has placed them. These types of efforts and initiatives are practical, helpful, and necessary. We support such ministries as a church, including Open Arms Pregnancy Clinic. However, a great danger in these initiatives is that we focus so much on righteousness and justice for our neighbors that we forget the reason that justice and righteousness can even exist in the world. These things can exist in the world because of the gospel. Let me be abundantly clear here: gospel implications are not the gospel. As much as some people would like to tell you that caring for the poor and the oppressed and the weak and the downtrodden is the gospel, it is not. As much as people might tell you to “live the gospel,” you cannot live the gospel.

The gospel is that Jesus Christ, truly God and truly man, took on human flesh and was obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross, and was raised by the Father in the power of the Spirit on the third day, in order to redeem His chosen people from their bondage to sin, reconcile His chosen people to a relationship with the triune God, and restore His chosen people to their perfect Edenic state.

In keeping with our text this morning, the gospel is that sinners are being made branches in Christ’s vine by His blood, according to the grace of God, through the work of the Holy Spirit. That is not seeking the good of the city where God has placed you. That is part of the fruit we are called to bear.

We are called to live righteously and justly and be merciful to those in need and love widows and orphans and the fatherless. But that is merely part of the fruit. However, we must guard ourselves against focusing so much on the fruit that we neglect our life in the vine. Our efforts in fruit-bearing are only as effective as our communion with Christ is deep, vital, and strong.

I love church history. I love reading the stories of men and women who, by their faithfulness, changed their communities, changed the world, and even changed history for the glory of God. Students of church history might ask how Athanasius was able to define and defend the doctrine of the Trinity, how Augustine was able to articulate the sovereignty of God in all of life, how Martin Luther was able to confront and condemn the heresies of the Roman Catholic Church, how John Owen was able to bring the word of God to bear on the British Parliament, how John Bunyan was able to write the most influential Christian book in history while in prison, how William Wilberforce was able to abolish the Transatlantic Slave Trade, how George Whitefield was able to preach to hundreds of thousands of people in two continents with no TV, radio, cars, airplanes, or live sound amplification, how Charles Spurgeon became the most widely read Christian preacher in human history, how JC Ryle was able to stand up to the abandonment of the Scriptures in his day, how Martyn Lloyd-Jones was able to reignite a focus on expository preaching in the church. How did these men do this great work for God? How did they bear so much long-lasting, history altering fruit? The answer lies right here, in Jesus’ final statement in our text today. These men realized that apart from Christ they could do nothing. So they clung to him, making Him the focus of their mind, the love of their heart, and the motivation of their lives. And they changed the world.

Now your lot in life may not be to change the world, but you can impact the lives of the people around you, in your family, at your school, in your workplace, by bearing great fruit, to the glory of God, through your communion with Christ and your faithfulness to Him. If you abide in Him, Christ promises that you will bear much fruit.

Our abiding union with Christ is pictured for us in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.

Our Lord Jesus, in the night wherein he was betrayed, instituted the sacrament of his body and blood, called the Lord’s Supper, to be observed in his church unto the end of the world, for the perpetual remembrance of the sacrifice of himself in his death, the sealing all benefits thereof unto true believers, their spiritual nourishment and growth in him, their further engagement in and to all duties which they owe unto him, and to be a bond and a pledge of their communion with him, and with each other, as members of his mystical body.

[PRAYER]

Gracious Christ, we come to your table now to be reminded of your sacrifice, to confirm your benefits in our lives, to be spiritually nourished, to be spurred on to love and good deeds, and to pledge ourselves, body and soul, in life and in death, to communion with you, and with one another, as members of your body.

The Apostle offers a warning to all those who come to the Lord’s Table:

1 Corinthians 11:27–29 NASB95

Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly.

Let us take a few moments of silent prayer to come before the Lord and ensure that we eat this bread and drink this cup in a worthy manner, and so clear ourselves of the guilt of His body and blood.

The Apostle continues:

1 Corinthians 11:23–24 NASB95

For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”

Let us eat together, in remembrance of our Savior.

1 Corinthians 11:25 NASB95

In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”

Let us drink together, in remembrance of our Savior.

The shed blood of Christ has washed away our sins, so now we can simply say: Jesus thank you. Let’s sing that now together.