The Gospel of St. John: A Series of Discourses. / New Edition

by Frederick Denison Maurice

I am the true Vine, and my Father is the Husbandman.

The words, 'Arise, let us go hence,' with which the 14th chapter concludes, have been taken by some to indicate that our Lord was about to lead His disciples into a higher region of thought and of hope than they had yet visited. The feeling is a very natural one that everything in these conversations must have a sublime sense, that no words can be used in them in their common earthly sense. But it is not an altogether healthy feeling. It may lead us to forget that the disciples were sitting in an actual room, at an actual supper; it may give us the notion that we have been transported into some fantastical world. That is a heavy price to pay for a refined or spiritual interpretation. It may make the whole life of the Son of Man unintelligible to us.

From the beginning of the 13th chapter, our Lord has been preparing them to 'arise and go hence.' He has been leading them towards that Father's house, whither He is going and to which He is the way. We might say that He reaches the mountain summit, in His prayer in the 17th chapter; yet even that must be said with caution, because His death and ascension were yet to come, and the Spirit had not yet been poured upon them. But though nothing which He ever spoke is deeper, or has had a mightier effect on mankind, than the passage of which I am about to speak, we do not conceive of it rightly if we describe it as a departure from earthly facts or earthly images. We are about to be told of the discipline which is necessary for those who are upon earth fighting, not transfigured, and how the discipline will be administered. The old form of speaking by parables, which the disciples might easily have thought was intended only for the multitude, and might be discarded in the more advanced stages of their education, is resorted to again. The forms of earth are still claimed as interpreters of the kingdom of heaven.

I think it is better, therefore, to take the words in their simplest sense,—to suppose that our Lord and His disciples did arise from the supper as He spoke, and that the first object which they saw as they walked towards the Mount of Olives was a vine. That tree had been the old lesson-book of Prophets. They had watched its growth; had wondered at the life which circulated through its branches; had thought of the care which was needful in the choice of a place to plant it in; of the incessant vigilance which must be bestowed upon it after it had grown. 'Thou hast brought,' they said in their songs, 'a vine out of Egypt, and planted it.' 'The house of Israel,' they said in their discourses, 'is the Lord's vineyard, and Judah His pleasant plant.' Then the question arose, 'Why does it bring forth wild grapes? Will it never fill the land?' Which led to the other deeper questions, 'How is it that these comparisons must be true in spite of all experience which seems to prove them deceitful? What makes our nation one,—what gives it life, though we seem a mere set of loose, wretched, dead sticks, trying to be separate?'

Here was the answer, 'I am the true Vine.' As the words, 'I am the good Shepherd,' explained all the previous uses of that symbol, and showed why they were not fictitious, so this sentence interprets all the passages of the Old Testament which connect the life of trees with the life of man. 'You have been told that you were the branches of a vine; that God was pruning you, and lopping off dead boughs from you. Now, look into the heart of this mystery. In me you have been made one; from me you have drawn life. My Father Himself has been, and is, the Husbandman. It was over His own Son that He was watching. It was the branches in ME which were not bearing fruit that He was taking away. It was every branch in ME that beareth fruit which He was purging, that it might bring forth more fruit.' Here was the interpretation of the unity of the nation; for here is the interpretation of the unity of man. We shall find no wider, or deeper, or more practical one. The more we apply it to all the circumstances of our lives, and to all the problems of history, the more satisfactory it will appear to us. But first, as always, Christ Himself applies it to the persons immediately before Him.

'Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the Vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.' The words in the 13th chapter, 'Ye are clean, but not all,' led me to anticipate what I should say about these, 'Ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.' I said that He treated them as a pure and holy body, and that the unclean person was he who would not belong to the body, but chose to dwell in his own isolation. What is added to that statement here is, that Christ's word was that which purified them. They had no unity of their own, or purity of their own. He spoke to them in their inmost hearts, claimed them as His. That quickening, uniting, purifying word, going forth from Him, was the source of their life, their purity, their unity. What they had to do was not to put forth self-willed efforts for the sake of making themselves better, or wiser, or more united, but simply to abide in Him, to believe that they were His, to act as if they were. I resort to other forms of expression, as if I hoped to make that which He chose clearer; but, in fact, that is immeasurably plainer, and fuller, and deeper, than any I can imagine. 'Abide in me' at once recals the natural analogy, while it is in strictness appropriate only to the condition of a voluntary being. It implies a possible separation, an act of adhesion; and yet it implies that this separation is altogether monstrous and anomalous; that this adhesion is merely the refusal to break a cord of love with which God is actually binding us. 'Abide in me' is doubtless a command; but it is supported by the other clause, 'and I in you.' 'Rest in me as if you were united to me; and a living power shall go forth from me to sustain and quicken you. And all this that you may bear fruit.' That part of the symbol is never for a moment lost sight of. The relation of the branch to the stem implies the passage of a productive life from one into the other. The secret processes within are tending to a result which shall be visible. Christ tells them that they can bear nothing, that they will be utterly barren and dry, unless they retain their attachment to Him, unless He communicates a sap to them continually. He is not satisfied with the comparison; He again puts the doctrine into a more direct form, as if to assure them that He was not using metaphors, that He was taking the most direct method of bringing before them that which was not real but the reality, not a fact, but the fact of their existence. 'I am the Vine, ye are the branches.' 'The energies and powers within you, when I quicken them, shall bring forth thoughts, deeds, words, that shall be living, and shall spread life. Without me all is dead.'

The last clause has brought the law home to the disciples themselves; but the former was more general: 'He that abideth in me, and I in him.' And so is the 6th verse: 'Except a man' (any one) 'abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.' That 'any one' gives the sentence a fearful significance. Let us think well of it. Have we never felt as if, though no voice had cut us off from the fellowship of our brethren, we had cut ourselves off? Have we never felt an internal withering, as if the springs of life in us were all dried up? What was the secret of this condition, which we could trace to no outward violence? Or do we ask, 'What is the cure? How may that separation be put an end to before it becomes fixed and everlasting? How may that secret withering be arrested before it ends in absolute death?' The evil is traced to its source when we are told that we have not abided in Him; the remedy lies in that command, and in no other. The dead sticks are gathered into a bundle and burnt. But the sap has not gone out of the Vine; that may still make the bough to sprout and bud.

The next verses take us a step further. 'If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.' He had said, 'Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, I will do it.' He can now give the words, 'in my name,' their full force. It is not the name of one who may have power with Him to whom they are pleading, but who is far from them. It is the name of Him in whom they are actually dwelling, in whom they are one. And His words are the expression of His Father's will. So far, then, as those words dwell in them, and ascend up from them in prayer to God, so far they are asking according to His will, and He is doing that will in granting them their petitions. Not merely, as we render the passage, 'It shall be done for you,' but 'It shall become to you.' God's will shall work with your will, which it is moulding to itself. And so God is glorified in the fruit which you bring forth. The more rich you are in love and good works, the more is He Himself manifested in you, the more are you Christ's disciples.

Thus we are brought back to the ultimate ground of this relation between Christ and human beings. 'As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: abide in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in His love.' This is the continually recurring burden of this divine song. The love of the Father is at the root of all. The Son can do nothing but in obedience to that. He believes it, obeys it, and so lives in it. The law of the disciples' being is the same. They are to believe in the love which is the manifestation and reflection of this love, to obey it, to live in it.

And now another gift is bestowed which we expect less, on this night of sorrow, than even that gift of peace of which I spoke last Sunday. 'These things have I said unto you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full' (or fulfilled). Remember that this was spoken after He had been 'troubled in spirit' at the thought of His betrayal, not long before He was to pass through the agony. If any one says to himself,—who has not said it to himself?—'What is joy to me? how can I ever be partaker of that?' let him think thus. 'Christ knew, as none of us ever have known or shall know, what the death and extinction of all joy means; what it is to be alone; what it is to feel deserted of men and deserted of God. And yet He spoke of His joy, and of communicating that joy to the disciples. Whence came it? What was it? How could it be communicated? It was obedience to His Father's commands. It came from His submitting to those commands, though they brought Him to suffering, and desertion, and death. It is communicated to men along with that same power of obedience and endurance. His joy was to do a will which He knew to be a loving will, into whatsoever heights or depths it might bring Him. That obedience with all its consequences, He says, He will impart to us if we will receive it.'