The True Vine

I love words! This is probably why as a teenager I wanted to be a journalist. That is until I worked on my high school newspaper. I hated the deadlines and the fact that I had to write about things that weren’t of any interest to me, so I decided to be an English teacher instead!

During my twenty year career of stewarding students through the great works of literature and helping them to learn the basics of communicating clear thoughts through written and spoken essays, my love affair with words grew. Why, you may ask? Because words are powerful!

Think about this…God could have used any agent in the universe for creation, yet He chose words. Genesis chapter one records how God spoke light, water, land, plants, animals, and all of creatures on the entire earth into being. John 1:1 brings an even deeper revelation as to the power of words as the Apostle John wrote, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Jesus calls Himself, the Living Word, in John 6:15.

As Christians, we need to pay attention to words, all the words that we choose to absorb, to speak, and especially those spoken by Jesus because there is so much power in what He says. In John 15:1, Jesus tells His disciples this, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine dresser.” Most of the time when this verse is quoted, it is phrased this way, “I am the vine, and my Father is the vinedresser”. Do you notice the word that is often left out? It is the word, true. To be honest, I did too, until one day, I realized that it was there (in every Bible translation), so I started to dig deeper.

In the book of John, Jesus uses the phrase “I am….”, seven times.

• “I am the bread of life.” (John 6:35)

• “I am the light of the world.” (John 8:12)

• “I am the door of the sheep.” (John 10:7,9)

• “I am the resurrection and the life.” (John 11:25)

• “I am the good shepherd.” (John 10: 11,14)

• “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” (John 10: 11,14)

• “I am the true vine.” (John 15:1).

Do you notice anything different about the last statement? It is the only time that Jesus uses an adjective before the noun. As you can imagine, for an English teacher, this is meaningful! Why would Jesus choose to put a descriptive, qualitative, defining word in this metaphor only? I knew it had to be important, and it is!

The vine or vineyard are referenced 58 times in 27 books of the Bible. In the Old Testament, it is used repeatedly as a metaphor for the nation of Israel, God’s chosen people.

In both Psalm 80 and Isaiah 5, the prophet and poet tell of God planting a vineyard. Its origins are from a shoot or branch transplanted from Egypt. God cares for and protects the vineyard from danger, setting the watchtower, watering, and nurturing it. The vineyard at first thrives, growing from “the sea” to “the River”, denoting the boundaries of God’s promised land to the Israelites. His purpose for the vineyard was for it to bear “good fruit”, but instead the fruit was “wild,” and of no use for God’s purpose.

Finally, God had enough of Israel’s disobedience and rebellion, and He breaks “down the walls” that He constructed to protect them. Their enemies begin to attack and plunder the “fruit.” The Israelites cry out for God to once more, “Look down from heaven, and see; have regard for this vine.”

Eventually, God answers the cries of Israel, allowing them to return to Jerusalem, after 70 years of exile in Babylon. The Temple is restored, and the vine begins to bear the fruit of obedience once more, until it doesn't. Enter Jesus.

Sent to redeem God’s chosen people, Jesus used the vineyard metaphor to proclaim Himself as God’s son, the son of the vineyard owner Jesus references in ‘The Parable of the Tenants’ (Matthew 21: 33-46). As the story goes, the vineyard owner leased the care of the vines to tenants during his absence. He then sends his son, as his representative, to collect his fruit. The tenants reject the son, throwing him from the vineyard and killing him. As a result, the vineyard owner threw the tenants out and replaced them with new ones.

Jesus is providing a vision of the future of Israel. Their rejection of Him, as the true Messiah, leads to the creation of the Church today. A new people, who have been given the charge to “abide” in Him, so as to bear the fruit of The Spirit. Jesus therefore is the “true vine” (John 15:1). He is the fulfillment of God’s promise, and it is through our belief in Him that we become a part of God’s chosen people.

Gaining an understanding of the history of the vine imagery throughout the Bible, helps us to see more clearly God’s plan for and faithfulness to those He calls. Although men and women have and continue to fail in their attempts to remain obedient to Him, God has remained true to His promise. Jesus, through His sacrifice on the cross, continues to offer redemption to those who seek, believe, and abide with Him!

To learn more about what it means to abide, listen here.

To see the vineyard and learn more about the anatomy of the grapevine, watch here.