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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadSpurgeon Verse Expositions - John 15:1 - 15:27
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Joh_15:1. I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.
Not only the Mosaic law, but the whole creation is full of types of Christ. All the vines that we see in this world are only as it were typical; but Christ is the substance,-the substance of nature as well as of grace: “I am the true vine,” and the real Husbandman, who watches over everything, who has the whole Church, yea, the whole universe, under his care, is the great Father: “My Father is the husbandman.”
Joh_15:2. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away:
It has no right to be there, for it is not there by a vital union; it will only harbor mischief if it is allowed to remain, therefore let it be taken away; and taken away it certainly will be by the Husbandman who makes no mistakes.
Joh_15:2. And every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
So there is taking away for the fruitless branches, and pruning for the fruit-bearing branches. Are you suffering under the pruning knife just now? Accept it joyfully. How much better that the knife should cut off your superfluities than that it should cut you off! The mercy is that, although God will purge and prune his vine-branches, he will not destroy them.
Joh_15:3. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.
Christ had so dealt with his disciples that he left them like a pruned vine, ready and prepared for fruitfulness.
Joh_15:4. Abide in me, and I in you.
The pruning is nothing without the abiding in Christ. You may suffer again and again; but no good can come of it except you have vital, continuous, everlasting union with Christ. You cannot take a branch away from the vine for a little while, and then put it back again; its life depends upon the perfect continuity of its union. So is it with us and Christ: the branch is in the vine, and the vine is in the branch. The very essence and sap of the vine are in the branch even as the branch is part and parcel of the vine.
Joh_15:4-5. 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:
You are not the vine; do not think that you are; and if God blesses you, and makes you of some importance in the Church, yet do not dream that you are the Church, that you are the very root and stein of it. Ah, no! at the utmost, “ ye are the branches.”
Joh_15:5. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit:
Oh, what a searching word is this! Are we bringing forth much fruit? I trust, dear brethren, that we are bringing forth some fruit; but, oh! what a test is this, “He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit.” Christ expects much from those who have this doubly high privilege of having him in them, and of being themselves in him.
Joh_15:5-6. For without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
And are there sufficient of them for that? It is enough to bring tears into one’s eyes to think that there should he enough fruitless, unabiding, merely nominal members of Christ to pay for gathering up to make a fire. Oh, sad, sad thing is this! It is the grief of the Church, it is the sorrow of God’s ministers, it ought to call for great self-examination in our own hearts that mere professors, those who apostatize after having made a profession of religion, do not seem to have been thought by the Saviour to be here and there one, but to be so many that “men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.”
Joh_15:7. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
Power in prayer is dependent upon full enjoyment of union and communion with Christ. It is not every man who can ask of God what he wills, and get it; but it is such a man, and such a man only, as shall be found abiding in Christ, and having Christ’s words abiding in him. If we do not take notice of what Christ says, can we expect that he will take notice of what we say? If we do not obey him when he asks this and that of us, how can we reckon that he will give us this and that when we ask it of him? No, this is the condition of power in prayer, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”
Joh_15:8. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.
You shall be known to be the disciples of the much fruit-bearing Saviour. He was no moderately good man, he was not one who was only a little useful in the world; but our blessed Master was perfectly consecrated, he abounded in every good word and work; and unless we are the same, how shall men think that we are his disciples?
Joh_15:9. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you:
Matchless, matchless word! The love of God the Father to the Son is the immeasurable measure of the love of Christ to his people,-without beginning, without end, without change, without bounds. As the Father loved Christ, so has Christ loved us.
Joh_15:9. Continue ye in my love.
Abide in it, live in it as the fish lives in the stream, enjoy it, do nothing contrary to it.
Joh_15:10-11. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.
When Christ cannot rejoice in us, you may rest assured that we cannot rejoice in ourselves; but when his grace so operates upon us that he sees that in us which gives him content, then it is that we shall feel a blessed content ourselves.
Joh_15:12. This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.
I am sure you will never love each other too much. You cannot go beyond this rule: “Love one another, as I have loved you.”
Joh_15:13. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
What more has he that he can lay down when, having given up all else, he gives life itself for them?
Joh_15:14. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.
You cannot be his friends if you are disobedient to his commands. An act of disobedience is unfriendliness; ay, and the omission of obedience is unfriendliness to Christ. I wish we would always remember that every sin either of omission or of commission, is an unfriendly act towards our best Friend.
Joh_15:15. Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.
The law made man do this and that, but it communicated very little of the secret counsels of God; but there is a holy familiarity between Christ and his people, a sacred confidence which Christ has manifested towards us in revealing the very heart of God to us, and therefore we are put upon a very high standing, not as servants now, but as friends. O friends of Christ, show yourselves friendly by your entire obedience to his gracious will!
Joh_15:16. Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that their fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.
Fruitfulness, perseverance, and power in prayer, these are the priceless boons that come to us through our being one with Christ.
Joh_15:17. These things I command you, that ye love one another.
As if there were many things in one in that command; It is but one command, but it is so comprehensive that all the commandments are fulfilled in this one: “that ye love one another.”
Joh_15:18. If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.
So you need not be at all surprised if the world hates you.
Joh_15:19. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
Therefore expect it, in some form or other, for you will be sure to meet with it. The seed of the serpent never will love the seed of the woman.
Joh_15:20-21. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me.
“If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin,”-as if all the rest would scarcely have been sin at all in comparison with that sin against the light which men committed after Christ had spoken to them. What a wonderful thing it is that the very word which is the creation of all good should, through the perversity of men’s will, become also the creation of evil!
Joh_15:22-23. If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin. He that hateth me hateth my Father also.
There is a hatred of God in all hatred of the Mediator. Men may say that they love God, and yet despise Christ, but it cannot be so. Christ is so truly God, and so clear a manifestation of God, that, if men knew God, they would certainly hate him if they hate Christ.
Joh_15:24-27, If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause. But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me: And ye also shalt bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning.
Many of you know the words of this chapter by heart; you could repeat them without a mistake. May the savor of them abide in your hearts even as the letter of them abides in your memory!
Joh_15:1. I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.
We thank thee, O Saviour, for this blessed answer to the oft-repeated question, “Which is the true Church?”Are you one with Christ? Then are you a part of the true vine. If we have but real, vital personal, having connection with Christ, to whatever section of the visible Church we may belong, we are part of “the true vine.” And we are told, in the next sentence, who is the great Caretaker of the Church? Some of us are much occupied in Christ’s service, and there is a tendency with all of us to get, like Martha, “numbered” even in serving for him. We are apt to fancy that the burden of all the churches lies upon our shoulders, but, beloved, this is a great mistake. Jesus said, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman,” or vine-dresser. He will take the utmost possible care of it, for it is very dear to him. There is not a branch in that vine which the Father does not love with infinite affection; and as for the majestic stem, even Jesus, he loves him beyond measure.
Joh_15:2. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away:
This operation is always going on. God is continually taking away from the Church, in some way or other, non-fruit-bearers. We know that these do not truly belong to Christ, for fruit must come from vital union to him but it is a trial to the Church to have non-fruit-bearing branches. These are taken away, sometimes by death, sometimes by judgment, sometimes by the open discovery of their secret sin, the culmination of their backslides in overt acts of transgression. “Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away:” but side by side with this action another process is constantly going on: —
Joh_15:2. And every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
Is this, then, dear friend, one reason why you are being chastened, —because you are a fruit-bearing branch? If you bore no fruit, you would be left unpruned, because the knife would do its sterner work upon you by taking you altogether away. If you really do bring forth fruit to God, you must expect to have trial, trouble, affliction, and that full often.
Joh_15:3. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.
That was a “word” which had sorely grieved them, and cut them to the quick, so that the Saviour had to say to them, more than once, “Let not your heart be troubled.” (See the 1st, and the 27th, verses of the preceding chapter.) They had felt the sharp edge of the pruning-knife, so Jesus said to them, “Now ye are clean (purged or pruned) through the word which I have spoken unto you.”
Joh_15:4. Abide in me, and I in you.
The main thing is not restless activity, running here and there, and doing this, and that, and the other thing; it is abiding in Christ, persevering, constant cleaving to Christ, by virtue of a vital union with him: “Abide in me, and I in you.”
Joh_15:4. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.
You may hurry, and flurry, and worry; but you will lose by it. Keep close to Christ. Never let your heart be dissociated from intimate communion with him. So shall you bring forth fruit, but not else.
Joh_15:5-6. 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. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered: and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
The vine is of use for nothing but fruit-bearing; and if it does not bear fruit, it is good for nothing except to be burned. In the social economy of life, a man may be of some use however bad he may be; but a man who is in the nominal Church of Christ, and yet does not bring forth fruit unto God, is of no use whatsoever. There is nothing to be done with him but to gather him up with the sere autumn leaves, and the decaying stalks of vegetation, to be burned in the corner outside the wall. How trying is the smoke that comes from such a burning as that! We pastors sometimes get it into our eyes, and it fills them with bitter tears. I know of nothing that is more grievous to us than this putting out of the unworthy, this casting the fruitless vine branches into the fire that they may be burned.
Joh_15:7. Ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, —
You see that doctrinal vitality is necessary to true union to Christ. Some, in these days, talk about a spiritual attachment to the person of Christ, while they shoot their envenomed darts against the dogmas of Christ; but that will not do. “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you,” — my words of doctrine, precept, or promise, then—
Joh_15:7. Ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
This is the secret of successful prayer. Christ listens to your words because you listen to his words. If you are conformed to his will, he will grant you your will. Disobedient children, when they pray, may expect to get the rod for an answer. In true kindness, God may refuse to listen to them until they are willing to listen to him.
Joh_15:8. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit;
What a wonderful vine that must be whose branches glorify God! Who ever heard of such a thing? The very branches do this, and they do it by bearing fruit. How this ought to excite us to desire to bear Christian graces, and to do Christian service, and to endure with resignation the Lord’s will, for those are the clusters that hang upon this vine.
Joh_15:8. So shall ye be my disciples.
For Christ is not merely a fruit-bearer, but a bearer of much fruit. If we are to be Christ’s disciples indeed, we must not be content with doing something for him, but we must do everything that is possible to us; and God can strengthen us till we shall get beyond our natural possibilities into a still loftier realm.
Joh_15:9. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.
As truly as the Father loves the Son, so truly does Jesus love us; nay, more than that, in the same manner as the Father loved the Son, — that is, without beginning, without cessation, without change, without end, without measure, — so does Jesus love us. There are many vast texts in the Bible, but I have often questioned whether there is a bigger text than this, — a vaster abyss of meaning shall not be found in these few words, “As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you.” “Continue ye in my love.” Recognize it, enjoy it, walk in consistency with it, reflect it: “Continue ye in my love.”
Joh_15:10. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.
I said just now that the doctrinal words of Christ were to be regarded by us. So, dearly-beloved, the precepts or commands of God must ever be regarded. It is an idle tale for men to talk of a mythical visionary love to Christ which does not result in obedience to his will. We must keep his commandments, or we cannot truly say to him, “Thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee.”
Joh_15:11. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.
Good children are truly happy when their parents are happy in them. When they, through the good teaching and example of their parents, bring honour and joy to their parents, then they are sure to be themselves joyful. Oh, that we might so live that Christ’s joy might abide in us, for then our joy would be full.
Joh_15:12. This is my commandment, That ye love one another as I have loved you.
Are you doing this, brethren and sisters in Christ, really loving one another? Do you never pick holes in each other’s character? Do you never judge a fellow-Christian harshly? If you do these things, chide yourself, and cease from this evil habit at once, for your Lord says to you, “This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.”
Joh_15:13. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
“Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.” I lift you above the rank of servant, and make you my table companions, privileged to sit at the table with me in communion. I put you down on my list of associates and familiars, with whom I take sweet counsel, and in company with whom I walk to the house of God. “Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.” This condition applies to the whole range of Christ’s commands. We are not to omit any one of them, nor to make a little nick in our conscience as some do, nor to neglect what seems to be a comparatively small duty; for neglected duties, even of the lesser kind, often set upon us as little stones in a boot do upon a traveler. They lame him, they may not prevent him from traveling, but they mar his comfort on the road. Be scrupulous, brethren, lest, through the neglect of what some regard as scruples, you should bring upon yourselves great sorrows.
Joh_15:14-16. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,
“That is where the love began, — not with you, but with me.”
Joh_15:16. And ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain:
There are some people who are very fond of quoting the first part of this verse, they are very glad to hear a sermon upon the free, sovereign grace of God. They cannot too often repeat the words, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you;” but they do not talk so much about the next clause: “and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain.” Let us accept all God’s words as he has given them to us, and keep up the due proportion of the whole. Note that Christ is not speaking here of spasmodic piety, the religion that can only be kept up by popular preaching, and great meetings, and much excitement, and all that sort of thing; but of the religion of principle that bears its clusters tomorrow as well as today, and even months and years hence, — the religion that bears its fruit every month, and the leaf whereof doth not wither. May we be such branches in the true vine that our fruit shall thus remain.
Joh_15:16. That whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.
For, where the fruit remains, power in prayer will remain. If we are constantly living unto God, we shall find ourselves privileged to have the ear of God; and when we pray to him, he will grant us the desire of our hearts.
Joh_15:17. These things I command you, that ye love one another.
Our Lord repeated the command, for he knew how prone even his disciples would be to disobey it.
Joh_15:18. If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.
It is no new thing for the ungodly to hate the godly, so let us not be surprised if that is our portion.
Joh_15:19-20. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.
It ought to be quite sufficient for the servant if he is treated as his Lord was; what higher honour than that could he wish to have?
Joh_15:21. But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sale, because they know not him that sent me.
They professed to know God, and some of them even thought that they were rendering acceptable service to God when they rejected his Son, whom he had sent unto them.
Joh_15:22-24. lf I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin. He that hateth me hateth my Father also. If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father.
Our Lord did not mean that they would have been sinless if he had not come to them, but that his coming, and their rejection of him, had enormously increased and intensified their sinfulness.
Joh_15:25. But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause.
They fulfilled what had been written long before, even as they afterwards did when they put Christ to death.
Joh_15:26-27. But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me: And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning.
The witness of the Spirit of truth still continues, and Christ’s disciples are still privileged to be co-witnesses, even wilt the Holy Spirit himself; let us take care to avail ourselves of this privilege whenever we can.