"It is only when we have truly seen the Lord Jesus to be the End that we have come to the beginning of the real Christian life that God has for us. As we have seen, what previously was the far-distant end--righteousness, peace with God, holiness, revival--to be achieved only after many struggles, now becomes the beginning for us. We have found Christ Himself to be for us all those things, and we have seen His precious blood to be the easy accessible way to that End. We are now given the privilege of beginning at the End!
"Now, what is involved in this new beginning? We hardly need to ask the question, for instinctively
everyone who makes the new discovery knows that it is for others. The new testimony which such a one
gives is not only that his Lord might be glorified, but that others should share the same life that he is
enjoying. Indeed, it is the spreading of this new life in Christ to others which is the spreading of revival.
"Those whose normal climate of living is that of law rather than of grace will feel they are at last on
familiar ground, and will expect here at least some exhortation as to what they have to do in the way of
witnessing, soul winning, reaching others, etc.
"But no, not even here does grace quit the field. There never comes a time when grace ends and self has to begin again, and this applies to what we call our service as much as to any other part of our Christian lives. In no place do we need to know the Way of Grace more than in the impartation of this Life to others.
"Our service for our fellows does not come from strained efforts on our part to live for them, but rather from seeing Jesus doing so, and then simply making ourselves available to Him that we may be the channel of His grace and power to them. This was the way in which He walked in His relationship with the Father, and it is the way in which we must walk in our relationship with Him. Said He, 'The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do: for what things so ever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise' (John 5:19).
"And we, too, can do nothing but what we see the Lord Jesus doing. Until we see that, we are helpless, and our service is nothing more than self-initiated striving. But if we will first seek to see what the Lord Jesus is doing in a situation, then we can move with Him, even as the Son moved with the Father, and in that co-operation between man and God the true works of God are produced. Ours is not to originate anything, but simply to yield ourselves to Him to be the channel of what He initiates and carries through, and to trust Him to do so through us.
"Let us state the truth simply and boldly, the Lord Jesus is for others. Just as the vine does not bear its grapes for its own refreshment but for the refreshment of others, so has this Divine Vine chosen to be and
to act only and always for others. All He did was for others.
"When He came from heaven, it was for others. When He laid down His life, it was for others. Even when He was raised again from the dead, it was quite as much to justify others as to justify Himself and His claims (Rom. 4:24). Furthermore, the position He occupies just now in heaven is for others, for we read that He has entered 'into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us' (Heb. 9:24).
"We sing about His present 'riches in glory all His own,' but whereas they are His own, He only holds them for us. The Father has raised up His Son and appointed Him to be all the time for others; and you and I are those guilty, undeserving others.
"Not only is this what He is, but this determines what His purpose is. It is to recover these others to God and Himself through the redemption of His Cross, by the mighty working of His Holy Spirit among them.
"This is no wishful thinking on His part, but a settled Divine purpose which is backed by all the resources of heaven, and is therefore certain of fulfillment. And today, all over this world, redeemed at the cost of His blood, Jesus the Vine is bringing forth His fruit for the healing of the nations, and dying sinners, tasting of that fruit, live.
"The Lord Jesus, however, is not alone in this. He draws redeemed men into co-operation with Himself in
the outworking of His glorious purposes, and they become His branches on which His fruit is borne. Just
as apart from Him the branches can do nothing of themselves, so it is that apart from them the Vine does
not bear fruit.
"They do not, however, produce or initiate the fruit; that is altogether His work. They simply bear what He produces as He lives His life again in them. This is exactly the picture that the Lord Jesus gives us in John 15 of our relationship with Himself when He says, 'I am the Vine, ye are the branches.' The believer is constituted a branch in Christ who comes to dwell in him.
I'm joined to Christ; I know He's mine!
"This means that he is made a part of the One who lives and acts only for the salvation and blessing of
men, and He designs to bear His fruit for them on just such a branch. What a comfort to us, when
conscious of our weakness, to know He is the Vine! But on the other hand, with what boldness and
authority does not this endue us as we move among needy, hungry men. I am His branch, a part of Him whose resources are limitless for the blessing of these men around me!
"Let us look more closely at this parable of the Vine and the branches, which illustrates more clearly than
perhaps any other Scripture our union with the Lord Jesus.
"He begins by saying, 'I am the true Vine.' The construction of the sentence in the Greek gives special
emphasis to the word 'true.' Quite obviously the Lord is contrasting Himself with another vine that was
not the true vine, which proved a failure.
"The Old Testament abounds in references to this vine. "The Psalmist says, 'Thou past brought a vine out of Egypt: Thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it. Thou preparest room before it, and didst cause it to take deep root, and it filled the land' (Psa. 80:8-9).
"This vine was Israel, and God's intention in bringing them out of Egypt and planting them in their own land was that they might bring forth fruit for the nations, that in them all nations of the world should be blessed.
"But that vine failed of that high purpose, for they regarded their privileges and blessings as being only for themselves, and turned away from their God to idols. So it is we hear God saying, 'Israel is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself' (Hos. 10:1).
"There was plenty of foliage, but no fruit for God or man. Again, He laments in another place concerning Israel, 'I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto Me?' (Jer. 2:21).
"The most dramatic passage, however, about the failure of this Old Testament vine is the beautiful song of the vineyard in Isaiah 5:1-4:
"What a parable this is, not only of Israel, but of ourselves! What could have been done more to us that God has not done for us?
"Many of us can look back on a good and godly upbringing, when we were spared much that has spoilt other lives. Then came the day, when hearing the message of grace, we received Jesus Christ as our Saviour.
"Those days were followed by marvelous privileges and blessings denied many others. We were taught, perhaps, by teachers well versed in the Scriptures; we enjoyed the fellowship of other saints; a sphere of service lay ready at our hand, and God poured innumerable blessings into our laps. Nor did we lack the personal attention of the Vine dresser, for He came to us often in pruning and in healing.
"Of each of us in varying degrees God has to say, "What could have been done more to My vineyard that I have not done in it?' And yet when He looked for grapes, the fruit of the Spirit, that would glorify Him and bless others, we brought forth only wild, bitter grapes, the ugly works of the flesh. Look again at these works which all too often are all that God has got from us. 'The works of the flesh are manifest, which are these:
uncleanness,
lasciviousness,
idolatry,
sorcery,
enmities,
strife,
jealousies,
wraths,
factions,
divisions,
parties,
envyings,
drunkenness,
revellings, and such like'
(Gal. 5:10-21 RV).
"There is everything here that is sour and hurtful, from sexual impurity to jealousy and a party spirit, but
nothing for God or man. This is the fruit that we have served to those at home, at work, and even in our
church. And all this has been produced on a vine on which God has lavished so many privileges and so
much care. And, strange to say, this has been the state of things, even when we vowed that it should be
otherwise, and struggled to make it so.
"Now, why should this be our experience? Why was this the state of things with Israel, God's Old
Testament vine? The simple reason was that Israel was the vine, and just as long as Israel was the vine,
she could not but produce this kind of fruit, for such fruit is characters of fallen human nature, for its
centre is ever itself.
"If human nature could have been improved to produce sweet grapes, then it would have been seen in Israel's case, for no vine received so much from God as they did. But in the failure of Israel was demonstrated the complete inability of man ever to be a vine to produce fruit for God.
"This, then, is the reason for our failure, too. It is simply that we have been trying to be the vine; we have
been trying to find a holiness and a love for others in ourselves and from ourselves which Scripture never
encourages us to expect to find there. We have discovered what Paul had to discover long before us, when
he said, '"I know that in me (that is, in my flesh), dwelleth no good thing' (Rom 7:18).
"Another who made the same discovery once prayed, 'O God, forgive me the wrong I do by being me.' This, then, was the vine with which the Lord Jesus contrasted Himself. Thus it was that, standing in the midst of the ruins of the vine which had been such a sorrow to God, He cried, 'I am the true Vine.' It was as if He said, 'Man's day of being the vine is over. God's judgment of him as the vine is to be completed in My body on the Tree. From now on, I am the Vine. From Me now is God's fruit to be found and from nowhere else.'
"Rightly understood this is the best news we could have. God no longer expects us to be the vine. We need
not even try. The responsibility for producing fruit is no longer ours. God has His own true Vine, the risen Lord Jesus, who is well able to produce all the fruit that God requires for others, and to fulfill all the
purposes of His grace for men.
"But where do we come in? Simply as branches in Him, the Vine. We do not produce the fruit, but simply
bear what He produces, as we permit Him to live in us. This throws a new light on those words of Paul, 'I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live' (Gal. 2:20).
"There is a Paul here who was crucified with Christ, and a Paul who nonetheless lives. Which is which? The Paul who was crucified with Christ was Paul the vine, the man who vainly tried to do his best. The Paul who nevertheless lived was Paul, the branch, the man who was broken as to his self-confidence, and was dependent on his Lord. And in Paul, the branch, the Lord Jesus lived His life again, for he goes on to say immediately, 'yet not I, but Christ liveth in me,' just as the vine by its sap lives in the branch. Jesus became for Him the Vine, the source of all the fruitage that was seen in his life and service.
"We come now to the practical implementing of all this in our daily experience. It is possible for any of us
at any time to assume the position, often unconsciously, of the vine.
"We start the day as if it were our day and we make our plans for our day and fully intend to do our best for the Lord. The responsibility and government is really on our shoulders, and we have subtly become the vine. But just because it is our day and we are the vine, things soon go wrong. People and circumstances upset our schedule and interfere with what we wanted to do, and there is a reaction of hardness, irritation, and resentment in our hearts, and often the sharp retort on our lips.
"The very responsibility of trying to be the vine makes us tense, and tenseness always predisposes us to further sin. If we are charged with the responsibility of some special piece of Christian service, our tenseness and reactions are often far worse, and we can go into that piece of service without calling them sin. It is little wonder that we return abashed and defeated.
"The way of repentance, however, is ever open to us. Our true Vine, Jesus Himself, has, like many an
ordinary vine, been tied to a stake, the stake of Calvary. He invites us to return to Him in repentance and
to confess the source of these things as being our attempt to be ourselves the vine, receiving from His
hands forgiveness and cleansing.
"Immediately He becomes the Vine to us again and we become the branch that rests in Him. And in the very place of failure, we have the fruits of the Spirit, the products of His life and nature. What an array of precious grapes they are, all of them for the blessing of others and all of them characteristic of Himself! What a contrast to the works of the flesh, so characteristic of us!
love, joy, peace,
longsuffering,
gentleness, goodness,
faith, meekness,
self control"
(Gal. 5:22-23).
"Inasmuch as the Scripture does not speak of the fruits of the Spirit, but rather of the fruit (in the singular)
of the Spirit, it would seem that all of them are component of the first one mentioned, the all inclusive
fruit of love, His love for the other man.
"The way of victory is, however, always by repentance. Jesus cannot be the Vine to us, except as we repent
of the works of the flesh as God shows them to us. A mere attempt to trust Him more completely and to
rest in Him, without an acknowledgment of the sin there is, never brings victory, His victory.
"He is only the Vine to me as I repent of trying to be the vine myself. It is only as I repent of my unlove that I have His love; only as I confess my worry and lack of peace that I have His peace; only as I confess my
impatience that I have His longsuffering; only as I confess my resentment that I have His meekness, and
so on.
"More than that, when we are willing for Him to be the Vine and we but the branch, His purposes of salvation and blessing for other lives begin to be worked out. Things just happen, marvelous things. Being
what He is, it could hardly be otherwise. Being a marvelous Lord, marvelous things are just normal to
Him.
"He does not need us to persuade Him to save and revive others. This is His work. He does not begin to
work only when we begin to pray and believe. He is working like this all the time, only we have not been
linked to Him.
"But when we begin to pray, and (even more important than prayer) when we begin to believe, we are caught up into the purposes in which He is already engaged and become the branches on which His fruit is borne. The degree in which this is our experience is simply the degree in which we expect it of Him.
fulfilled through us.
"First, we must be continually seeing by faith Jesus to be the Vine, the One who is love for other and who
is working out His purposes of grace towards them in the power of His limitless resources. He is never at
a loss, never discouraged, never defeated, and He is our Vine!
"Our weakness and emptiness is no hindrance to Him; indeed, it gives Him the more room in which to prove Himself. What a sight of Him to fill our vision! Boldness, confidence, and assurance spring up in our hearts as the natural result. As we become victorious in spirit, the battle is won before it is begun, and His fruits cannot but appear.
"Second, there must be the willingness to be broken and become available to Him as a branch. A branch
has no independent life of its own. It exists only to bear the fruit of the Vine. So it must be with us in our
relationship to the Lord Jesus.
"What a battle there is in our hearts so often with our selfishness and personal interests! So often we are just not available to Him because we have lapsed back to our old centre, self. But it must be surrendered if we are to be available to Him as His branch, and that not just in one sweeping surrender, which we may make in a solemn moment of dedication, but just as things come up and as He deals with us. The will involve a continuous dying to self and its rights and wishes, but only so can the Lord Jesus bring forth His fruit on the branch.
"A word of testimony will illustrate the point. The writer was traveling by train to conduct some meetings.
He had to change trains twice before he reached his destination. For the first part of the journey he was
buried in his newspaper, and although he was conscious of a little Voice telling him he ought to have a
heart for the others in the compartment, he was unwilling to lay aside his paper. He was not available to
the Vine.
"On the second part of his journey, he was occupied in preparing his message for the meeting at which he was to preach. Once again the little Voice told him he should have a heart for the others around him. But he was tense and anxious about the meeting ahead of him, and he felt he must continue. Once again he was not available.
"But as he approached the third part of his journey, the Lord Jesus broke him and he at last told the Lord Jesus of his willingness to be His branch. The compartment into which he now entered was empty, and he wondered if God really had been speaking to him. Very soon a man came in, and continued to be the only occupant with him until the end of the journey. The conversation was easily turned to spiritual things and to the man's need of the Lord Jesus. He proved to be a prepared heart indeed. Five minutes from the destination he received Him as his personal Saviour there in the train, and letters from him have since evidenced the fact that God did a work in his heart that day.
"That very experience gave the writer the fresh vision of His Lord that he needed at that time, a new confidence in Him sprang up in his heart, and in the days that followed he saw the Lord Jesus bring revival and salvation to a church in a way in which he had seldom seen before.
"This blessed Vine, then, is compassionate and touched with the needs of men, but we are selfish and
unconcerned. This Vine exists just for others, but we are self-centred. This Vine is gloriously sufficient to implement Its own purposes of love for men, but we are unbelieving and not available. May God deal
with us and break us so that we shall be willing to be available to Him as His branches!
part in this life. Said He, 'Abide in Me, and I in You' (John 15:4). It is well that we have kept this word to
the very end, for it has often loomed too large in the thinking of earnest, seeking souls.
"It has often been said, 'The secret is in the abiding.' But that is not so, for it makes the secret to reside in something we do, and this can only lead to yet another form of striving, the striving to abide. The secret surely lies in the Vine, and the blessing comes from our seeing Him as such and as we see Him, before we know it, we are abiding!
"The word to 'abide' simply means to 'dwell' or 'remain' or 'continue.' God has placed us in His Son,
united us to Him as a branch is to the Vine. Let us simply remain there, dwell there, continue there, abide
there, in Him.
"If we do this, then He on His part promises to dwell, remain, abide in us. 'Abide in Me' is the condition which we are to fulfill. 'I in you' is the promise which He will fulfill. It is as if He says, 'If you will dwell in Me, I will dwell in you.' And when He is living again His life in us, His fruit and victory cannot but be manifest, for He never fails.
"In what, then, does abiding in Christ consist? The word must be interpreted in the light of all we have said
of Jesus, the Vine.
"It consists, first, in a willingness to repent quickly whenever sin comes in, because we have assumed the position of the vine. This continually puts us in our right position as branches.
"Second, it means continually seeing Jesus as the Vine, living and acting for others in the power of His limitless resources. Then there is the continuous faith that reckons on its union with this precious Vine. Such faith does not ask to be united to Him, but takes its stand that it is united already, and praises Him for His life made ours. With that there is the brokenness that continually yields its rights and interests to Jesus, that it might be available to Him as His branch for blessing others.
"Lastly, there is the pouring out of love to others, not in word only but in deed. As we begin to pour out, He pours in of His love. But if we will not begin to pour out, He cannot pour in. It is only as we turn the tap, and begin to draw off water, that fresh water is poured into the tank. The latter is actually the only definition in John 15 that Jesus Himself gives of abiding, and therefore must include every other part. Said He, 'If ye keep My commandments, ye shall abide in My love . . . . This is My commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.'
"Let us not, however, make any formula out of this firstly, secondly, thirdly. Simply be seeing Jesus as the
Vine and ourselves a part of Him, and be willing to be His branches for others. So shall He, this
wonderful, living, gracious Vine, be living His life again in us, producing His own fruit for men and
doing wonders for them.
"To see Jesus, then, is the answer here as in every other aspect of our Christian lives.
"'Sir, we would see Jesus.'"
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