John 15:1-11

28 In the East they do not say, as we do, "I am going", but rather "I am going and returning" when spealctng of an ordinary journey. So the Lord assures them that He was not about to leave them permanently, but only for awhile.

30 When our Lord spoke of Himself in relation to the world He often used the third person. Witness the Son of Man (Joh_9:37).

See also Joh_7:18, Joh_9:37.

He is the Coming One, for Whom all creation waits. Yet, when He came, the world had nothing at all in Him. It rejected His chieftainship just as Israel also rejected His messiahship and "there is nothing for Him" (Dan_9:26). None of the glories pertaining to Him were allowed by Israel and He will not assume them until He comes again in power and glory as revealed in the Unveiling, when He appears as the White Horse Rider, crowned with many diadems, the King of kings and Lord of lords (Rev_19:11-16). He, and not Satan, is the Chief of the world. This title occurs only in this account.

See Joh_12:31 and Joh_16:11.

31 What grace is there here! The world judges Him and casts Him out, so He immediately uses their hatred to reveal the love of God to Him and to them. Indeed, here we have love's greatest triumph. Men could not do worse or God better. His love needed their hatred for a foil and makes good use of it to emerge into the open where all the world can see.

1 The fig, the olive, and the vine are used by God to picture the political, the spiritual, and the social blessedness of Israel as a nation. He brought a vine out of Egypt, cast out the nations, and planted it. It filled the land, but was destroyed (Psa_80:8-16). The vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the house of Israel (Isa_5:7). Jeremiah laments that Jehovah had planted them an excellent local variety, yet they had turned into a foreign vine by their unfaithfulness and their joylessness (Jer_2:21). Jotham, in his parable of the trees, tells us that grape juice gladdens both God and mortals (Jud_9:13). But Hosea cries "Israel is a vacant vine. The fruit is equivalent to it" (Hos_10:1). Israel failed to gladden either God or mortals. Christ came and did both. He is the true Vine. The fruitless branches, those who remained not in Him, are taken away. His own are cleansed by the belief of the truth. All gladness for God or mortals must now come through the Messiah.

5 He now restates the truth as to the vine. Only those with Him are the branches. Israel as a nation has no part in Him.

6 The salvation proclaimed by our Lord and the twelve apostles was probational. There was always the danger of "drifting by" (Heb_2:1). They were His house if they retained the boldness and glorying of the expectation confirmed unto the consummation (Heb_3:6). They could withdraw from the living God (Heb_3:12). Many of those once enlightened fell aside (Heb_6:4-6). Such are those who did not remain in the vine, but withered and were destroyed. We, however, are not in the vine, but members of the body of Christ. And the members of a body cannot be lopped off like the branches of a vine. We are saved by grace, and do not depend on our own abiding, but non His power and love. We are vitally and organically a part of Christ Himself. He would be maimed by the excision of members of His body. How thankful we should be that we are not branches in that vine!