[ p. 404 ]
THE MESSIANIC VINE
Jo. xv-xvii.
The Master’s communing with the eleven did not end with the Supper. There was still much counsel which He would fain address to them ere He was taken from them ; and He would have lingered with them a while in the Upper Room but for the risk of the traitor’s invasion. The same apprehension forbade His repairing with them immediately to Gethsemane, since Judas knew the place of His nightly resort and would have sought Him there. (Jo. xviii. 2) Whither could He betake Himself to be a little longer secure from interruption ? Usually the gates of the Temple were shut by night, but at the Feast of the Passover they were flung open at midnight lest peradventure the Messiah should appear and “suddenly come to His Temple.” (Mal. iii. 1) They were standing open when the Master and His disciples left the Upper Room; and where could He be safer from molestation than within the silent and deserted precincts ?
Thither they repaired, and passing into the inner court they were confronted by King Herod’s magnificent Sanctuary of marble and gold, glistening in the clear moonlight. What chiefly caught the spectator’s eye was the golden emblazonry above the entrance— the trailing branches of a vine laden with grapeclusters large as a man’s stature. It was a triumph of artistry, and the Latin historian tells how it [ p. 405 ] impressed the Romans when they took the city and invaded that sacred court which no profane foot was suffered to tread. Since the vine was the emblem of Bacchus, the rude soldiery fancied that the Jews were his worshippers.
And what was its actual significance ? Originally the vine was an emblem of Israel; but even as “the Son of God” which properly meant Israel came to mean first the King of Israel and then is the Messiah, the King of Israel par excellence (Cf. Ps. lxxx. 8-16; Is. v. 1-7; Jer. ii. 21), so in later days the vine was an emblem of the Messiah. “O God of Hosts,” runs the Rabbinical paraphrase of the eightieth psalm, “turn now again; look from heaven and see, and remember in mercy this vine, and the vine-shoot which Thy right hand hath planted, and the King Messiah whom Thou hast established for Thyself.” The disciples knew well the meaning of the sacred emblem ; and there in the silent court of the Temple on that solemn night the Lord pointed to it and made it the text of His further discourse.
“I,” He began, “am the true Vine”—the reality which the vine symbolised —“and My Father is the Husbandman.” His disciples were the branches; and here lay the reason of all their suffering: it was the Husbandman’s pruning of His branches that they might “bear much fruit,” and His excision of branches which, alas! were dead and withered. So it had befallen the traitor, and so it would befall every branch which did not maintain vital union with the stem, drinking the nourishment of its sap.
He was the stem; and what was it to be in vital union with Him ? It was to “abide in His love” [ p. 406 ] and recognise the obligation which it imposed upon them. Love’s uttermost proof is the laying down of one’s life for one’s friends ; and He was laying down His life for them. Here was their sacred obligation; here was His parting commandment—that they should love one another as He had loved them.
They must as His disciples lay their account for persecution. He had been persecuted, and had He not often told them that “a disciple is not above his teacher nor a slave above his lord ” ? (Mt. x. 24,25; Jo. xiii. 16) And this they would experience when they went forth into a hostile world and testified of Him. It was indeed a stern ordeal that awaited them, but in the midst of it they would have strong consolations to sustain them. It would avail them much when they were excommunicated as heretics and every one who killed them fancied that he was offering a pious service to God, to know that this was only what they should expect. And therefore He was forewarning them “that when the hour came, they might remember that He had told them.”
And furthermore, when He was gone, they would not be left alone. The Advocate would be with them in His room, and they would be cheered by His blessed ministry. His illumination would make every dark thing plain. At the moment all looked very dark, but presently the truth would appear, and what seemed disastrous defeat would be recognised as a glorious triumph. “When the Advocate has come, He will convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment: of sin, because they believe not in Me; of righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer behold Me ; of judgment, because the prince [ p. 407 ] of this world has been judged.” When the Lord was condemned and crucified, it seemed the triumph of wrong over right; but when He arose from the dead and ascended to the right hand of God, then it was seen that right had triumphed, and then appeared the sinfulness of unbelief, the righteousness of the moral order, and the doom of the power of evil. All this was hidden meanwhile from the disciples, but they would recognise it when the Spirit of truth came and guided them into all the truth.
And here was another consolation which they would have when He was gone. Hidden though He was from mortal eyes, yet in His gracious operations they would see the evidence of His continual presence. “A little while, and you no longer behold Me ; and again a little while, and you will see Me.” The paradox puzzled them, and they whispered to each other : “What is this that He is telling us ?” And so He explained it to them. For a little while they would grieve and lament, and the unbelieving world would rejoice in its seeming triumph; but only for a little, and then their grief would be turned to joy. Just last night He had told them that the tribulations which would ensue on His departure were nothing else than the birth-pangs of a better world; and this they would perceive when their minds were illumined by the grace of the Holy Spirit. “When a woman is in travail, she has grief because her hour is come ; but when she brings forth her child, she no longer remembers her distress for her joy that a man has been born into the world.” And once they understood this, they would never more be dismayed. [ p. 408 ] Whatever befell they would recognise it as the working out of God’s redemptive purpose.
“In that day,” He says, “you will entreat Me for nothing.” Hitherto prayer had meant for the disciples nothing else than entreaty, the crying of their fearful and troubled hearts for help and guidance; but henceforth it would have a new meaning for them. Realising their union with the Father through their glorified Lord, they would be well content with His appointments, and prayer would be for them no longer entreaty but surrender to His sovereign and blessed will. And this sort of prayer never goes unanswered. “Verily, verily I tell you, if you ask anything of the Father, He will give it you in My name. Hitherto you have asked nothing in My name: ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be complete.”
What more could He say ? He had poured out His heart to His disciples, assuring them of His undying love and striving to dissipate their alarm by discovering to them the issue of their present sorrow; but again and again in the course of that night they had evinced by their bewildered questions how incapable they were meanwhile of grasping the truth. Further communing were unavailing (Jo. xvi. 12). He had indeed much more to tell them, but they could not bear it at present. The difficulty was that the future was all so strange to them, and He could tell them of it only by parables. There was nothing for it but to await the issue, and then the Holy Spirit would reveal its significance. " All this have I spoken to you in parables, but an hour is coming when no longer in parables will I speak to you but send you plain tidings of the Father.” He had told them that [ p. 409 ] it was advantageous for them that He should go away and the Advocate come in His room; and here the reason appears. The chief of His parables was His Incarnation (Jo. xvi. 7)—that gracious accommodation to their material limitations. It was impossible for them to see the Father with their mortal eyes or hear Him with their mortal ears ; and that they might conceive of Him, the Eternal Son had become flesh and dwelt among them.
“So, to their mortal eyes subdued.
Flesh-veiled, but unconcealed,
They knew in Him the fatherhood
And heart of God revealed”
But it was merely “an image of the Invisible God” that they beheld in Him while He was with them wearing the form of frail mortality; and only when, still cherishing them in loving remembrance, He had passed from their sight to the Father’s House, carrying thither His glorified humanity, did they realise His spiritual presence and their fellowship with the Father through Him.
Surely it was advantageous for them that He should go away and the Advocate come in His room. His departure was not the cessation of His ministry. Here is the truth which St. John proclaims when in his first epistle he speaks of our Glorified Lord as “our Advocate with the Father.” (1 Jo. ii. 1) While He was here in the days of His flesh, He was the Father’s Advocate with the children of men, presenting to them His overtures of peace and seeking to win them to faith. And when He went away, not only did He send His Holy Spirit to continue evermore [ p. 410 ] His advocacy, witnessing for God and pleading His cause in human hearts, but He carried our cause into the court of Heaven, pleading it there evermore, our Advocate with the Father.
Do we inquire what need there is that He should plead with God on our behalf ? wherefore, since He is one with God and God is our Father, He should intercede for us with One who loves us even as He does ? See how He answers this question : “I do not tell you that I will entreat the Father for you. For the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came forth from God.” It is told how after the Union of the Crowns the English fretted at the favour which was shown to Scotsmen in the allocation of offices of honour and emolument at the royal court. And what was the reason of it ? It was that a Scotsman was on the throne, and Scotsmen had an advocate with the King. His own Scottish heart pleaded their cause. And even so have we children of men an Advocate with God in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Eternal Son of God who made Himself one with us that we might be one with Him, linking God to humanity by His Incarnation and humanity to God by His Ascension. It is God’s own heart that pleads our cause and makes continual intercession for us ; and thus we are bound with gold chains about His feet, being infinitely dear and precious to Him as the purchase of His dear Son’s precious blood.
“I do not tell you that I will entreat the Father for you. For the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came forth from God. I came forth from the Father and [ p. 411 ] have come into the world ; again I am leaving the world and going to the Father.” That was a plain declaration. “See,” cried the disciples, poor, loyal, bewildered souls, anxious to assure Him of their faith, “now you are speaking plainly ; it is no parable that you are telling. Now we know that you know everything and have no need that any one should entreat you. Hereby we believe that you came forth from God.” Alas ! they little realised what was before them. “At present,” He murmured, “you believe. Look you, an hour is coming, ay it has come, when you will be scattered each of you to his own home and leave Me alone. And I am not alone : the Father is with Me.” It was well for them to know the grim reality; yet He would not dishearten them, and He added a ringing challenge : “All this have I told you that in Me you may have peace. In the world it is distress that you have; but courage ! I have conquered the world.”
He had done communing with them, and it only remained that, ere going to meet His doom, He should commend to God Himself and them and the cause which He had entrusted to them. Standing there in their midst He lifted His eyes to Heaven and thus poured out His heart:
“Father, the hour hath come. Glorify Thy Son that Thy Son may glorify Thee, even as Thou gavest Him authority over all flesh, that whatever C f. Mt. xi. Thou hast given Him, He may give them life 27 * eternal. And this is the eternal life—the recognition of Thee the only true God and Him whom Thou didst commission, even Jesus Christ. I glorified Thee on the earth by accomplishing the work which Thou hast [ p. 412 ] given Me to do ; and now glorify Thou Me, Father, by Thine own side with the glory which ere the world was I had by Thy side.
“I manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou gavest Me out of the world. Thine they were, and to Me Thou gavest them; and they have kept Thy message. Now have they recognised that whatsoever things Thou hast given Me are from Thee. For the words which Thou gavest Me I have given them ; and they received them, and they truly recognised that I came forth from Thee, and they believed that Thou didst commission Me. It is for them that I entreat. It is not for the world that I entreat, but for those whom Thou hast given Me; for they are Thine—all Mine is Thine and Thine Mine—and I have been glorified in them. And no longer am I in the world : it is they that are in the world, and I am coming to Thee. Holy Father, keep them in Thy name which Thou hast given Me, that they may be one even as we are. While I was with them, I kept them in Thy name which Thou hast given Me ; I guarded them, and none of them was lost—only the son of loss, [1] that the Scripture might be fulfilled. And now I am coming to Thee, and I am speaking thus in the world that they may have My joy completed in their own experience. I have given them Thy message, and the world hated them because they belong not to the world even as I belong not to the world My entreaty is not that Thou remove them from the [ p. 413 ] world but that Thou keep them from the Evil One. They belong not to the world even as I belong not to the world. Consecrate them in the truth: Thy message is truth. Even as Thou didst commission Me to the world, I also commissioned them to the world ; and it is for their sake that I am consecrating Myself, that they also may be consecrated in the truth.
“It is not for these only that I entreat, but for those who through their message believe in Me, that they may all be one—that, even as Thou, O Father, art in Me and I in Thee, they also may be in us, that the world may believe that Thou didst commission Me. And the glory which Thou hast given Me, I have given them, that they may be one even as we are one—I in them and they in Me, that they may be perfectly one, that the world may recognise that Thou didst commission Me and love them even as Thou lovedst Me.
“O Father, what Thou hast given Me—My wish is that where I am they also may be with Me, to behold My glory which Thou hast given Me because Thou lovedst Me ere the foundation of the world. O righteous Father—and the world did not recognise Thee ; [2] but I recognised Thee, and these recognised that Thou didst commission Me. And I made Thy name known to them and will make it known, that the love wherewith Thou lovedst them may be in them and I in them.”
A Hebrew phrase. As “a son of wickedness” meant a villain, so “a son of loss” meant a wastrel. Was our Lord thin Id ng of the scene at the supper at Bethany (cf. Mt. xxvi. 8) ? “Wherefore this loss ?” Judas protested when he saw Mary’s costly offering, oblivious of his own tragic loss. ↩︎
A sentence broken by emotion. Cf. Jo. xiv. 22, xxi. 21. ↩︎