31 But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence.

r ch. x. 18. Phil. ii. 8. Heb. v. 8.

r

Death, the wages of sin? Because I love the Father, Who hath sent Me to redeem His fallen creatures by suffering such a Death.

"And as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do." The Father has given Me a commandment that I should "lay down my life that I may take it again," and so I do.

"Arise, let us go hence." Let us go hence to the place where I may be taken, for all things are ordered. I cannot be taken here." Thus the Lord, of His own free will, set forth to obey the Father's will, and to redeem us by His Death. (See Matthew xx. 17; Mark x. 32-34.)

THE TRUE VINE.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

"I am the true vine." As this parable or proverb of the Vine and the Branches is of supreme importance, setting forth, as it does, the great Church truth of mystical union with the Son of God, as well as the means for maintaining it, and our liability to fall from it, it may be well to make one or two remarks by way of introduction.

1. This is the first place where the Apostles (and in them the whole Church) are said to be "in Christ." In the discourse in the synagogue at Capernaum (John vi. 56), the Lord had given a promise that, if men would do a certain thing, which He spoke of as "eating His Flesh and drinking His Blood,” He would abide in them, and they in Him. In the last chapter (xiv. 20), He had promised that, after a little while-i.e. after the Spirit had descendedthey should know, i.e. realize more perfectly, that He should be in them, and they in Him. Now, for the first time, He speaks to them as actually "in Him."

Now this He does immediately after the Institution of the Eucha

rist, when He had given to them His Body and His Blood. So that, as they had fulfilled the condition, He speaks to them as having received the promise.

If the reader will consider the very important application of the two words, "in Christ," throughout the Pauline Epistles, he will see how necessary it is to consider the circumstances under which they were first used.

2. We have, in these words, the Church for the first time described as a living body, or organization, having a common life in Christ. There are in Scripture three organizations, which set forth the relations of Christ to His Church.

(1.) That of a King and His Kingdom. This is the one which commonly prevails in the Synoptics. It is not mentioned in St. John's Gospel, in which its place is supplied by the Shepherd and the Sheep. It sets forth kingly power, government, protection, and reward on the one side, and loyalty, loving obedience, and willing service on the other; but it is an outward union, compared to the other two-there being no common life in the King and His subjects, as there is between the Vine and its branches, or between the Body and its Head.

(2.) That of a Tree and its branches. Here a Vine and its branches (in Rom. xi., an olive tree). Here is a far closer union, because the figure is that of an organization in which there dwells one life. The life of the stem, through its juices or sap, rises into the branches, and, circulating through the larger limbs into the smaller branches, produces fruit.

(3.) The Head of the human body and the members of the body (1 Cor. xii.). Here there is a very important advance. For the soul or mind which dwells in the head makes its influence felt all through the body, directing through the nerves the motion of each limb to one end, and making the whole produce, not some insensible thing, such as grapes, but the works of active intelligent life. Again, we have in the figure of the body the distinctions of offices and functions, which we have not in the vine. But the illustrative figure of the Head and members is wanting in two respects -first, the head is the source of guidance or direction, not of nourishment; secondly, the body cannot have a new limb inserted into it, or it would become a monster; neither can it have a limb removed, or it would be maimed: whereas the tree can have a branch of another tree grafted into it; and many trees, particularly

the vine, must be continually pruned of worthless branches, if they are to continue to bear fruit.

3. This is the place where our Lord sets forth the great truth of "Justification of Life,” which it was the special mission of St. Paul to expand and apply universally. Justification, as set forth both by the Lord here, and by St. Paul, in Rom. ch. v. 18, is a matter of life rather than of imputation. It is the Resurrection Life of the Lord, permeating His Church, and every member of it; and so is the product of the Lord's Resurrection (Rom. iv. 25). The formal connection between this our Lord's enunciation of Justification, and that of His servant, is in Rom. xi. 17-22, where the same image of a tree is used. The spiritual connection is evident from the use of the terms, "in Christ" and "Christ in us," which are used here by the Lord, and are throughout the Pauline Epistles the characteristic of the justified man.

I

CHAP. XV.

AM the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.

1. "I am the true vine," or "I am the Vine, the true One." He is the true Vine, just as He is the true Bread. He is the Vine in which we are, for all purposes of Christian life and Christian good works, just as He is the Bread, of which, if a man eat, he shall live for ever (vi. 51). The earthly bread and the earthly vine are true gifts of God. They nourish and sustain the earthly life which God has given to men; but they are, each in their way, types of a greater thing, which is able to sustain an eternal life. And so this latter is their truth, their fulfilment.

Again, the Lord and His Church is the true Vine, as compared with the carnal Israel, which is also compared to a vine. “I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed." (Jeremiah ii. 21.) “Christ, claiming to be 'the true vine,' claims perfectly to realize in Himself that Divine idea which Israel, after the flesh, had altogether failed to fulfil." (Trench.)

Commentators have been anxious to find something which they think may have suggested this comparison to our Lord, such as a

2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit Matt. xv. 13.

a

vine on the sides of the house where was the upper room, or the golden vine mentioned by Josephus over the entrance into the Temple, or the vineyards they passed through on their way out of the city, or the burning of heaps of withered branches which had been cut off in the process of pruning. But, if we are obliged to seek some outward suggesting cause, why not suppose that it is to be found in the words which the Lord had so lately uttered, "I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine"?

Another question of far more importance is, "Why did the Lord choose the comparison of the vine, and not of some other tree?" The answer is, that the vine is of no use whatsoever, except for the bearing of fruit. It is fit only for producing grapes, or for fuel; and it is the only well-known tree which absolutely requires yearly pruning; so that the purging or cleansing which to many trees is only occasional, is to it a necessity, if it is to fulfil its place amongst trees; so that it sets forth the twofold truth, that the one thing required of the Christian is fruit, and that, to bear fruit, he must be purged or cleansed.

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"My Father is the husbandman." Having included Himself in the Vine as its stem or trunk, the Vinedresser or Husbandman must be Another besides Himself; and so He likens His Father (in Whom, however, He works, and Who works in Him) to the husbandman who prunes the vine. He is the true Vine, not as God, but in respect of His perfect human nature as the Second Adam; and so, as Augustine says, "Are husbandman and vine one? Nay; and, therefore, that Christ is the Vine, is in that regard in which He saith, The Father is greater than I;' while, in regard that He saith, I and the Father are one,' He, too, is the Husbandman. And, in fact, when speaking of the Father as the Husbandman, He had said that He taketh away the unfruitful branches, but purgeth the fruitful, that they may bear more fruit, He straightway shows that He (the Son) doth Himself also purge the branches, saying, 'Now ye are clean, because of the word which I have spoken unto you.' So that in this, as in all else, the Persons in the Trinity work together."

2. "Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away." It is impossible to avoid the inference from this that a branch may abide for a time in Christ, and then be taken away. All attempts to

BB

he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.

2. "He purgeth it." "He cleanseth it. . . . Already ye are clean because of the word," &c. (Alford and Revisers).

get rid of this conclusion are dishonest and futile, and yet it is not to be wondered at that men, even good men, do all they can to avoid it, for anything more terrible cannot be conceived than that a man should have been for ever so short a time in Christ, and yet be cast away.

What is the meaning of this "being taken away?" It cannot mean removed by death, but cut off from that inherence in His Son which God alone knows and recognizes; so that the man so taken away may be for years in the visible unity, and yet be secretly severed from the true Unity; so that henceforth the Word and Sacraments, and ministerial action which nourish the fruitful branches, profit him no more. But as God alone brings about this "taking away," so He alone perfectly and infallibly knows who those are on whom this sentence has been passed. It is not for us to judge. We have to speak to all in the visible Unity as if they were in real connection with the Head, or may, at least, by repentance be restored to that connection. But we have very earnestly to press upon all the need of self-examination as to how they stand in Christ, remembering the words of the Apostle: "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves how that Jesus Christ is in you except ye be reprobates?" (2 Cor. xiii. 5.) And what should be the constant prayer of every baptized man but this, "renew in me, most loving Father, whatsoever hath been decayed by the fraud and malice of the devil, or by my own carnal will and frailty"?

"Every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it (literally, he cleanseth it), that it may bring forth more fruit." Because of the sharp cutting indicated by the process of pruning, this purging or cleansing is generally considered as brought about by afflictions, distresses, persecutions, and such things, and we know that an Apostle says, "Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth," and that, "If ye be without chastisement, then are ye bastards and not sons.” But the next verse seems to show that the most important instrument of cleansing is the Word: Now ye are clean (catharoi)

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