In John 15:1, Jesus spoke his seventh and final “I Am” (εγω ειμι): a self-identification of all that he is and all that he came to do as the true Israel of God. In saying “I am the true vine,” Christ drew from Old Testament language concerning the old covenant people of God.

Of the Gospels, none is as full of Old Testament typology as the Gospel of John. The apostle John had a keen interest in the types, shadows, symbols, metaphors, and elusive allusions the Savior employed during his earthly ministry in order to set forth his own divine glory (John 1:14). Most of the types in the Fourth Gospel are rooted in Israel’s exodus and wilderness experience. Whether it was the incarnation of the Son of God typified in the tabernacle in the wilderness (John 1:14), Jesus’ miracle of turning water to wine (John 2:1–11) in Moses’ miracle of turning water to blood (Exod. 7:14–24), Jesus’ death on the cross in the serpent on the pole (Num. 21:4–9), his miraculous multiplication of the bread (John 6:22–59) in the manna from heaven (Exod. 16), his offer of living water (John 7:37–44) in the water from the rock (Exod. 17:1–7), his self-identification as the light of the world in the lampstand in the temple, or his sacrificial death in the Passover lamb (John 1:26; 19:36)—Jesus came as the true Israel of God to fulfill all that old covenant Israel merely typified.

In John 15:1, Jesus spoke his seventh and final “I Am” (εγω ειμι): a self-identification of all that he is and all that he came to do as the true Israel of God. In saying “I am the true vine” (John 15:1), Christ drew from Old Testament language concerning the old covenant people of God. D. A. Carson writes,

In the Old Testament the vine is a common symbol for Israel, the covenant people of God (Ps. 80:9–16; Is. 5:1–7; 27:2ff.; Je. 2:21; 12:10ff.; Ezk. 15:1–8; 17:1–21; 19:10–14; Ho. 10:1–2). . . . Jesus claims, “I am the true vine”, i.e. the one to whom Israel pointed, the one that brings forth good fruit. Jesus has already, in principle, superseded the temple, the Jewish feasts, Moses, various holy sites; here he supersedes Israel as the very locus of the people of God.¹

The Old Testament represents Israel’s unique role in redemptive history under the figure of the vine and the vineyard. God had redeemed his people from their bondage in Egypt in order to make them a new creation in the Promised Land—a second Adam to reestablish the garden-temple throughout the earth. In Psalm 80:8-11, we read,

You brought a vine out of Egypt;
you drove out the nations and planted it.
You cleared the ground for it;
it took deep root and filled the land.
The mountains were covered with its shade,
the mighty cedars with its branches.
It sent out its branches to the sea
and its shoots to the River.

Isaiah also prophesied (5:1-2) about Israel under the figure of the vine, when he said,

Let me sing for my beloved
my love song concerning his vineyard:
My beloved had a vineyard
on a very fertile hill.
He dug it and cleared it of stones,
and planted it with choice vines.

Likewise, Hosea (10:1) declared,

Israel is a luxuriant vine that yields its fruit.

The imagery of the vine carries with it the idea of spiritual fruitfulness. God’s revealed will for old covenant Israel was that they would be a fruit-bearing people in the barren wilderness of this fallen world. Just as the Promised Land was a “land flowing with milk and honey” (a clear echo of Eden), so the old covenant people were to be a fruitful vineyard on the earth—a restoration of what was lost in the garden. God was restoring what was once lost and ruined by the Fall. One of the ways that God intended to draw the minds of his people back to the Garden of Eden, Adam, and his mission, was through the use of old covenant allusions to the vine and the vineyard.

When God created the world, he placed Adam, his son (Luke 3:38), in a garden-temple. God told Adam and Eve to “be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen. 1:28). The Lord gave our first parents the commission to bring forth an image-bearing, God-worshiping people who would cover the earth. As the representative, covenantal head of all humanity, Adam was “the vine” that was supposed to bring forth the fruit of holy, righteous image-bearers. Adam was to cultivate the garden, thereby transforming the entire world into a holy garden-temple where God would dwell with Adam, Eve, and their offspring. But Adam failed and forfeited the opportunity to bring forth fruitful offspring when he ate the fruit from the tree from which God had commanded him not to eat.

With the Fall, God frustrated the place of blessing among his image-bearers. Instead of being able to bring forth children with ease, women would now have pain in childbearing. Additionally, instead of bringing forth holy image-bearers, Adam and Eve brought forth descendants in their own fallen image (Gen. 5:3). Instead of cultivating the ground with ease, man would work by the sweat of his brow. Thorns covered the place of bounty and provision. Instead of being a life-giving vine to his descendants, Adam became a cursed vine bringing rebellion and death. The various pronouncements of the curse that God placed on man and woman indicate that Adam and Eve could no longer fulfill the commission God originally gave to them in the garden. Someone else must do it.

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