Jesus wants us to bear fruit that is authentic, arising from union with Him, much fruit that abounds by His workmanship of grace, and lasting fruit that endures to the glory of God.
I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser (John 15:1, NKJV).
We’ve seen Jesus described as the Word, the Lamb of God, the Bread of life, the Light of the world, the good Shepherd, and the Resurrection and the Life. Each of these depictions helps us to understand the person and work of Jesus as the Christ. Each contributes another reason for resting in Jesus that we may have life in His name.
The final image from John’s Gospel that we will consider is Jesus’s claim to be the “true vine.” In it we find the work of the triune God for our salvation. The Father plants the vine. The Son is the vine. The Spirit unites to the vine.
Psalm 80 begins by addressing God as the Shepherd of Israel. He is their God and they are His people. God claimed them as a people for His own possession and prospered them. “You have brought a vine out of Egypt; You have cast out the nations, and planted it. You prepared room for it, and caused it to take deep root, and it filled the land. The hills were covered with its shadow, and the mighty cedars with its boughs. She sent out her boughs to the Sea, and her branches to the River” (Psa. 80:8–11).
But God had turned His back on His people. Why? Because they had forsaken God. They had broken covenant with Him. The prayer of the psalmist is the refrain of the psalm: “Restore us, O LORD God of hosts; cause Your face to shine, and we shall be saved!” (Psalm 80:3, 7, 19) The plea is that God would grant them life; for apart from Him they perish. “Then we will not turn back from You; revive us, and we will call upon Your name” (Psa. 80:18).
