The passage begins with an imagery or metaphor when Jesus declares Himself to be the true vine and His Father the gardener, and His disciples the branches.
In the Old Testament, the vine was a picture of Israel. God brought a vine out ofEgypt, and planted it in the promised land (Psalm 80:1-18). The vineyard of Israel, said Isaiah in Chapter 5, has borne wild grapes instead of proper ones. Jesus, in saying that He is the true vine, is declaring Himself as the true Israel. He is the one on whom God’s purposes are now resting and His followers are members of God’s true people. Israel of old has failed to be the vine God desires; Jesus is now the true vine.
Continuing the imagery, the heavenly Father is the gardener. He prunes or trims every branch that does bear fruit; His purpose is loving so that every branch will be even more fruitful, but the pruning process may be painful. The Father cuts off every branch that bears no fruit.
What is clear is that there are no true Christians without some measure of fruit. Fruitfulness is an unmistakable mark of true Christianity; dead branches have no life in them and they do not bear fruit and they are cut off by the Father.
For the branch to bear fruit, it must remain in the vine or abide in the vine. It depicts a picture of continuous dependence on the vine for its life and vitality. The Christian or Christian organisation or church that expands by merely imitating Christian conduct and witness without the life of Jesus within, brings forth only ‘dead wood’ and no true spiritual fruit. What is clear and simply striking is: remain in the vine and be a fruit-bearing branch or be thrown away and burned as dead wood.
The next few verses reveal the fruit is the consequence of effective prayer in Jesus’ name, including obedience to Jesus’ commands, resulting in the Father’s glory. The fruitfulness of believers brings glory to the Father through the Son. Fruitlessness robs God of the glory that rightly belongs to Him.
Remaining in the vine has already been tied up with obedience to Jesus’ words; now the exhortation is to remain in Jesus’ love. Jesus points out that remaining in His love is by keeping His commands just as He has kept the Father’s commands and remains in His Father’s love. We see how remaining in Him (the vine) is related to remaining in His love and both are effected by obeying His commands. Our love for Jesus is the wellspring of our obedience to Him, as our obedience is the demonstration of the reality of that love and both contribute to remaining and abiding in Him.
There is more; Jesus shares that His own obedience to the Father is the ground of His joy and He promises that those who obey Him will share the same joy. The Son does not give His disciples His joy as a discrete package; He shares His joy insofar as they share His obedience, the obedience that willingly puts death to self-interest. Genuine love for the Son would mean love for fellow believers, that is, loving each other just as Jesus has loved us. Love for the Son ensures obedience to Him and that obedience is particularly tested by obedience to the new commandment, the command to love one another.
Jesus then calls His disciples ‘friends’ if they do what He commands. This obedience is not what makes them friends, it is what characterizes His friends. The friends of Jesus then are the object of His love and are obedient to Him. As His friends, the disciples will be more informed, more privileged and more comprehending than any believers who came before them. Lest they become proud, Jesus reminds them that it is He who has chosen them and appointed them to bear fruit that will last; it is not because they are better or wiser.
And what is this fruit that will last? Some refer to it as “likeness to Christ”as seen in the fruit of the Spirit. Others link the fruit with the focus on evangelism and mission; the fruit refers to others brought in and incorporated into the vine. Perhaps it refers to both; for only those who resemble Jesus in His likeness and life would be most effective in being His messengers in proclaiming the gospel. We have noted earlier that genuine Christian discipleship characterised by true sacrificial love and service, and this is one of the most potent forms of evangelism. In that sense, the messenger truly reflects the true essence of the message.
Jesus closes the passage by reminding the believers that the means of the fruitfulness for which they have been chosen is prayer in His name. Prayer after all expresses our need to depend entirely on Him for our life and our work.