I AM the Vine - You are the Branches Jn 15:5

The Parable of Jn 15 (the vine and the branches) perfectly illustrates New Testament holiness. Jesus often used God’s creation to teach spiritual truths.

A vine is fruitful because the life or sap of the vine travels up through the vine and out into and along to the end of the branches and produces the fruit; Hence the fruit is produced from within the vine.

To prevent the wastage of sap,the husbandman keeps the vine healthy by pruning (cleansing) the branches so they will bear more fruit and cuts off any branches that are dead or diseased.

As it is in the natural, so it is in the spiritual (1 Cor 15:46). Christ is the living vine and we are the living branches. Because we are now ‘In Christ’,  the sap or life of Christ flows from Christ into us producing the 9 fold fruit of the spirit (Gal 5:22,23); Hence the fruit is produced from within us by the operation of the Holy Spirit.

It is important to realise that as a branch, we will never be cut off from Christ the vine. At the beginning of the Parable (v3) Jesus assures His disciples that they have already been cleansed (pruned)  by the Word of God.

In Christ we are now perfect and holy before God the Father (Eph 1:4) and now the process of sanctification (to make holy) takes place; that is, as we live out who we are In Christ, that holiness is worked out in us bearing fruit for God. Holiness and the process of sanctification produces fruit from within.

Holiness that is produced from the outside by our own achievements is dead works, whereas holiness produced from within by the Holy Spirit is good works and brings glory to God.

John 15:8  When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to my Father. (NLT)

Meditation Point: It is as I function out of who I am In Christ that the fruit of a holy life is expressed through me.

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