ABIDING IN CHRIST AND BEARING FRUIT
[p. 335] ABIDING IN CHRIST AND BEARING FRUIT
Genesis 49: 8 - 12; Isaiah 5: 1 - 7; John 15: 1 - 27
A good many of us have realised the importance of regarding Christ as the centre of a system. Very much as the sun is the centre of the solar system. But I prefer rather the thought of a system consisting of a number of circles, what one might call concentric, of which Christ is the common centre. I think that is seen in the Scripture. The apostle prayed that Christ the centre might dwell in the hearts of the saints by faith. Then they could look out, so to speak, from the centre and apprehend with all saints the breadth and length and depth and height, that is, the whole extent, so to speak, of the system of which Christ was the centre. Then there was another thing, that they might “know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge”. What I think that means is that the whole system is to be pervaded by Christ. The love of Christ is the principle which will pervade the entire system. It is an extraordinary idea, but it is presented to us in Scripture.
We can take it in if we view the world in the light of a moral system; but what prevails in that system? Certainly not what is of God. You find other principles in the system in which we are. We have been born into the world and are accustomed to the prevalence of these principles, but they are not of God. The apostle John tells us in a passage which is familiar, that, “All that is in the world”, what else is there? “All” includes everything. “The lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father”. Whatever may be the source of it, the Father is not. I have no doubt other influences have been at work in the world, which, to a certain extent, have counteracted these principles, but after all, they are the great influences that obtain in the world system. We see in contrast to [p. 336] this, another system in view, the centre of which is Christ; and around Christ many circles, and when that system is displayed what will fill it will be Christ. Love is the contrast to lust. Lust seeks its own gratification at the expense of its objects; love, on the other hand, will spend itself for the good of its objects. The two principles are opposed. Now, I think that line of thought has come pretty much into our view. What I want to impress upon all who have understanding, is the extreme importance of our being maintained in relation to the centre of the system. That is, to appreciate that in the thought of God we do not belong to the world system. The Lord said of the disciples, “they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world”. I am speaking to believers, and as believers we most certainly do not belong to the world system. We belong to Christ. Christ is our centre. We are brought into relation, I may say into attachment, to Christ, by the Spirit of God, and we should be diligent and anxious that we may be intelligently maintained in our relation to Him as the centre of the system. The time will come when that system will be set forth in glory; every thought of God has relation to it; He has been speaking of it for thousands of years in detail, and the moment will arrive when it will be brought into view; there will be made manifest in that day, what is not manifest now, the relation in which we stand to the centre of that system. We have been brought into the light of that centre, and our point is, according to the admonition which we get here, to abide in Him; that is, that the sense of our relation to Him may be maintained in us intelligently by the Spirit, so that He becomes light and direction to us down here, and instead of acting on the impulse of our own will or under the influence of man here, we are controlled by the influence of Christ. The result would be that we should bring forth fruit. I am going to take up in that connection the thought of fruit-bearing. It may be interesting to trace it through [p. 337] Scripture. I have read Isaiah 5, for we have presented to us there by the prophet what God had been doing. He presents to us a figure, that is, the house of Israel as a vineyard. Then God planted in the vineyard the choicest vine, and He tells us what the vine was, that is, the men of Judah were His pleasant plant, and God looked for fruit. We see there that the vineyard was the house of Israel, and the men of Judah the vine.
Now the passage in Genesis which I read brings before us a very important point, that is that the genealogy belongs to Judah. The sceptre was not to depart from Judah till Shiloh came. In the ways of God in regard to Israel the birthright belonged to Joseph, and the genealogy to Judah, and it is in Judah the genealogy is maintained, for Christ is the true Judah. Christ is Judah morally. If you read the detail given in the blessing of Jacob, you could not refer what is said there to the literal Judah, that is, the son of Jacob. You can refer it to the true Judah, that is Christ, and it is in Christ that the genealogy is maintained. The genealogy of Israel would have fallen through if it had not been for Christ. There will not be much difficulty in regard to the genealogy when God takes up Israel again, because God has made provision that in Christ the genealogy should be maintained. Now not only did Christ spring from Judah, but He is the true Judah, and that throws light on John 15. He is the true vine, because He is the true Judah. Judah was God’s pleasant plant. God took them up provisionally, and put them in the place of a vine, but it was provisional, and they did not bring forth fruit. We get at the close of the chapter, that instead of judgment, there was oppression, and instead of righteousness, a cry. There was no fruit for God. But in John 15, not simply have we the One who has sprung from Judah, although that is maintained, but we get the true Judah, the true pleasant plant, and so the Lord says, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman”. The Lord is speaking here simply to the disciples. If we had only this chapter we should find it [p. 338] difficult to make an application to ourselves. It is other parts of the same gospel which enable us to make such an application. Literally the chapter is addressed to those who immediately surrounded the Lord, for even when He was here upon earth He was the centre of a company. He had yet to ascend far above all heavens to fill all things. You may say the circle was a small one. It was so, but it was none the less a circle, and Christ was the centre; in this chapter He takes up the figure of a vine and the branches. He was the vine, and the disciples branches, and the secret of fruit-bearing was in abiding in Christ. We find that coming out in the disciples. They bore fruit, but the source of the fruit was not found in the branches. The vine was the source of all that was agreeable to God. When they went about as the Lord directed them, the source of all that they did was Christ, and what they did was fruit for God. That is the thought of the vine and the branches. It was a relation that only subsisted for a short time comparatively, for the Lord did not remain here in the place of the vine very long. He may have that place hereafter, but what He speaks of in the early part of the chapter was His then place here upon earth and the relation of the disciples to Himself.
I will point out a few thoughts that appear in the chapter. Read verses 7, 9, 11, 15 - 17. Now in verse 7 the figure of the vine is dropped. That thought goes on to verse 6, where it says, “If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned”. Then it is, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you”. No doubt the Lord contemplated the change shortly to come in, when they would no longer abide in Him as the vine, when that order of things would come to an end; but still He would be a centre, and in that light they were to continue in Him. It is a great point to abide in Christ; we see that in a very distinct way in the apostles. We have only to read attentively the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles to see how they really abode in Christ. I do not [p. 339] think that they did anything of themselves, they did not trust their own wisdom or judgment. They trusted Christ and He was wisdom to them, and they were completely under His control. They realised that Christ was their centre, and they were in attachment to Christ by the Spirit, and the consequence was, that they were entirely guided and directed by Christ. They continued in Him. He was the source to them of light and wisdom, and His words continued in them. You get the same principle in relationships of this life. When a woman marries, she sacrifices, so to speak, her own head, and her husband becomes head to her. From that point and onward she no longer acts of her own motion. Her husband is wisdom to her. That is the idea of the relation of husband and wife; in accepting a husband a woman has accepted a head, and from that point, let her be as skilful and wise as she may, she has come under the direction of a head, and it would be right that his words should abide in her. A wife would not be unmindful of the words of her husband. I think that illustrates the relation in which the disciples were to Christ. He was their husband; they were married to Him by the Spirit, and from that point and onward they accepted Him as Head. He was to control them in their service and His words to continue in them. I have no need to describe how that was carried out and the wonderful power of the apostles down here. There was hardly such a commotion in the history of the world. They conquered nothing by human means. They had not silver nor gold, and yet they exercised the greatest influence that ever was exercised here upon earth; these poor men, fishermen, men of no acquirements, who had never been to college nor had any training, had Christ as Head to them, they continued in Christ, and the wisdom of Christ was at their disposal, and the effect of it was amazing. It was said in regard to them, “These that have turned the world upside down”. All the world was afraid of them. How did they turn the world upside down? Simply because they abode in Christ; and His words abode in them.
[p. 340] But there is another point, they continued in His love, and His joy continued in them. There was a reciprocity about it. The eye of the Lord was upon all that the apostles did, and His joy abode in them. They had to encounter opposition and contrariety of every kind, yet their joy was full because His joy abode in them; and if we abode in Christ, and continued in His love, His joy would be in us, and our joy would be full. The one is the consequence of the other, if Christ has His joy in us, of necessity our joy would be full.
I am quite prepared to admit the application of these things to the apostles, and others would admit that also. The last two verses I read prove it. “All things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you”. That could hardly be applied to any but the apostles. The primary and literal application of these verses was to them; the Lord treated them like friends, and had chosen them for the purpose that they should bring forth fruit and that their fruit should abide. In the thought of their fruit, you get the idea of continuance. We are all the fruit of the apostles in a sense, the fruit of their labour. Now in John 17 in the first part the Lord prayed specially for the apostles, but the Lord goes on to say, “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word”. I think that brings in the idea of extension; the same thought of continuance and extension as in the idea of the apostles’ fruit abiding. I do not think the Lord contemplated what you might call any real change in this chapter. Some people think there has been a development in christianity. I do not think Christ contemplated that. I have heard it said by christians that things which were practicable in early days are scarcely practicable now. Circumstances and times have so changed, that what was suitable at the outset is scarcely suitable [p. 341] now, but the Lord contemplated nothing of that kind.
He contemplated continuance and extension, but the extension was to have no different character from that which was originally established. “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word”, and if they believed on Him through that word, they were not to be differently directed from what the apostles were. What guided the apostles was to guide those who should believe on Christ through their word. Now what came to pass was that the thought of abiding in Christ passed away, as christianity became influenced by the world; it has been said that the purest rain from heaven, when it comes to earth, becomes mud; so, pure as christianity was in the first instance, when it came in contact with man, it became corrupted by the world. What followed was the accommodation of christianity to the world as it is, with the rule and authority of man. Popery is the outcome of it. All sense of abiding in Christ was lost, and for many a long year there was very little fruit for God. There may have been here and there pious people who abode in Christ and in whom the words of Christ abode, but these were obscure; possibly in them the truth was maintained, but in christendom in general all true idea of things was completely lost. What remains to us is to go back to what originally was, for on the part of God things have not altered a bit. If you read this chapter attentively, and compare it with what you see in the christian world, there is little in common. But the revelation of God stands good. Christ is still at the right hand of God. There is no alteration there. The Spirit is still here. Those who believe are attached by the Spirit to Christ in heaven; on the part of God nothing whatever has varied, and there is the greatest encouragement to go back to what was at the outset. The vine is not upon earth; that particular phase of things has passed away for the time being, but we have a centre in heaven. There is no centre in this world, What will come to pass in this [p. 342] world will be nation rising against nation and kingdom against kingdom, because there is no centre. There was a man some years ago, I refer to Napoleon, who sought to bring the whole Western world under his dominion, to become the centre to it, but he passed away in exile and there is no centre; but I see that at the right hand of God there is the One who is the centre of that system to which God is bound, and which God will in due time display. God is the same, and Christ is the same. The Spirit is still here and every believer in Christ is joined to Christ by the Spirit. It would be a great service if the Spirit of God brought us individually back to the sense of our relation to Christ, apart from the world. We are married to Him who is raised from the dead that we might bring forth fruit unto God; God intends to establish a world according to His mind, and every part of that world will be on the ground of resurrection. Death is not to dominate in that world, and so it must be on the ground of resurrection. Christ is risen; all for heaven will have been raised; Israel nationally will have been raised; the nations will be revived; every part will be set forth on the principle of resurrection, so that all may be in accord with Christ, and that death may no longer rule. Now if we are married to another, the first principle with us must be fidelity. That is the first principle of a wife in regard to her husband. Then the next principle is that, as in the case of a wife, you come under the influence of Christ’s love. The wife comes under the influence of the love of the husband; love is a formative power. Depend upon it, we are greatly affected by it. I do not think the unreasonableness and perverseness in man is broken down by anything like the love of Christ. When the Lord was surrounded by the twelve disciples they all fell under the influence of His love, and it had a mighty effect upon them. It was not seen just at the moment, or even immediately after the Lord died, but it was after the Holy Spirit came. They were prepared to sacrifice their lives for Christ. The Spirit of God put them in relation to a risen Christ, and the [p. 343] result was they brought forth fruit unto God. They were not in the current of this world. In spirit and heart they were outside it. The world to them was Judaism, and they were outside of that, married to another who was outside of it, and yet doing good in this world. People do not do much good in this world according to God until they are outside of it. It is in being married to Christ that they bring forth fruit. When Peter and John said, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk”, they were doing great good in this world, but it was the effect of being married to another, to Him that was raised from the dead. Another effect was that they were not afraid of death. Stephen was not afraid of death. Why not? Because they were married to Him that was raised from the dead, and that assured their resurrection. The Lord Jesus said, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die”. The same will apply to us if we are conscious of being married to the One raised from the dead. Of necessity we would be fearless. When the Lord comes out as the resurrection and the life, people will not die.
I say these things that we may realise the importance of getting back to first principles. I have no doubt many of us are hindered by the fear of man, we want to be delivered from that. It would be a great thing for us all if we had in our vision only one Man, We want to maintain fidelity. To have one Man in view, and from the fact that He is all to us we bring forth fruit unto God. The Lord loves His people, and because of that intercedes for us. How is it we have been kept at all? How is it we have maintained our profession? I have no doubt it is because of the grace and service of Christ. We have been kept by the power of God through faith, as the effect of the intercession of Christ. He intercedes for us at the right hand of God, and sympathises with and maintains us that we may hold fast our profession. The apostle says in Romans 8, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” Every [p. 344] service that Christ carries out for His people is the effect of love for His people, and the Lord will have us kept conscious of His love, with the effect that we abide in Him and look to Him for direction in all things here.
One more word and I have done, that is, ‘fruit is extremely important as being the evidence of healthy vitality. If there be healthy vitality there is bound to be fruit-bearing, and fruit-bearing is grateful in the eye of God.