FRUIT, THE EVIDENCE OF VITALITY
FRUIT, THE EVIDENCE OF VITALITY
GG There was an allusion this morning to a connection between John 14 and Ephesians 3. Could that thought be carried on to the succeeding chapters?
FER I think you get what is spoken of in these chapters expressed in the same prayer: “Strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth ... and to know the love of Christ ... that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God”. I think we come in this to John 16.
FHB What does this chapter answer to?
FER “Rooted and grounded in love”. Fruit is the evidence of vitality. Christ has come that we might have life. He says, “These things I command you, that ye love one another”. Fruit is the evidence that life has come in. Rooted and grounded in love comes out in that we love one another. That is christianity — not simply faith, but evidence that life has come in. Hence the Lord takes the ground of being the vine and the disciples were the branches. The life abides and gets its expression in fruit-bearing.
FHB Then we must be in the enjoyment first of all.
FER You must be alive.
Ques Is the fruit in this chapter love?
FER That is what the Lord insisted on.
[p. 268] GC Is that why you have living in the Spirit and the “fruit of the Spirit” together? (Galatians 5: 22, 25).
FER Probably.
Ques Is fruit here for the Father’s glory?
FER I think so; they were manifested as the disciples of Christ by bearing fruit. “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples”.
GG Then the fruit would be seen of men.
FER “That they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven”. I think it is all testimony to Christ. He is to have an entrance here in His absence and fruit is the evidence.
W Does not this contemplate the disciples being together?
FER Yes, I think so.
AH Is the fruit here individual or collective?
FER If it is purely individual, how can you have love? “That ye love one another”. I do not understand love save in relation to one another.
HT “Let your light so shine before men”. Is there any difference between “light” and “good works”? Would the “light” be Christ shining out and the “works” more works of faith?
FER I think “your good works” are the proof that you are in the work of God and you do not do evil works.
W Are not the “upright works” the works of the kingdom?
ED It is evident “the works” are not to shine, it is “the light”.
Ques In Colossians we have “That ye might walk worthy of the Lord ... being fruitful in every good work”. Might there be “good works” without fruit-bearing?
THR The good works speak to the Father of Him who is the source of them. I think it is an immense thing to think of the delight of the Father to see Christ reproduced down here, where He has [p. 269] been cast out. It shews the manner in which you get the Father’s care here. What a care He has for all that belongs to Christ!
FHB That really is the result of Christ dwelling in the heart.
ED What is the connection between abiding in Him and Christ abiding in us?
FER I think we are conscious of the place we have in His affections and the place He has in ours.
A.H. What is fruit?
FER It is difficult to define it. I take it to be the evidence of life — not exactly service.
WB And might assume a thousand forms?
FER I do not look upon Christ as bearing fruit; I think the fruit is borne on the branches. The vine is the source of fruit-bearing.
GC “Love, joy, peace” could not be as the fruit of the Spirit in Him.
FER I think He was the source of vitality in others, that there should be something here for the Father’s pleasure when He was gone. It was the branches that bore fruit, but only by reason of their being in the Vine.
JP “I do always those things that please him”.
FER That is all true. I would not like to speak of fruit-bearing in connection with Christ, but I think God is entitled to look for fruit where there is culture.
HT Would you apply Psalm 1 to Christ?
FER No; but I should Psalm 2. I think Christ identified Himself with the class of the godly, but I should not like to put Him in the class. He was pre-eminent. There was culture with Israel, but no fruit; the culture was in a sense thrown away. Where there is culture, God is entitled to look for fruit. With the disciples there was culture, the object being that they might bring forth more fruit. There [p. 270] must be discipline; discipline and culture are, I think, very intimately connected. Culture takes the form of discipline; education is discipline.
ED Is abiding in Christ living of His life?
FER I think so. “The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me”. The christian is affected by the love of Christ — the love of Christ becomes the motive — spring of everything and carries him above all that is natural; I do not say that he ignores what is natural. Fruit reproduces itself.
AH Would you connect fruit with the apostles’ testimony?
FER I think the thought is that fruit reproduces itself. “That your fruit should remain”. If you sow the leaves of a tree they will not bring fruit, you must sow the seed, that is really the fruit. I have looked to see where preaching can be found in this chapter. It may be involved in, “I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain”.
THR All here today have come from the apostles’ ministry and are their fruit. Fruit-bearing has gone on and there has been reproduction.
FER The Lord is looking at things, not so much in regard of persons as of fruit — that is, morally, that it was to abide and not to pass away.
FHB I think we get it in the apostle. “Death worketh in us, but life in you”.
FER Yes.
THR It is a very important point that in the thought of culture responsibility comes in to abide in Him. It raises the question whether we answer to the culture.
FER If you get a person self-reliant, self-sufficient, fruit-bearing is very much marred; that is the opposite of abiding in Christ. In abiding in [p. 271] Christ you give up all sense of your own sufficiency and every kind of self-assertion.
FHB So there must be: “death worketh in us”.
THR The question is not a matter of apostolic succession, but of life and abiding in Christ.
W Does not verse 7 take it out of figure into plain teaching?
C What is meant by “and I in you”?
THR J.N.D. used to say that “abide in me, and I in you” is the divine order in John 15 and brings in responsibility.
FHB Is not that because the realisation of His being in us is the result of our abiding in Him?
FER I think verses 1 - 6 are in connection with the disciples here. The point of transition where we take it up is, “if ye abide in me, and my words abide in you”. Christ was the true Vine, and the disciples came in, really, as the true Israel; and the church has come in as the companions of Christ. I think this comes in incidentally to our being here; it will return to Israel by-and-by. I think we come into many things not exactly proper to the church as a heavenly company, but in connection with our being here. When Israel comes into it everything around will be favourable; now we have to bear fruit in the presence of uncongenial surroundings. “So shall ye be my disciples” means to be manifest as such in life and character.
FHB I suppose the first idea in connection with a disciple is of one who receives the teaching of another? The following is the result?
FER Yes; the disciple is not greater than his Master. It is so important to see that Christ is the beginning of everything, “The beginning of the creation of God”.
FHB Because everything that did not begin with Christ will ultimately [p. 272] pass away.
FER Quite so. It is not that Christ has come in to remedy a bad state of things, but to bring in what God had in reserve; all was to come to pass by Christ; but in divine wisdom there were certain previous provisional dealings of God, but Christ is really the beginning. You can understand new creation in regard of man, because man is to be according to God, and that cannot be apart from new creation.
WB What is that word, “Behold, I make all things new”?
FER That is the new heaven and new earth, not exactly the “creation of God”. Christ was the outset of creation because everything was created by Him and for Him, but He takes things up on the ground of resurrection that we may have part. He is entitled to everything; but if Christ took up His Headship on that ground, we could not have part. He takes all up on the ground of redemption that we may be brought in.
FHB Then “the creation of God” includes more than “new creation”?
FER I think “the creation of God” is “the creation of God”. Man is a new creation. Christ is the First and the Last. Whatever God set forth in previous dealings had always Christ in view.
DLH It is important that nothing God had before Him has broken down.
FER Very important.
DLH Christ is the beginning of the creation of God.
AL There is the “natural” and the “spiritual”.
FER What God had before Him was the “spiritual”.
FK Say a word about “new creation”. Do you say that is not “the creation of God”?
FER Certainly not. You get “new creation” in connection with man, but I think we often use the expression in a different sense to that.
FHB It has been used in connection with an order of things into which we come.
FER Surely God is going to be glorified in connection with creation? We have taken up the term ‘new creation’ and given it a conventional use. Certain terms become conventional and when you look into them they do not always carry with them what is generally supposed. New creation has been applied wider than Scripture warrants.
DLH Adam was a figure of the One to come.
FER Quite so; but Christ was the One to come. You get nothing morally precedent to Christ. God saw fit to carry on a kind of testing previously, but God was ever looking forward to the introduction of the Man according to His mind and everything taking character from that Man.
FK God’s creation is a very wide thing, and includes the whole universe of which Christ will be Head.
FER Quite so. He is not only the beginning of it, but the crown of it.
W And He could say, “As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you”.
FER Christ gives the impulse; and the impulse no doubt will be felt in every family, though not in the same degree.
EHC The new heavens and new earth in Isaiah?
FER God goes on there to the full extent of His purpose. Then He returns to shew the present thing, “Behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing”.
GC You do not think it is in a moral sense?
FER I think God goes on to the full extent of His purpose. All the ways of God are in view. The new heavens and new earth, that is the great consummation before God, and God has made known the consummation. Every enemy subdued, every [p. 274] question resolved, then the kingdom given up that God may be all in all.
FC When scripture speaks of the “new heavens”, what is referred to?
FER The material heavens.
THR The created heavens, that which is connected with this earth, and has been tainted by evil. It is a great thing that in the millennium, what Satan has brought into ruin will be set up in Christ, so that Satan will not be able to say that he has triumphed. Where Satan has brought in evil there God triumphs. What has been spoiled by Satan, God will set up in Christ in beauty.
WJ “As a vesture shalt thou fold them up”.
THR Every moral question has been worked out here, and then the present scene is done with.
FER God allows the power of evil to appear for a moment (at the end of the millennium) only in view of the final solution. I have thought for years that the new heaven and new earth and the lake of fire are presented to shew us the ultimate determination of good and evil. When the disentanglement is complete good and evil find their own place. “Lake” gives the idea of a limit — that there will be no scope for the activity of will, there will be a limitation to it in its own scene.
THR There is no universal dominion, no such power as that of the beast, after Christ’s reign.
WJ “That my joy might remain in you”. What does that mean?
FER I think the Lord has His own joy in His disciples; His point was that His joy might continue in them. We often put the contrast between “my” and “you”, but I question if it is just.
DLH Is the force of “abide in me” that in our souls we have the sense that Christ is everything, and apart from Christ there is nothing for God?
[p. 275] FER I think it brings in a sense of responsibility. Our responsibility is to continue in Christ.
AH Is it that we do not apostatise?
FER I think so.
Ques. Go back to Adam?
FER You will go away perhaps to something worse than Adam.
FK Is abiding in Christ going on in the faith of the thing?
FER Yes; and that means a great deal. When you get christianity adapted to the world it is falsified; but if you continue in the Christ that has been rejected, it is a great thing.
P That is very far-reaching.
FER I think the point of moment is to apprehend what Christ is in the divine ways; not only that He is Lord, but the Christ.
FHB It comes to the same thing as “holding the Head”.
FER It is “holding the Head” — exactly what we have to do down here.
W It is remarkable how this comes in after the end of chapter 13, “Now is the Son of man glorified”.
FER You get in the beginning of chapter 14, “Ye believe in God, believe also in me”.
Ques Would the believing in Him be the same as abiding in Him?
FER Not exactly, because there the Lord is laying down the position in a way.
WB Could you speak of a christian going on badly as abiding in Christ?
FER I think a man is judged by his practice; if his practice is contrary to Christ, I could hardly say he is abiding in Christ.
AH That is not the point here, is it?
FER I do not think it is.
AC Would not that test unchristianise a good many?
FER I think they have unchristianised themselves.
THR The point the Lord brings out is a fruit-bearing branch and a not fruit-bearing branch. It is not a question whether a fruit-bearing branch may fail to bring forth fruit for a time.
WB What is the force of that — a man “cast forth as a branch, and is withered”?
FER He becomes rejected, never restored.
FHB Judas is the example. It applied to the moment when there were those who were associated with Christ after the flesh.
FER The apostle says, “Lest ... when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway”. We have to abide in Christ; we are under responsibility down here in this world; any one of us might turn away. I think it is very foolish to take the ground of its being impossible to turn away from Christ.
WB Might you not have confidence that Christ will keep you?
FER That is another thing.
GC Is not every bit of departure in christianity on the line of apostasy?
FER It is. We have come to the day when “the Lord knoweth them that are his”.
AC What is the meaning of “If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die”?
FER I should think it is the statement of a general principle.
FHB It brings us back to that — we have to abide in Christ.
FER You have salvation in abiding in Christ. It is impossible to get out of that kind of responsibility while you are down here. It is not a question of salvation for ever, I am not concerned about that, I am concerned about the present — it is salvation in the presence of what is down here.
GC “Salvation is far from the wicked: for they seek not thy statutes”.
FER Quite so. I do not think a man ever talks about his confidence; if he does, I do not think he has got it. I think salvation is exactly what the bulk of christians are in need of. Forgiveness of sins is righteousness. God is a Saviour, because He saves you from all that to which you are naturally in bondage. Abiding in Christ is the secret of salvation.
GC Is the gospel spoken of in 1 Corinthians 15, the gospel of their salvation? (Ephesians 1.)
FER I suppose so.
WB “Who shall tell thee words, whereby thou ... shall be saved”.
FER I think salvation is inherent in christianity. “I endure all things for the elect’s sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus”.
THR I think it is of great value always to keep the end before one — that I am going to be with Christ. People are often like wanderers down here without an end in view; the great thing that makes one continue is the thought that we are going to be with Christ. I do not mean a person feeling that all is secure, so that it is certain they will be with Christ. God has an end for me and I go on to that end in my soul. “Hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end”.
FER I think salvation in Romans depends on the transfer from Adam to Christ; the gospel presents a Man in whom is salvation, we are “saved by his life”. Salvation is inherent in Christ. I think salvation by Christ refers to the ultimate result: “We look for the Saviour”, but God is our Saviour. Salvation is based on righteousness. You must have a basis, and then you come into salvation. For salvation you want the “washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit”. You will not get much sense of salvation without those two things. You [p. 278] want dissociation from the old things on the one hand and the work of the Spirit on the other. It really involves the transfer from Adam to Christ, and then you get salvation in Christ. Pure association refers to the christian company, that which a converted heathen was brought to through baptism. The renewing of the Holy Spirit fits us for the new associations.