Abiding In Christ
ABIDING IN CHRIST
John 15 is possibly the deepest chapter in the New Testament. In it, God the Father is revealed as the husbandman, the source, the originator, the founder, and planter of a husbandry; God the Son is revealed as the vine, the center of a universal vineyard; the Spirit is revealed as the realization, the reality of all that God the Father is in the Son; and the Body of Christ, the church, is revealed as the branches, the body of the vine. God the Father as the source is embodied in God the Son as the center who is now realized as God the Spirit as the reality. All that the Spirit has is expressed in us, that is, in the branches, the church, through the fruit-bearing. Furthermore, the fruit-bearing comes about as the branches abide in the vine and let the vine abide in the branches.
TO ABIDE, TO REMAIN, IN THE SON
If we are to abide in the vine, we must see the fact that we are the branches in the vine (v. 5). Our abiding in Christ depends upon a clear vision that we are branches in the vine. If we see that