Section 8
abode of God and man. This mutual abode, this mingling of divinity with humanity, being full of organs and life, is an organism.
In John 15 this organism is likened to a vine tree. The grape vine is used as a figure of this won derful organism. Within this vine tree we have the tree itself and all of its branches. The Lord Jesus said that the vine tree is just Himself (v. 1). He is the tree and we are the branches of this tree. By this clear picture we can see that we are the branching out of the tree, for the branches are the branching out of the vine tree. If you were to cut off the branches, you would just have a bare tree without branches and there would be no branching out of the vine. But today this uni versal vine tree has many branches, and these branches are simply His branching out. When the Lord Jesus was on earth, He was just a small man living in a certain place. But look at His branching out today: He has parts in Washington, D.C., New York, Los Angeles, London, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Manila, Taipei, Hong Kong, and through out the world. Praise the Lord that throughout the whole earth we see the branching out of this vine tree! This is not an organization; it is an or ganism that has life with many organs, organic systems, and organic elements growing in it.