Hebrews Lesson 65
NKJ 1 Corinthians
We are in Hebrews 6. We have been going through the warning passage section. Just as a review, there is a serious warning here on the danger of spiritual dullness, the danger of regression, the danger that is a real danger to every single believer that if we do not pay diligent attention to our spiritual life and spiritual growth; then we can hit that slippery slope of carnality and slide down into a pool of self indulgence and just wipe out our spiritual life. But there is no loss of salvation. People need to be reminded of these things because there are so many folks that are caught up with the fact that there is something they’ve done or some sin that they have committed or some act in their past that somehow continuously interferes with their spiritual life.
Five Key Principles
So we have a perfect salvation. It operates on grace. There are consequences to sin. Sometimes we can emphasize grace so much in one direction - there is grace for salvation, there is grace in forgiveness. God always deals with us in grace because He knows all of our faults, all of our failures and all of our sins. All of our sins are paid for on the cross, but there are consequences to failure in the Christian life. Consequences to failure in the Christian life are not contrary to grace. That is what this illustration is all about in Hebrews 6:7-8. So let’s review this because this becomes a launching pad for a 3 or 4 week study on the dynamics of spiritual growth.
NKJ Hebrews
6:7 For the earth which drinks in
the rain that often comes upon it, and bears herbs useful for those by whom it
is cultivated, receives blessing from God;
NKJ Hebrews 6:8 but if it bears thorns and briars, it is rejected and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned.
Now as I pointed out last time when we got into this there
is always somebody that comes along and every time they see burning in the
Scripture they immediately think of the
“One of the problems we have today is we have a lot of pastors and theologians who have their degrees and background in all kinds of different areas and they don’t have a clue how to grow anything.”
Yet in the Bible you have illustration after illustration after illustration based on the agricultural life style that was common to everybody during the period of the writing of the Scripture. Everybody understood the cycles of growth and planting and harvest and what was involved in planting and growing things. These were common illustrations. But if you aren’t familiar with that, if your background is law, you might not understand the dynamics of these illustrations. The reason I point out law is because it is amazing how many theologians down through the centuries were initially lawyers. We always give lawyers a bad rap, but everybody from John Calvin to Hugo Grotius (who came up with a heretical view on the atonement) was a lawyer. He was also one of the lawyers who founded and grounded all of international law that we know today. If you have ever studied international law you would know who Hugo Grotius was. He was a well-known theologian coming out of the Reformation period. John Nelson Darby was another lawyer. CI Scofield was another lawyer. The theological landscape is littered with lawyers who then became theologians. So it is a similar mindset. But if your training was in law, you are probably not a very good farmer. So we have to understand these images.
The burning as I pointed out last time quoting from a Roman writer named Pliney the Elder who lived in the period of the first century. I think he was born around 20 AD. He died toward the end of the century. He wrote a number of works. The only thing that we have that survived is his work on natural science. In there he gives a lot of descriptions about agriculture – cultivation and viticulture. We will see another quote from him later on this evening. He commented that this was a standard procedure. At the end of the harvest when you have a lot of stubble left in the fields that in order to get it ready for planting the next year you would burn off what was left in order to make the field more productive for the next year. So it is not a sign of judgment destruction, but it is a sign more along the lines of divine discipline and preparation for future growth. We need to think about verse 8 in terms of divine discipline. Last time I pointed out that each of these symbols in Hebrews 6:7-8 is important in order to properly interpret the passage.
The earth is the believer. The rain represents the provision of God, the Word of God plus the Holy Spirit. The herbs represent the production of good fruit. The thorns and briars represent the production of sin, evil, and human good. There is a cultivator in the passage – someone who cultivates the earth, who works upon the believer to produce fruitfulness. This would be God. This is similar to the role God plays in John 15 which is going to be the focus of our study this evening. This is where we went last time.
Then we saw that in verse 7 it talks about the fact that some soil bears thorns and thistles and rejection. Rejection is a core idea. It talks about judgment. The illustration in this passage relates to one of three judgments:
1. Great White Throne which is for unbelievers at the end of the millennium.
2. The tribulation judgment at the end of the tribulation.
3. or the Bema Seat.
We have at those at these different times. The Judgment Seat of Christ is the focus here with a secondary idea of discipline for the believer in time to make the believer more productive, more fruitful. The word translated rejected is the Greek word adokimos meaning to unapproved, unqualified, unworthy, spurious, or worthless. If you notice there that doesn’t list rejected as one of the words. That is not the concept here. It means it is no longer qualified. Qualified for what? We would say qualified for rewards. This is the same thing that Paul references when he talks about running the race.
NKJ 1 Corinthians
That is win the prize, win the reward.
NKJ 1
Corinthians
Usually that is a reward related to a wreath of withered celery leaves or regular celery leaves or ivy. That was it. Initially in the Olympic Games there was no prize money or any of the other things that came along much later – privileges of citizenship and a number of other things that were true in later years. In the initial two or three centuries all they got was a wreath. They would go through a year of training and they don’t even get a T shirt. They get a wreath that will dry up and be gone in a matter of weeks. They disciplined themselves so rigorously for a perishable wreath, but we as believers are working and growing spiritually for the purpose of gaining rewards that will last for eternity. If they are going to go to all of that effort just to win the Super Bowl, just to win a Super Bowl ring, or all of that effort just to win the World Series how much more should we as believers work when we are focused on rewards that are going to last for all of eternity.
Then we looked at verse 27 where Paul said referring to himself…
NKJ 1 Corinthians
That’s the same word. What is the point? The point is that if Paul can become disqualified (he is not losing his salvation), it would be a disqualification from position, reward, and responsibility. That is what this passage is talking about. It fits the framework of rewards.
NKJ 2
Corinthians 5:10 For we must all
appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things
done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
The word there for judgment seat is the Greek word bema.
This is a raised or elevated seat where
the magistrate or tribunal would sit. (picture
shown of the remains of the bema seat in
The question that occurs is how we do this. We know that entering the race is analogous to salvation. You have to put your faith alone in Christ alone in order to get saved. Once you are saved, then you can enter into the qualification for the race, run the race, and either be qualified or disqualified or win the prize or not win rewards. Entry into the team as it were or the ability to compete in the games is salvation; but competition in the games is analogous to the post salvation Christian life. So entry onto the team is grace. After that, it is based on works. Not in the sense of earning the approbation of God; but it takes discipline, effort, decision making to stick with it. It takes perseverance and endurance to be in Bible class, to listen to tapes, to make decisions that are consistent with the doctrine that we learn and not just take the easy path of the sin nature and say, “I will confess it later and get back in fellowship.”
We have to wrestle with the fact that we need to stay in
fellowship. The primary image that I see
in the New Testament of fruitfulness comes out of what Jesus taught the
disciples the night before He went to the cross in what is known as the Upper
Room Discourse. John 15 actually takes
place as they left the Upper Room and began to proceed up the
He said, “The one I give it to.”
But He was going to give it to each one of them. So He handed it to Judas first.
In a private conversation He said, “Go, and do what you need to do.”
Judas left. Then they went through the observance of the Lord’s Table. After that He begins to announce that He is going to leave. There is going to be a new dispensation. He is going to depart from them. Then there is going to be a new ethic. That new ethic is that we are to love one other as Christ loved us.
Then there is going to be a New Comforter that is going to come
– another Comforter that is like Him. The
Holy Spirit is going to come. Then there
is going to be a new dynamic for the Christian life. That is John 15. That sets the stage. He has it were already cleansed the group of
the one unbeliever that was in the group.
That’s Judas. Now Judas has left
and he is going to the Jews and Romans.
He is going to betray Christ. So
while he is gone, then Jesus and the disciples sit there and He begins to
instruct them. They get up and they leave
and on the way to the
Turn in your Bibles with me to John 15.
Remember that we are looking at the analogy that is developed in Hebrews that compares the believer to earth, to soil. The soil receives nourishment from God. It is either going to produce fruit that is profitable (in that passage it is herbs) or it is going to produce thorns and briars. If it produces thorns and briars, then they are going to be burned and they are going to be judged. What we are trying to do is show that this imagery is not unique to that passage in Hebrews. It fits in with the imagery in other fruit production passages related to the spiritual life. We see the same kind of thing going on in John 15.
Let me read through the first six verses so we understand the context. Jesus is talking to the disciples.
NKJ John
15:1 "I am the true vine, and
My Father is the vinedresser.
You can picture Him standing there by the Eastern Wall of
the temple walking down the
I think it was Doug Karn who made a comment one night when we
were sitting at the restaurant in the hotel in
I said, “He is going to come down there then this is what is going to happen there. Then He is cross over there. There is the Eastern Gate.”
Who cares about power point? This was real time imagery there. That’s the way the Lord was. He used what was at hand in order to communicate the principles that the disciples needed to learn about the spiritual life for the Church Age.
That’s the same imagery that we have in Hebrews 6. Then there is the one who does the cultivating. This is the farmer. In that image the ground is the believer. Here we are going to have a different image. The believer is the branch.
NKJ John
15:2 "Every branch in Me that
does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He
prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
NKJ John
15:3 "You are already clean
because of the word which I have spoken to you.
NKJ John
15:4 "Abide in Me, and I in
you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine,
neither can you, unless you abide in Me.
NKJ John
15:5 "I am the vine, you are
the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for
without Me you can do nothing.
NKJ John 15:6 "If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.
We have that same fire imagery again. They are thrown into the fire and burned. What is going on here? What is the Lord teaching in John 15?
Let’s look at the first verse.
NKJ John
15:1 "I am the true vine, and
My Father is the vinedresser.
This is one of 7 famous statements of Jesus in the Gospel of John that are called the “I AM” statements. Jesus makes 7 of them.
NKJ John
We see that Jesus is pictured as the One who provides life.
Again He spoke to them saying…
NKJ John
NKJ John
This indicates that He was full deity. He was eternally existent.
NKJ John
10:7 Then Jesus said to them again,
"Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.
NKJ John
10:9 "I am the door. If anyone
enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.
He moves from being a door to being a shepherd.
NKJ John
NKJ John
So again and again each of these I AM statements when you put them together they reveal the purpose, the character and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
NKJ John
14:6 Jesus said to him, "I am
the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
Then we come to John 15:1.
KJ John
15:1 "I am the true vine, and
My Father is the vinedresser.
In each of these we get an image of something that Jesus Christ does – something related to His person and to His work. Here He is pictured as the vine that is the intermediate source of nourishment to the branches. Everything ultimately goes to the Father. The vine is the source of nourishment to the branches. If you study viticulture, you study the vine. There are many things that are true that are also true about a tomato vine. Some of you who are also patio farmers or ever had a backyard garden may be able to make some correlation here between a tomato plant and a tomato vine and a grape vine. There are some similarities.
As we look at this we have to understand the imagery that we
find in these first six verses. The vine
is a grape vine. It is found all along
the
Another thing that we need to observe when we look at plants is that only a mature plant produces fruit. That is really important. You may not understand the implications of that but you get all kinds of people who want to go around in the Christian life being fruit inspectors. They don’t understand how plants work. A plant is a great analogy for the Christian life. Take a beefsteak tomato. A beefsteak tomato takes about a hundred days from the time you plant the seed until it starts producing fruit. There is a lot of growing that takes place - a long time before there is any fruit production. It starts off as a little seed. The seed produces a new life. A little shoot comes out. Then it begins to grow. You have to water it and provide the right kind of soil and nutrients. You have to go down to Home Depot or whatever your favorite garden place is and get Miracle Grow and everything you need so that you can provide the right nourishment for that tomato plant to grow. It will still take 90 to 100 days before it starts producing fruit. There are a lot of things that can happen in that intervening period. If that plant dies, there is no fruit.
So you can’t come along and look at some believer and say “Hmm. I don’t see any fruit there.”
Fruit comes in maturity. Growth precedes it. That is really important to understand. You goal as a believer is to get through that growth stage.
You may think, “Golly, I don’t see a whole lot of fruit production in my life right now.”
You look at the fruit of the Spirit and Galatians 5 and think. “Come on Holy Spirit, You are slow on the job. I have been going to Bible class for awhile and trying to apply doctrine and to grow.”
But it takes time. Only a mature plant produces fruit. So we must distinguish between fruit and the growth process - the production of leaves the production of more stems and branches and the production of blossoms. All of that precedes the production of fruit. Then last of all the quality of the fruit is dependent upon the nourishment of the plant. If it hasn’t had the right nourishment, the right nutrients, or enough water then that can stunt the growth of the plant. It is not the fruit production. All of those things are important.
So Jesus begins.
NKJ John
15:1 "I am the true vine, and
My Father is the vinedresser.
Verse two is where things start getting a little
controversial.
NKJ John
15:2 "Every branch in Me that
does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He
prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
Now if you notice as I just read that from the New King James, it is different from what I read earlier because I corrected the translation when I read it earlier. There is a lot of debate over whether this should be He takes away or He lifts up. Lifts up is what it should read.
Let’s look at this. This is a lot of fun. There are three types of branches in the passage. The first is a non-fruit bearing branch. Now what is that? Believer or unbeliever? Second you have a fruit bearing branch. Everybody is going to agree that the fruit bearing branch is a believer. Then third there is a non-abiding branch which is discarded into the fire in verse 6. Now the problem that many interpreters have is they want to correlate the nonbinding branch in verse 6 with the branch that doesn’t produce fruit in verse 2. That is a fatal interpretive mistake. It is based on the fact that theologians need to be better farmers. Their failure to understand plant growth and the production of grapes in viticulture lies at the root of this. I will show you the basis for why I say this as we go through the passage.
Here is the first option that we looked at in terms of interpretive problems.
Option #1
Unfruitful means a professing but not a true believer. This is how the passage in interpreted. What I am going to give you here is three different ways people try to understand this passage. Only one of them is right, but you need to understand what I am talking about - where the differences are. There are those who come along and say that unfruitful means a professing but not a true believer. So they are taken away. This is the branch that is unfruitful in verse 2. He is taken away because he is not truly or genuinely saved. Now you know what I have said about that. Whenever you hear an adverb put in front of saved or faith, then you know that there is a problem. The Bible never qualifies the term faith or salvation. It never qualifies it as true faith vs. false faith. You never find that kind of terminology anywhere in the Scripture. This is the Lordship salvation position and also the position of many Calvinists who hold to what I will call a Lordship view of the 5th point. Remember Calvinism operates on the 5 points of Calvinism - TULIP - Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, and the Perseverance of the saints. There is a view of perseverance of the saints and that is where you get into the problem here.
Now that view states the following – every true or genuine believer manifests works for fruit that is in keeping with regeneration. According to them the only way you can know that you are saved, the only way you can test or examine your faith, to see if you are truly saved is by the works that you produce. One term that is used for this is experimental Calvinism. You can only know if you are saved by looking at your fruit, your works. If you don’t have the works that are in keeping with salvation, then you weren’t truly or genuinely saved. If you produce dead works or if your life is characterized by sin then according to this view you are not genuinely or truly saved. People say this all the time.
They will look at somebody and say, “How could they be a Christian if they did that?”
Wait a minute. Let’s go back to the initial principles. Was the “that” – the horrible egregious sin that they did – was that unknown by the omniscience of God in eternity past? No, it was known by the omniscience of God in eternity past. Was the horrible sin that they committed - did that somehow miss the justice of God at the cross. No, because God knew every sin. Therefore His justice could deal with every sin. Was that sin too great for the love of God or the power of God? No. So we go back to those general principles that I went over at the beginning of the lesson and we realize that there is no sin that is too great for the power of God and the grace of God and the work of Christ on the cross. This is the idea. If you produce certain dead works or produce certain sins, then you were not genuinely saved.
So according to Lordship Salvation proponents, it is possible to have a faith in Jesus that doesn’t save. You can be self deluded about your salvation.
You can say, “Well when I was ten years old I walked the
aisle at the
How do I know that I am really saved? Maybe it is a false faith in Christ. That is what they will say.
“Well, you didn’t have a true faith in Christ.”
I think one of the most egregious examples of this that I ever heard took place several years back -two or three years at least - when a fine Presbyterian pastor named James Montgomery Boyce who was a pastor of (I think) Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia which was Donald Barnhouse’s old church. If you know Donald Barnhouse he wrote “The Invisible War”, one of the finest books on spiritual warfare around. He was a fine dispensationalist and pre-millennial. Boyce was not. Boyce was a 5-point Lordship salvation advocate. He was dying and he was on his death bed. Everybody knew that death was eminent. At the same time RC Sprowl was conducting one of his Bible conferences with his ministries and he was challenging everybody in the group to continue to pray each night for Dr. Boyce that he would persevere in faithfulness to Christ to the end so that we would know that he was saved. If he renounced Christ or rejected Christ or fell into sin at the end; then it would be a sign that he was not truly saved. So every night he prayed for Dr. Boyce. At the end, two or three nights into the conference Dr. Boyce died.
He said, “Well, he never renounced his faith in Christ so we know that he was saved.”
You see in Lordship salvation you never know that you are
saved (just like a Roman Catholic) until you die because you may renounce
Christ, reject Christ or get involved in long term serious carnality . That shows that you weren’t ever saved. John McArthur who pastors a large church out
in southern
When he was through we said, “Well, do you know if you are saved?”
“I am about 99.5% sure that I am saved.”
“Can you ever really know that you are saved, truly beyond a shadow of a doubt?”
“No, I can’t.”
That is the problem with that position.
NKJ 1 John 5:13 These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.
But the Scripture suggests that we can know with certainty and have assurance of our salvation right here and now.
These folks come along and say, “Well the only way you can know you are saved is by the fruit that you produce.”
I would say the only way that you can know that you are saved is because you know the promise of the Scripture related to salvation. Then you put your faith in Christ. Then you know that you are saved because you did what the Scripture says.
NKJ John
And produced fruit…..Right? Is that what it said? Wake up! No! That is not what it said.
The only condition in the Gospel of John for salvation is faith in Christ.
So John writes his gospel with a primary purpose of showing people how they can know that they have eternal life. It is by believing on His name – believing in Christ. While Lordship advocates believe that Christians can sin and fall into some level of carnality. They are not going to stay there. They are not going to renounce Christ, reject Christ. If they are true believers they will persevere until they die.
Over the years I have done a lot of study on this and read a
lot of the different arguments. Where do
you find the idea that people can have a non-saving faith? In fact this came up the other morning. ( I
have a pastor’s study the last Monday of every month where we have a group of
pastors come in and we go over Greek grammar, Bible study methods, exegetical
skills, and things like that. They wanted to get me off on other issues like
this. So we were talking about
this. It just so happens that it fits
what we are teaching tonight so I am going over it again.) The assumption is that there is evidence in
the Scripture of those who believed in Christ, but it wasn’t a saving
faith. Where would you go to find that? They always go to John 2. Every time you read this in theology they
always go to John 2. So turn with me to
John 2. John 2 begins with the first of
Jesus’ signs that He did in Cana of Bethany where He turned water into
wine. Then He goes on to
NKJ John
The phrase there that is translated “believed in His name” is episteusan eis to onoma. Episteusan is the aorist tense form of pisteuo, the verb to believe. Eis is the preposition indicating direction or object. To onoma is the accusative form of the noun for name. The reason I put this up is that this is a phrase that is repeated over and over and over and over again in the Gospel of John related to salvation. What do you need to do? You need to believe on His name. He uses this verb and this prepositional phrase again and again and again. In fact if you got back into the Old Testament in Genesis 15:6 which we have studied in the past many times, it says...
NKJ Genesis
15:6 And he believed in the LORD,
and He accounted it to him for righteousness.
What to you have in the Greek translation of the LXX? Pisteuo eis. It expresses the object of belief necessary for salvation.
John
NKJ John
What is the Greek there? It is ha pisteuon eis auton. Here it is a participial form of the verb pisteuo. Eis is the same preposition. This is a formula that you have all the way through Scripture. It is repeated again later. You have the same phraseology there. So this is the same formula.
Anyone who believes in Him is saved - pisteuo
eis. So
how can you say that these folks back in John 2:23 weren’t really saved? The reason that is given is first of all their
faith was a watered down faith because it was based on signs. If it is based on miracles it is not as rock
solid as a faith that is not. It sounds good, but what about John
NKJ John
20:31 but these are written that you
may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you
may have life in His name.
What are the “these” – these what? These stories? No. If
you look at John
NKJ John
So that is your noun – signs.
Then it says in the next verse, it says these – these signs. It goes back to the noun in verse 30. It goes on to say that Jesus did many other signs.
So John wrote his gospel to outline 7 signs Jesus did in His life that would demonstrate that he was the Messiah. If you understood those signs you could believe in Him. So as far as John is concerned belief based on a sign or a miracle is not an inadequate, impotent, diluted faith. It is a salvific faith.
What people do is turn to John 2:24.
NKJ John
“You see if they were truly and genuinely saved, Jesus would trust them.”
I am not going to embarrass anybody here, but how many of
y’all at the moment you need to have a quadruple by pass would trust yourself
to a cardiologist solely on the fact that he is a believer in the Lord Jesus
Christ? Frankly I don’t care where he is
going to spend eternity as long as he spent a lot of time in time at the best
medical school possible so that I come out of this thing alive. The same thing with my car. I
don’t care whether the guy is going to paradise whether he is looking for 70
virgins or whether he is a Jehovah’s Witness.
Now Jehovah’s Witness are good
for car mechanics because they are working their way to heaven. So they will do an extra special job on your
car. The point I am making is that just
because somebody is a believer doesn’t mean they are trustworthy. They may just be a brand new believer and not
have enough knowledge yet about the Christian life or the truth or anything
else to change their life. They are just
a brand new baby. That is what these
folks were. Remember He goes to the
temple. He has performed miracles and many
believed in His name. They are brand new
baby believers still operating on the Jewish assumption the Messiah is going to
come with a political agenda and defeat the
That is the first option. What was the first option again? The first option is that they are not truly, genuinely saved. They are professing believers. That is the key word that you see.
Now let me point something out here. There are a lot of professing Christians who
are not saved. What do I mean by
that? Notice the words that I am using
here. There are a lot of professing
Christians. You have
The term professing believer is someone who says, “I profess that I believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sin.”
That is a big difference. He is not just saying that he is a Christian and he is not.
He is saying, “I make the claim that I put my trust in Jesus Christ alone for my salvation.”
If somebody has truly put their trust in Christ alone for salvation, they are genuinely saved. That is the condition for salvation. If they professed to believe, then they are saved. There is not a pseudo faith there. We have to be careful how we utilize this terminology. These people are genuinely saved. They are not making a false profession.
You will also hear people say, “There is a difference between a head belief and a heart belief.”
Have you ever heard that one before? That’s not biblical. What do you believe with? You believe with your mentality and your volition. With your mentality you understand the gospel. With your volition you choose to believe it. Does that take place in your heart - the physical organ in your chest? No. It takes place in your soul. If you are making a distinction that you are using heart for a reference to the soul, then where is your soul? That is related to your head because your soul is in your head. So we believe with our minds. It is intellectual. You have to believe with the mentality of the soul. You have to understand what you believe. If you don’t understand it, how can you believe it? Some of us have done that. Remember backing 9th grade algebra? Or 11th grade chemistry.
“Okay. I believe that. I will write it down on a test.”
But, you had no clue what that meant. At least I didn’t. That is how I got through freshman chemistry in college. I just wrote down whatever they said. I just memorized it. I had no idea what it meant. You can’t believe something that you don’t understand. You may regurgitate it, but you can’t believe it. Belief means that you understand it and accept it as true. That is the first option.
Option #2
This is the Arminian option.
They don’t live over in
Option #3
The third position is the one that we will develop. That is the view that unfruitful Christians are the ones that don’t abide in Christ. Unfruitful Christians will experience divine discipline in time and lose rewards in eternity. That’s what John 15 is talking about – how to grow and mature as a believer so that you have a productive fruitful spiritual life. The key is to abide in Christ.
NKJ John
15:7 "If you abide in Me, and
My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for
you.
The next key phrase that we have to look at is very important for understanding the passage.
There are two ways to understand this phrase, “in Me”. Who is speaking? Jesus is speaking. Christ is speaking. Many people think that “in Me” is the same thing as Paul’s later phrase, “in Christ”. I don’t agree with that. I don’t think that is right based on usage in John. This phrase “in Me” is used 16 times in the New Testament. When the figure involves Persons in the Godhead it always speaks of a true and genuine relationship that is fellowship, not merely a positional reality.
Let’s look at our chart. We have eternal realities and temporal realities. One the left side we have a circle indicating our positional truth, our position in Christ. At the instant of faith alone in Christ alone you are entered into your position in Christ through the baptism by means of the Holy Spirit. At the same time on a day-to-day basis we are either in fellowship or not in fellowship. We are in and out of fellowship. Fellowship has to do with our rapport with God. Positional reality has to do with a legal position unrelated to rapport. You can’t talk about Jesus’ relationship with the Father in terms of position because he always has perfect rapport with the Father. That is what this is talking about when we have the phraseology “in Me”. Jesus uses it in several passages.
NKJ John
You see it is relational. It is fellowship. It is not talking about a legal position. It is talking about the actual relational reality of the Father and the Son.
NKJ John
If you are not abiding in Him, you aren’t going to have peace if you are operating on carnality. In this passage it is talking about relationship or fellowship.
NKJ John
17:21 "that they all may be
one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one
in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.
NKJ John
17:22 "And the glory which You
gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one:
The “in Me” is relational here. So Jesus is praying that believers will have that same rapport with the Father that He has with the Father. So when we look at this don’t make the mistake of thinking that “in Me” is the same as “in Christ.” Paul is the one who uses the terminology “in Christ” and Paul is the one who develops the doctrine of positional truth. Paul doesn’t get saved for about another 5-6 years and doesn’t start writing for another 15 to 20 years. So the terminology “in Christ” doesn’t get developed yet. So “in Christ” as a positional reality wouldn’t have made any sense to them. But they did understand the relational reality in the fellowship of the Son with the Father because of the many things that Jesus has said up to this point.
That is relational, not positional. Positional would mean he is talking about salvation. Here he is talking about relationship or fellowship. That is going to become the key to understanding the dynamics of spiritual growth in John 15.
Let us close in prayer.