John chapter 15
Verse 1 – “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.” This is the seventh of what is referred to as the eight “I ams” in the Gospel of John. These are statements that Jesus makes regarding His person and His work. Some are analogy and some relate specifically to who He is and what He is to do.
John 6:35—Jesus said to His disciples, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.” What Jesus is claiming here is to be the sole source of life. Because of sin man is separated from the true source of life. Man has limited pleasures but unless he is in right relationship to God he cannot understand what real life is as God intended it.
John 8:12—“I am the light of the world; he who follows me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life.” Light is revelatory, illuminating; it shines forth and shows the truth.’ Jesus is claiming He is the truth here, the one who illuminates in the darkness of sin in the world.
John 8:58—“Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I AM.” This was in the midst of a heated controversy with the Pharisees and Jesus referred to the fact that he knew Abraham because He was before Abraham. The significance of this is seen in the Greek where Jesus uses the imperfect tense of GINOMAI [ginomai] which means a past tense, that Abraham came into existence—GINOMAI is the Greek word for coming into existence. So the emphasis is on coming into existence. There was a time when Abraham did not exist and he came into existence and he died. Jesus said, “Before Abraham came into existence, I AM”—EGOEIMI [e)gw e)imi], the present tense emphasizing His continuous existence, that Jesus Christ is the eternal second person of the Trinity and he always existed. EGO EIMI is the Greek translation of the name of God from the Old Testament. When Moses was conversing with God at the burning bush he said, “By what name are you called, that the people might know that I have come from you?” And God said, “I AM who I AM.” The Lord’s name in the Old Testament is the sacred tetragrammaton, YHWH, which comes from the Hebrew verb meaning “existence.” So when Jesus said “I AM” He was claiming for Himself all of the attributes of,and in fact identity with, YHWH of the Old Testament. The Jews understood that He was making that claim, so they immediately reached down to pick up stones to kill Him.
John 10:7, 9—“Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep …. And shall go in and out, and find pasture” In a sheepfold there is only one way in and out. Jesus is claiming that he is the only way; He is the door for the sheep. He is the only way of salvation, and going in and going out is a picture of the Christian life and that feeding on the Word of God is based upon a right relationship with Jesus Christ.
John 10:11—“I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” The Greek word translated “for” is the preposition HUPER [u(per], the preposition of substitution—HUPER plus the genitive of advantage. He is the substitute for the advantage of the sheep. He will lay down His life as a substitute for the sheep. Jesus Christ died on the cross as a substitute for us.
John 11:25—“I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes on me shall live even if he dies.” Jesus is claiming to be the life. He is the only source of life and the way to appropriate that eternal life is through faith in Him. He is the object of our faith.
John 14:6—“I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through me.” Jesus claims exclusivity: the only way, absolute truth, and the life. Christianity claims to be unique among all of the world’s religions. All of the other world’s religions claim relationship with God on some form of human works, human obedience, human morality. But the Scripture claims that it is based on Jesus’ work, and on Jesus’ work alone.
John 15:1—“I am the true vine.” Jesus develops the analogy of the vine. We have to understand the analogy of the vine. This is a metaphor. One of the problems is that when metaphor or analogy is used people try to push things too far. They try to make every single detail in the story stand up and walk on two legs. That is not true of analogy in any realm of illustration. You can’t force every detail to mean something. So we have to learn how the vine analogy is used.
1. The vine here is the grape vine. The hills along the Kidron Valley outside of Jerusalem are covered with grape vines, and as Jesus and the disciples left the upper room and were walking along the hill side the hills were covered with grape vines. This isn’t by chance. God created the grape vine; He created the topography of Jerusalem. The fact that it is a growth area for the grape vine is not a chance encounter. God specifically designed things so that this event would take place, that Jesus would go by the grape vines, and he would use this as an analogy of the believer’s relationship to Himself.
2. God created the grape vine in order to teach certain things about the Christian life and then Christian’s relationship to God. The same refers to the sheep. God created the sheep so that He could utilize it as an analogy to teach certain things about the life of the believer. One thing we learn about the vine is that the wood itself is useless. You can take the wood of the vine and burn it to make heat. You can’t use it to make furniture or to make weapons. The wood itself is virtually useless. It is good for only one thing: producing fruit. In the same way we could say that the believer is relatively useless. He is not good in and of himself, he is only good because of what Christ has done for him, and what He has supplied for him. What the believer is designed for is the production of fruit. Ephesians 2:10.
3. The purpose for planting the vine is equivalent to salvation, but you don’t plant the vine just for the enjoyment of its growth. The purpose is in the end result which is the production of fruit.
4. Only mature plants produce fruit. Immature plants are to continue to grow. The implications for this is profound. Think about it. The purpose of a plant is to produce fruit but it doesn’t produce fruit until it is mature. All the time it is maturing it has to be fed all the right nutrients under the right conditions, and then it absorbs all of that nutrition from the soil in order to produce fruit. The same is true of the believer. You don’t really start producing fruit in your life until you are a mature believer. In many churches fruit is defined as going to prayer meeting, having your daily devotions, reading your Bible every day, giving to the church, witnessing, etc. The Scriptures do not define that as production, that is the function of the believer’s priesthood, not production. It is not related to fruit. When talking about fruit—for example, in Galatians 5:22, 23—the fruit/production of the Holy Spirit is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,” etc. Production of fruit is character, an inner transformation of the soulinto the character of Jesus Christ. That takes time, it take the proper nutrition, the proper feeding and handling. And what is that based on? Two things: the filling by means of God the Holy Spirit—Ephesians 5:18; and the content of that filling is the Word of Christ—Colossians 3:16, “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you.” 1 Peter 2:2 commands us to desire the sincere milk of the Word, “that you may grow by it.” It is only by means of the Word of God that we grow. Spiritual growth is the result of the right nourishment which comes exclusively from the Word of God under the filling of the Holy Spirit. So the believer is like a plant. He puts his roots down in that soil of Bible class, week in and week out, over and over again, so that his mind becomes saturated with doctrine, his soul absorbs those spiritual nutrients. The result of that is growth. It is slow, it takes time, and it may be imperceptible to the believer for a while, but the Holy Spirit (if you are filled with the Spirit) is working and over time transformation takes place. When a believer grows to maturity, then he sees the fruit.
5. Fruit must be distinguished from the growth of the plant, its stem and its leaves. Don’t confuse the leaves, the buds and the stem with fruit, that is the immature believer going from infancy to maturity. Fruit only comes at maturity; it is the end result. Life doesn’t begin when we are an adult!
6.
The quality of the fruit is dependant on the nourishment
plant. What is nourishing your soul? What is it that you spend time on
absorbing into your soul? Is it the human viewpoint concepts of the cosmic
system? Or is it Bible doctrine? Romans 12:2—“And do not be conformed to this world
[cosmos], but be transformed by the renovation of your thinking” through the
study of God’s Word.
may bear more fruit.” We have a major interpretive problem to resolve here. What does it mean to “take away”? What happens to this unfruitful branch? There are three ways that this is handled. First of all, some say that unfruitful means that this is merely a professing but not a genuine believer. John nowhere recognizes that kind of distinction in the Gospel. The second interpretive position that is taken on this is that the believers that are “taken away” are those who lose their salvation. The third position and the one that is the true position is that the unfruitful believers experience divine discipline. The words “taken away” is a mistranslation. The Greek word is EIRO [e)irw] which can mean to take away or remove, but it also means to lift up. In Israel, when you go out into the fields and see the vineyards out there, the lower branches on the vine that may be weak are propped up by rocks, so that by the elevation they are strengthened and then produce fruit. That is the meaning of this particular word. It does not have to do with removal (there is removal in verse 6 which has to do with the sin unto death). Unfruitful believers experience divine discipline in time and lose rewards in eternity.
In order to resolve these interpretive problems and to understand this so that we know what Jesus is talking about throughout this chapter we need to do some word study. Words are the substance of thought. Without words we can’t think. Words have significance and meaning. Jesus is going to choose His words carefully. The writer of Scripture says that every word is inspired by God. Since the New Testament was written originally in Greek we have to cross that language barrier. If we run past this we run the danger of false interpretation, so we have to stop and look at some terminology here.
The
first phrase that is important is “in me.” Paul uses a phrase that is unique to
him: “in Christ.” He uses the phrase to refer to our positional union with
Christ. It is a forensic or legal term that is used to talk about the fact that
at the moment of faith in Christ the believer is united with Christ inseparably
for all eternity. That is a legal concept based upon justification. This is not
how John uses the word; he has something different in mind. When Jesus uses
this vine analogy (because “in me” is in the vine) is this the same
significance as the vine analogy used throughout the Old Testament in reference
to Israel. For example, in Psalm 80; Hosea 5:1-7; Jeremiah 5:10, and other
passages, Israel is identified as the vine. The problem with going back into
the Old Testament is that it is a different concept.
The next thing we need to look at is the word “fruit.” This is the Greek word KARPOS [karpoj] which can be translated “fruit” but the word “production” is
preferable because that is what it signifies: the production
in the life of the believer. Production in the spiritual life is always related
to character, not activity. It is being transformed internally by the Word of
God. “Every branch in me that does not bear fruit”—i.e. produce divine good. We
need to look at verse 4 here because the other key word that we must understand
in this text is found in the command of this verse: “Abide in me, and I in
you.” What does it mean to abide in Christ? The Greek word here is MENO [menw],
and the English word means to put up with, tolerate, to wait patiently for
something, to be in store for something, to wait for something, to withstand.
It is used intransitively to remain in place, to continue, to affirm, to dwell,
to sojourn. The Greek word has basically the same range of meaning. In the
Gospel of John MENO means to remain,
to reside, to continue, to endure. One verse where this is used is very
important for its understanding: John 6:56—“He who eats my flesh and drinks my
blood abides in Me, and I in him.”
6. If eating and drinking describe the metaphor belief then MENO must mean something beyond initial saving faith. Therefore faith cannot be equated to remaining. Faith is not the same thing. MENO doesn’t mean to believe, to accept Christ as saviour.
7. Even though someone believes in Christ and currently maintains a close relationship with Him the indication here is that the potential remains to discontinue that fellowship. If true belief prevented breaking fellowship there would be no need to command them to abide. People are commanded to abide only if the potential is there to break fellowship and stop abiding.
8. A believer remains in Christ’s love by obeying commandments—such as abide in Christ. If abide means to accept Christ as saviour the conclusion is that salvation would be by works, because in John 15:9, 10 Jesus is saying that “the one who loves Me keeps my commandments.”
9. If
abide means to believe then Jesus’ statement in 15:5 becomes absurd. It would
then be read as (changing “abide” to “believe”): “he who believes in me, and I
[believe] in him.” Why would Jesus want to believe in him? Abide means
relationship, fellowship; not salvation.
Another characteristic of fellowship with the Lord and abiding is the continuous application of the new commandment: the believer is to “love one another.” 1 John 2:10—fellowship is related to the application of impersonal love or unconditional love for all mankind.
Another is walking in dependence upon God the Holy Spirit following the precedent set by the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ. 1 John 2:6; 1:7; Ephesians 5:8.
Another is having our minds saturated with the Word of God—1 John 2:14, “the Word of God abides in you.” That is the key. There has to be a relationship with the Word of God continuously.
1 John 3:24—the one who keeps His commandments abides in Him. So fellowship is related to continuous obedience.
The one who abides does not depart from the doctrine taught from the beginning. 1 John 2:24—“Let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning.” That is the doctrine of the New Testament.
Abiding is fellowship. “Every branch that is in Me,” i.e. every believer that continues in fellowship, who wants to have a relationship with me, “but does not bear fruit, He takes away.” He’s going to lift it up. God is going to work in the believer’s life to produce fruit; “every branch that does bear fruit [grows to maturity and produces], He prunes it, that it may bear more fruit”—through discipline, through suffering, through adversity. The pruning is so that it puts all of its energy into fruit bearing and isn’t distracted by other things. We get distracted in life with all kinds of wonderful things to do in life, but God wants to prune us and get the focus on the purpose for which He saved us, which is to bear fruit.
“Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit” refers to every believer who is
in fellowship with the Lord but is not yet bearing fruit. There are two
categories here: “He takes away” – the verb EIRO
[e)irw] means to lift up. The tender
shoots on the vine that come out and don’t have any strength in themselves are
propped up with stones. The branches are lifted up until it has strength on its
own to survive. So category #1 in this verse is talking about the immature
believer. This is not a carnal believer in the sense of an older believer who
is in rebellion, this is a young immature believer who is in that stage between
spiritual infancy and spiritual adulthood and has not grown enough to produce
fruit. God comes along and props up the baby believer to get them to that point
where they can produce fruit. Then there is another category in the second half
of the verse: “every branch that bears fruit [the mature believer], he prunes
it, that it might bear more fruit.” The word for pruning here is the word
related to cleansing: KATHAIRO [kaqairw]. It can be seen that there is a bit
of the preposition KATA plus AIRO. John carefully chooses his words. There
is a relationship here between this verb and another verb, KATHARIZO [kaqarizw]
which means to cleanse or to purify. But they are different. The pruning process
is a matter of purification. It is to produce more fruit in the life of the
believer and this is momentum testing in the spiritual life or pruning testing.
When the believer reaches spiritual adulthood he is beginning to produce fruit
and God is going to come in with testing in his life with certain types of
adversity that are tailor made to the personality, to the strength and
weaknesses of the sin nature, to his background and everything he is. He is
going to bring these tests into that believer’s life so that he is forced to
make decisions related to priority. The problem with the plant is that it just
grows a lot of stems and leaves and therefore its energy is diverted in all
kinds of directions other than the fruit production. What needs to be done is
prune these leaves and stems off so that all of the energy of the plant is
forced into fruit production. So once the believer reaches spiritual adulthood
God brings this momentum/pruning testing to bear so that he is forced to decide
that although there are a lot of good things in life that he likes to do he is
not going to do any more, because they distract from doctrine and fruit
production. So the whole process is designed to speed up and intensify growth.
We have seen that MENO [menw] emphasizes relationship, not just judicial position. We enter at salvation into a relationship with the Lord based on our day to day experience. This is our temporal reality and is called being filled with the Holy Spirit. We become sons of light with our adoption into the family of God, so we are positionally in the light. But as a result of our faith alone in Christ alone we are filled with the Spirit, which we can lose, and we are to walk by means of the Holy Spirit—also called “walking in the light in Ephesians 5—and which in this passage is called “abiding in Me.” All of these terms are synonymous. What happens in terms of our Christian growth is that we often sin, and outside the sphere of light is darkness. Darkness is tantamount to sin nature control; we are in carnality. The instant we sin we are out of the light. Positionally we are still in the light but practically we are out of the light and we are walking in darkness. The only way to recover is through the use of 1 John 1:9. When we admit or acknowledge our sins to God we are instantly forgiven, we recover the filling of the Holy Spirit and we are restored to fellowship with Jesus Christ, so that we are once again abiding in Christ.
KATHAIRO means to make clean. It is different from KATHARIZO which means to cleanse or to purify. What Jesus is saying here is, “I am going to make you clean.” It is a process. KATHAIRO is different from KATHARIZO in that KATHARIZO is what happens with 1 John 1:9 and the believer is cleansed and purified instantaneously and back in fellowship. But KATHAIRO indicates a process: “I am making you clean.” It is what is called progressive sanctification. At the instant that we are identified with Christ in terms of the baptism of the Holy Spirit we are positionally sanctified—we are the sons of God, we are sanctified, we have had imputed to us the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. But our progress in the Christian life is dependent upon our time in fellowship, and the more we are in fellowship the more there is spiritual growth. That is the process, so it is called progressive sanctification, the process from spiritual infancy toward spiritual maturity. The spiritual growth area is called “walking” or “abiding in me.” It is our continuous fellowship with Jesus Christ. This is the arena of forward momentum. We are not saved to sit around in diapers!
Verse 3 – “You are already clean.” Here Jesus chooses a word for “clean” that is KATHAROS [kaqaroj], the noun. The word can refer to salvation cleansing or it can refer to the cleansing that takes place in the spiritual life. So we have to remember our context. Jesus is having an on-going discussion with the disciples, going back to the initial foot-washing episode in chapter 13 where Jesus made the comment that “You are all clean, but not all of you.” That was a reference to Judas Iscariot not being saved. When He made the statement, “You are all clean,” that was identical to the statement He makes in John 15:3. He is using “clean” to refer to salvation. So He is not talking about KATHAIRO, as in the previous verse.
“because of the word which I have spoken to you.” What is the word that Jesus spoke to them? The gospel. Now He moves from salvation doctrine to spiritual life doctrine. They are already saved; now the issue changes. The issue now is “Abide in me.” He is talking about what is necessary to experience spiritual growth.
Verse 4 – “Abide in Me, and I in you.” This has to do with relational fellowship between the believer and his Lord; “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me.” The point is, no matter how much activity you are engaged in, no matter how moral your life might be, no matter what religious activity you might participate in, it is not fruit unless you are in fellowship with Jesus Christ. Unless you are abiding in Him all you are doing is producing wood, hay, and straw.
Verse 5 – John goes back to the analogy. “He bears much fruit.” This is the mature believer; “for apart from Me you can do nothing.” It is one or the other. Either the believer is walking under the control of the sin nature or he is filled with the Holy Spirit. Unless he is in fellowship with Christ he cannot produce anything of eternal value.
Verse 6 – the warning. “If [3rd class condition: either you will or you won’t] anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch, and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.” Many read this and jump to the conclusion that this is talking about the fires of hell. Just because the Scripture mentions fire does not mean that it is talking about eternal judgment in the lake of fire. 1 Corinthians 3:9-12 very clearly speaks of fire and the subject is the judgment seat of Christ where every believer is evaluated according to his spiritual production while on the earth. There the fire will test the quality of each believer’s works. It is not the lake of fire, eternal condemnation. So verse 6 here is talking about divine discipline on the believer, not loss of salvation.
Verse 7 – “If [maybe you will and maybe you will not. It is up to volition] you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you.” Personal relationship, listening to the Word of God, obeying His commandments. You have a relationship with doctrine, you are submissive to doctrine, applying it in your life. Not just anybody can get their prayers answered. This is standard in every dispensation. The Psalmist said, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” We have to fit God’s protocol for prayer. We have to be in fellowship and we have to be growing, advancing in spiritual life. This is abiding, remaining, walking in fellowship with the Lord. Then we have the prayer promise of this verse. But it is not anything you wish, because if you are abiding with Him your thinking is being transformed by His Word, so that you know what to pray for that will be in His will. 1 John 5:14—“according to His will.”
Verse 8 – “By this [the prayer that is the result of letting doctrine abide in your life, the process of spiritual growth] is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit.” Glorification of God comes through spiritual maturity, through fruit production. That is the goal in the spiritual life. The purpose for our salvation is to glorify God to the maximum, and that doesn’t happen until spiritual maturity because fruit bearing doesn’t happen until spiritual adulthood.
“and so prove to be My disciples.” The word “prove” comes from the verb GINOMAI [ginomai] which means to become. So we see from this passage that the word “disciple” has many different shades of meaning. Here He is talking about becoming disciples. The word basically means to be a learner or a student. There were many disciples that didn’t follow Jesus. They were believers but they didn’t follow Him. He is talking about the essence of true discipleship as spiritual maturity. So here He is using the word in the sense of a true follower who goes all the way with His teaching. It doesn’t always mean that but He is using it that way here. Disciple is not a synonym for believer. A disciple is one who is committed to spiritual growth and spiritual maturity.
Verse 9 – “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My
love.” Now we come back to the theme of love. How did all of this get started?
Jesus gives a new commandment in John 13:34, 35—“that you love one another,
even as I have loved you.” Jesus uses the word “love” 27 times in the upper
room discourse. This is the major emphasis in this entire discourse. The
emphasis is on what it means to love one another and what it means to love Jesus
Christ. In this verse the love is relational, not positional. It is the
experience of love.
In John 15:3 we have “you are already clean.” That is the word KATHAROS [kaqaroj], the noun. Immediately this tells us we are talking about something to do with sanctification, but there it tells us that they are already clean. That is salvation, so there is some sense that at the point of salvation the believer becomes sanctified. This is positional sanctification. At the point of salvation we are legally cleansed from all of our sins. But we sin after salvation, so post-salvation cleansing requires the use of 1 John 1:9. So we see that cleansing can relate to either phase one cleansing or phase two cleansing, either salvation cleansing or in terms of our day to day experience dealing with sin after salvation. The issue here is sanctification which is the process by which God sets us apart for spiritual service. When we talk about progressive or experiential sanctification we are talking about the Christian life. Morality is for believer and unbeliever alike. The Church Age spiritual life is uniquely based and energized by God the Holy Spirit, and that is what makes the difference. This concept of abiding in Christ, fellowship, is central to understanding the whole process of sanctification, and we must understand that this isn’t some experience.
In 1 John 1:1-3 John says it is “what we have seen and heard. . .we have seen with our eyes . . . in our hands have handled,” etc.: objective data, not some subjective mystical experience. . . “that you also may have fellowship with us.” Fellowship with the apostles is based not upon an experience but upon belief in information, in certain data. In other words, “You have to believe what we tell you to have fellowship with us.” Fellowship is based on apostolic message, not a common experience. This is the problem with the ecumenical movement: We’ve all had a religious experience, so let’s get together and hold hands, and we will just have a wonderful religious experience and go home feeling good! That is not what the Scripture says. The Scripture says there is an apostolic succession, not the physical hand to head, empty-head succession of the Roman Catholic church; it is an apostolic succession of apostolic doctrine. That is how the early church viewed apostolic succession. It wasn’t physical, it was content. So John tells us that if we want to have fellowship with the apostles then you can have fellowship with God, but you can only have fellowship with the apostles if you believe their message which is based on an objective content. Then the basis for fellowship with God the Father.
There are three stages of sanctification. When we talk about God’s plan for our life, this is the plan. It is a blueprint. Remember that salvation and sanctification are not ends in themselves. We are saved from something to something. It is a means to an end. Sanctification is to make the believer ready to serve God. The trouble is that most believers think that they are saved and that is it! They forget that it is for a purpose. God has laid out a blueprint for our lives and that is the three stages of sanctification.
The goal of sanctification is to glorify God. So how do we do it? What happens after salvation is that the believer is going to go through various tests—adversity. God is going to test us in terms of growth. James calls them tests of faith, and there it is not just whether or not you believe but it is what you believe. You cannot grow if you are not believing the right things. Faith is non-meritorious, it is the object of faith that matters. Faith and feelings doesn’t work faith and emotion doesn’t work, faith and experience doesn’t work; mixing faith with the promises of God is what moves us forward in the spiritual life; we apply the doctrine we have learned under the filling of the Holy Spirit. So we get into tests of doctrine. Ever time we make a decision we need to be thinking: What is God’s thinking on this problem? Every decision is a test as to whether we are going to apply divine viewpoint or human viewpoint, whether we are going to be walking by the Spirit or walking according to the flesh. It is an issue of volition. The issue in the spiritual life is, are you going to decide to apply the Word of God and continue to grow all the way to spiritual maturity, or you are going to do it your way. If you go forward in the spiritual life it is going to involved the following progressions. If you grow are going to produce divine good under the filling of the Holy Spirit. You will be walking by means of the Holy Spirit and filled by means of the Holy Spirit. That produces divine good. It is also going to produce in the life objective evidence that the will of God is good and perfect—Romans 12:2. Then we have steadfast endurance: remaining in fellowship with Christ, enduring in the times of testing by applying doctrine. That leads to the adult spiritual life—James 1:2-4. God is glorified in phase three at the judgment seat of Christ when we produce rewards and have an inheritance. That is the culmination. We need to be living today with the future in mind. Every decision we make today impacts eternity. To put it another way, what you decide today determines what you will be in eternity. When we make decisions today based on what will happen at the judgment seat of Christ we are beginning to come to grips with the sense of eternal destiny. This is the process of sanctification.
What is the means? How does sanctification take place? There are two elements. It is the Word of God working in tandem with the Spirit of God. These two are not independent in the process; one is not emphasized at the expense of the other. The Word of God is always the key element. Deuteronomy 6:6-9:
Verse 6—“And these words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart [the thinking part of the soul].” The question we need to ask is how they are going to get there. How are we going to get the Word of God inside our kids, and inside of ourselves?
Verse 7—“and you shall teach them diligently [indicating that this is a priority issue].” It is a priority issue to teach our children; “to your sons and shall talk of them” – this means “with them.” This is conversation with your children. In family situations bring the children into the decision-making process so that you can show them how you utilize the Word of God in problem-solving. Talk about the spiritual issues. What is the divine viewpoint perspective of a problem? So you are going to be communicating by modeling with the kids what procedure is; “when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up”—the totality of your life. It includes every category of life. The Bible is not just for Sunday!
Verse 8 – “And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead.” Your hand relates to what you do. This was an agrarian society, they worked with their hands. The frontals of your forehead: this is where you think. The point was that the Word of God is going to affect what you do and what you think.
Verse 9 – “And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” In other words, this is going to characterize your family life.
Deuteronomy 17:18—“Now it shall come to pass when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests.” This is talking about the king. The Bible was not only for the family, it was also for government leaders. The king had to sit down and copy out for himself his own copy of the Old Testament. Notice: Anyone who has spent any time studying secular education theory knows that secular education theory says that this is a lousy way to learn. But God said that this is what the king is supposed to do. Notice that it is memorization and making a hand copy of something; constant reminder and repetition. This is just the opposite of modern education!
What parents can do with their kids is get some program of Scripture memorization going. You can’t mix faith with promises you don’t know. When you are out there is real life on the job, you don’t have your Bible with you or your doctrinal notebook to tell you what to do. It has to be in the soul. You have to have promises memorized in order to apply them. Make memorizing Scripture a family project.
Verse 19—“And it shall be with him [his doctrine], and he shall read it all the days of his life, in order that he may learn to respect the Lord his God, by carefully observing all the words of this law and these statutes.” Notice that respect for God comes as a result of careful obedience to the Word of God.
Deuteronomy
31:10,11—“Then Moses commanded them, saying, ‘At the end of every seven years,
at the time of the remission of debts, at the Feast of Booths, when all Israel
comes to appear before the Lord, you shall read this law in front of all Israel
in their hearing.’” The whole nation would come together and the priests would
go out and read the Torah to everyone. They had to hear it over and over and
over again. Notice the emphasis on continuous repetition and reminding of what
was in the Word of God. Psalm 1:1,2 reiterates the principle: “in his law he
meditates day and night.” John 17—“Sanctify them through thy word, thy word is
truth.” Colossians 3—“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” This is the
key to living the spiritual life. Throughout the Scripture the emphasis is on
learning the Word of God, and that then produces fruit.
There is a claim that abiding really means faith—believing in Christ as saviour. Assuming that to be true for the sake of argument, if abiding is equivalent to walking that would mean that belief in Christ as saviour would have to be equivalent to walking. Since it is clear that walking by the Spirit is a spiritual life concept and not a salvation concept it shows that it is false to make abiding equivalent to belief. This is an important argument to show that abiding cannot mean belief, it has to mean spiritual life fellowship, not justification faith.
We have seen that abiding in Christ is accomplished by walking by means of God the Holy Spirit. So the Christian life is a unique life, a supernaturally empowered life, empowered by God the Holy Spirit. We have seen that failure to abide in Christ means that we are a failure in the spiritual life, we are useless to Christ, and discarded in divine discipline and the sin unto death. It doesn’t mean that we lose our salvation but that we become useless in God’s plan.
In the spiritual life what we have is the Holy Spirit operating to help us learn doctrine. He stores it in our memory and reminds us of the doctrine that is there. So when we go through life and have to make a decision where we can apply doctrine or not apply doctrine, the Holy Spirit brings to our memory that doctrine stored in our minds. He reminds us. Now we have a decision to make. It becomes clear what the issues are and we have to decide whether to apply doctrine or not. In the decision to apply doctrine we have “opened the gate”, as it were, and what happens on the other side is that the Holy Spirit takes that doctrinal decision you have made to apply doctrine and uses that to strengthen your soul. It then produces endurance and develops toward spiritual maturity so that you can eventually, as you reach maturity, produce fruit. That is the dynamic. The Holy Spirit helps the believer learn doctrine, helps understand it, stores it in the memory, brings it to his consciousness where the appropriate doctrine can be recalled. The believer makes the decision, and then on the other side, after the decision is made, the Holy Spirit uses that to strengthen the soul—called edification in the Scriptures. It produces endurance, maturity, and production in the spiritual life.
In verses 7-12 we see that there are three benefits to abiding. The first is that abiding in Christ is necessary for a successful prayer life. A successful prayer life does not mean that prayers are always answered the way we want them to be answered. A successful prayer life is defined as a prayer life that gets your petition heard at the throne of grace. If you are out of fellowship your prayers aren’t going to be heard, so you are unsuccessful in making your petition. Verse 7 – “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, as whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you.” The “if” is a 3rd class condition, indicating it is a conditional clause—EAN MEINETE [e)an meinhte], “If you abide in me, maybe you will and maybe you will not.” It is up to your volition. This is pure contingency and emphasizes the importance of the believer’s volition as to his continuation and growth in the spiritual life. He has to exercise his volition and the Holy Spirit will do the rest.
Two conditions are given in this verse for answered prayer. The first is the believer’s fellowship with Christ: “If you abide in me.” But it is not enough to simply be in fellowship, to confess your sins and be in fellowship. There is one other condition, and this is knowledge of doctrine. His Word is to abide in us. Now if to abide means continuous relationship it means that there is something going on dynamically in the mentality of our soul in relationship to the Word of God. It is not just a sitting down and passively learning doctrine in Bible class. There is a learning process that goes on, and once you have acquired the information, the GNOSIS [gnwsij], the academic knowledge, then there is meditation and contemplation on the doctrine, your volition is engaged again so that it become EPIGNOSIS [e)pignwsij] (you believe it), and then you apply it. Your thinking is renovated, transformed. You exchange the old way of thinking for the new way of thinking. So the two conditions are fellowship with Christ and knowledge of doctrine. You have to have some doctrine to be able to know what to pray for and what not to pray for. The first condition emphasizes being in fellowship and it reminds us of the passage in the Old Testament: “If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me.” We must be in fellowship with Him. We see from this that the believer is to maintain an ongoing relationship with Jesus Christ if he is going to have his prayers heard. Also, the believer has to maintain an ongoing relationship with Bible doctrine, with the Word of God, if he is going to have his prayers heard. If you don’t know what God says, you don’t know anything about what to pray for. Third, believer is to maintain an ongoing relationship with God the Holy Spirit—Galatians 5:16. In some sense these are all synonymous, there is an overlapping with all of them. If the believer is not walking by the Spirit then he is living according to the sin nature and that means that he is regarding iniquity in the heart; therefore prayers go unheard and unanswered. The idea of abiding is continuous relationship.
The main verb here is the aorist middle imperative, second person plural of AITEW [a)itew], meaning to ask or to request. The plural He is talking to is specifically the eleven disciples. He may be talking through them to all Church Age believers but primarily He is talking to the eleven. He is telling them that there is a mission that is about to be accomplished and about to be delegated to them to go out and scatter throughout the world carrying the gospel. If they are going to be successful in that they have to maintain an intimate fellowship with the Lord, and this will be revealed in their prayer life. There is a parallel passage to this in 1 John 5:14-15 and it utilizes the same verb. The phrase “according to His will” is His revealed will, consistent with all the mandates, prohibitions, directions and procedures that God has outlined in the Scriptures. Because we know that we are consistently praying according to these principles in the Scriptures we know that He hears us. The issue in applying this particular principle is that we need to understand the Word of God. The better we understand the Word of God, the more we let the Word of God dwell in us, the more we will be able to ask consistent with His revealed will. The only way that we can know His will is to assimilate the doctrine into our souls so that we are thinking as Christ thinks. That way we can evaluate the circumstances based on doctrine and then pray accordingly.
Conclusion: To have an effective prayer life we must stay in fellowship with the Holy Spirit, and we must fill up our souls (saturate our thinking) with Bible doctrine. The result of that eventually is fruit production.
The second result of abiding is glorification of God—John 15:8. This is the goal of the spiritual life. God’s will, plan and purpose is for Him to be glorified in the angelic conflict. “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit.” The main verb here is DOXAZO [doxazw], aorist passive indicative indicating past tense, but it is a future aorist indicating the certainty of the action in the future. So it is viewed as a past tense. It means to glorify or to honour someone. We honour God when we show respect for Him in terms of the angelic conflict by producing fruit. But we don’t produce the fruit, it is the Holy Spirit who produces the fruit in us. What we do is focus upon abiding in Christ, walking by the Spirit, staying in fellowship, learning doctrine; then eventually it is the Holy Spirit who produces the fruit. It is the fruit that is the basis for glory.
Notice: Verse 2 talks about fruit, then more fruit. Here in verse 8 it is “much fruit.” There are three different stages of Christian adulthood manifested here: those who produce fruit, those who produce more fruit, and those who produce much fruit. The difference is related to abiding in Christ, but the goal is to produce fruit. A plant doesn’t produce fruit until it reaches maturity, so we have to go through that growth stage from infancy to maturity before fruit appears and begins to be produced. 1 Peter 2:2—Peter caught the message that it in only by feeding the sheep that growth is produced. That is the focus of the pastor; that was the focus of the apostolic ministry. It is only through the nourishment of doctrine that we can grow and mature in the spiritual life.
“and so prove to be My disciples” – the verb is the aorist passive of GINOMAI [ginomai], which can mean to become. The NASB translation “prove” is a translator’s interpretation, maybe because he thought the passage deals with salvation. A disciple does not necessarily mean a believer but a believer who is advancing to spiritual maturity. The word for “disciple,” MATHETES [maqhthj] means a learner, a student. This passage should be” “that you will become disciples.” It is talking about spiritual maturity, not proof but the fact that you will become a mature disciple through bearing much fruit—the evidence of discipleship.
Abiding in Christ is necessary to be the beneficiary of God’s personal love for the believer. God will still exercise impersonal love toward the carnal believer, but not as he will an advancing believer. You have to be in fellowship, filled with the Spirit, abiding in Christ, in order to be a beneficiary of God’s personal love. This is measured through objective standards. Verses 9, 10: the Scripture gives us a criterion for measuring how well we love the Lord. “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you: continue ye in my love.” Here He is viewing them, not simply as believers in terms of impersonal love because the Father does not have impersonal love toward the Son. Why? Because the Son is perfect righteousness. Impersonal love is that which we exercise toward someone who may be, at the time, offensive to us, obnoxious to us, not doing what we want, but we are still going to do what is best for them. It is unconditional love. The Father does not have that kind of love for the Son because they are in perfect harmony, perfect fellowship, perfect intimacy. Here he is viewing the disciples as abiding disciples, at that point. The pattern is the Son’s relationship to the Father. Jesus Christ has set the precedent for the spiritual life, so “abiding in My love,” therefore, indicates relationship. It indicates the relationship of the believer to our saviour. The standard is given in verse 10. “If [3rd class condition: maybe yes, maybe no] keep my commandments.” These are all the mandates and prohibitions given in the Scriptures for the spiritual life of the believer. How do we know if we love the Lord? It is measured by obedience.
The next thing we notice is that abiding in Christ continually results in the completion of divine joy—verse 11, “…so that your joy may be made full.” The word “full” is from PLEROO [plhrow] which indicates in this context something that is filled up or brought to completion—“so that your joy may be filled up.” It indicates that there is a progressive nature here to joy. “These things” refers to doctrine; “that I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you.” This tells us that joy is not emotion. The joy that Jesus is talking about is based upon learning certain principles and looking at life in a certain way, and responding to situations in life based upon those principles.
Psalm 104:15—“And wine which makes man’s heart glad.” God is the one who has supplied wine for the joy of man’s soul. In John 15 Jesus Christ is the vine. God the Father is the vine dresser. The owner of the vineyard is growing the vine and the grapes for the purpose of enjoying the end product. The picture that we have is that the end product is related to joy, as per Ps. 104:15. What happens in the growth process on the vine is that the branch that does not grow is lifted up—they are “in Me”, i.e. in fellowship with the Lord, but they don’t bear fruit. In the second category is the branches that bear fruit and are pruned so that the shoots that were not producing did not take energy that could be used in fruit producing. The first category represents the immature but growing believer who still needs to be lifted up and encouraged so that he can produce fruit down the road. The second category is the believer who is producing fruit but needs to be trimmed and pruned so that the sugar can get to his fruit in order to produce wine for the joy of man’s soul. This is the goal, and why joy is the ultimate in the Christian life. You don’t get there until you have spiritual maturity. This is not something that happens when you are a new believer. Once again, it is not until the plant reaches maturity that you have fruit production. Spiritual production which is reached at maturity is what produces joy. God can then in turn enjoy the fruit of His vineyard. God’s purpose in our fellowship with Him is to bring us to maturity.
The problem today is that most pastors, most Christians, most churches, only have a vision for bringing people to Christianity and not to maturity. Maturity is tough because it produces a challenge before people that is far beyond simply showing up and singing hymns for a few minutes and hearing a 20-minute sermon. It takes time, energy and effort, and a tremendous amount of study in the Scriptures to let our thinking be transformed. One of the greatest problems we have is not just the sin nature and our proclivity to sin but the antagonism of the cosmic system and cosmic thinking that has always permeated our souls. That is why Jesus is going to come back and deal with this enemy in verse 18. From verse 18 on the problem is the world system, and how we deal with the world is to advance in spiritual life; but here he is talking about the joy that is the result of maturity.
So to conclude the discussion of the vine analogy Jesus brings this to a head by saying, “These things have I spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.” It is that sweetness from the vine that goes into the fruit. He is going to put His joy in you as a result of doctrine that your joy in the fruit, the cluster of grapes, may be full—PLEROO has the idea of bringing it to completion.
Then He moves from the concept of joy, that inner happiness, the joy of the Lord, to the concept of love. Verse 12—“This is my commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.”
Verse 13—“Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” This is a great definition for love: that if you love someone you will sacrifice yourself completely for that person. That is the evidence for that love. This is exemplified in the cross, but that is not what Jesus is talking about here. This is not a cross passage. If you take this passage as referring to what Jesus is going to do on the cross then you have a major problem in the understanding of the atonement. The plural of PHILOS [filoj] is used here for “friends.” Verse 13 speaks of laying down life for “his friends,” not enemies. Romans 5:8 says, “For while we were yet ‘sinners’, Christ died for us.” We were His enemies when He died for us. We were at enmity with Him. If we take verse 13 as being cross related we are going to end up with limited atonement, that Christ died only for the saved. Then He will say in verse 14, “You are my friends, if you do what I command you.” If verse 13 is talking about salvation then this indicates a works salvation. But that can’t be what this is saying because it would be a contrast with many other passages of Scripture. What Jesus is doing here is calling them to discipleship, to commitment in terms of their future ministry as apostles—to put Him first, to lay down their life for Him. They are already believers. If they do what He commands them then they will be at the level of a friend of God because they are fulfilling His purpose and plan for their life.
Verse 15—they are His friends because He has revealed everything to them. That is, everything that He was to reveal. God the Father committed to Jesus a specific body of revelation to communicate during the first advent, and this is what Jesus is referring to. Now they are no longer slaves who do not know anything but are friends.
Verse 16—“…that you should go and bear fruit.” Here fruit still has the primary meaning of internal character, although Paul does use the word “fruit” in one place in Romans where it might refer to converts. In every other place where the word is used it refers to internal transformation of character. He is calling them here to go and be mature. It is not our responsibility to convert people. It is God’s responsibility to make the truth clear to the unbeliever under the executive ministry of God the Holy Spirit, but it is our job to communicate the gospel. It is not our job to get people saved. We can’t manipulate them to be saved, force them to be saved; that is their decision. “I appointed you” is a reference to their appointment as apostles. He is giving them their marching orders, and it is almost tantamount to the great commission in Matthew 28. He doesn’t appoint us. We have ambassadorship later on but we are not appointed. This appointment is apostolic and doesn’t apply to us at all directly. The prayer promise is directly primarily to the apostles.
Verse 17—this is the point of this entire section: abiding so that we can love one another. “This I command you, that you love one another.” This is the mark of the disciple of Christ, the true follower, the mature believer.
Verse 18—the focus shifts. Verses 18-25 deal with the enemy of the believer who is abiding in Christ. There are three enemies of the spiritual life in Scripture. Two are outside of us and one is inside. These are the devil and the cosmic system on the outside, and the internal enemy is the sin nature which has an affinity and attraction to cosmic thinking. When Jesus says, “If the world hates you,” He uses a very precise word in the Greek—KOSMOS [kosmoj]. There is a certain type of thinking in Scripture called cosmic thinking. The root meaning of KOSMOS in Greek thought was order, something that was orderly and thought out. It is used three ways in Scripture: for the orderly universe, especially the earth; it is used in a figurative way, the technical term is an economy, i.e. when you speak of something that is a part of something else, the parts of a whole; but when we speak of the world what we are really talking about is the inhabitants of the earth, and that is when you speak of the system and that is what is inside the system, so the whole stands for the part. So the world can refer to the inhabitants of the earth, as in John 3:16. Third, it is used to refer to Satan’s realm of evil—he is the god of this age, the leader of this cosmic system. When we think of the term “evil” we often think in terms of something heinous, but the Scripture uses the term in a different way. The most insidious evil in all of history is religion. Any religion that emphasizes morality as a way to God’s favour and approval is insidiously evil. The most evil people are religious people because they teach that you can have a relationship with God apart from Jesus Christ. The Scripture teaches that there is salvation in no other name than Jesus Christ, and that we are saved by faith and not by works. Then to teach that one’s works can gain approval with God is a direct lie and if it is followed it will end up in eternal condemnation. Nothing can be more evil than that because it will cost a person his eternal destiny. So evil is not necessarily that which looks bad, it may be clothed in the garb of goodness, altruism, righteousness, generosity, welfare, etc.
Definition: The cosmic system is Satan’s orderly, cohesive and multifaceted (they may be opposite one another, e.g. different world religions may teach what appear to be opposing points but nevertheless are part of Satan’s cosmic system because they promote this often as an agenda) system of thinking which include a purpose, a policy (based on works, so there is a direct distinction and antagonism between biblical Christianity and all the world’s religions), and a structure of authority designed to subvert the human to gain control over the world he now rules. This cosmic system includes the whole variety of world religions—all of which are man’s attempt to gain God’s approval through his own efforts, his own works, Christianity is a relationship with God based upon the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. The cosmic system includes the whole gamut of religion, philosophy, culture, political theories (the psalmist says it is better to trust in God than in kings), economic theories, and ethical systems. Here are a vast number of ways of organizing cosmic thought, but at the centre of all of these competing philosophies and religions are two characteristics which define cosmic thinking: a) arrogance, or autonomy, from the Greek words AUTOS and NOMOS meaning self-law; that ultimately man centres authority in the universe in the creation itself rather than in God. Man wants to be the one who defines the purpose and meaning and significance of life, and he claims to be the one with the ability to provide that. This is exemplified by Satan and his five “I wills” given in Isaiah 14. It is an assertion of independence from God—that I can define the issues of life, solve the problems of life, on my own and independent from God; b) an antagonism to the truth: antagonism to Christianity, antagonism to doctrine, expressed in John 15:18 by the word “hatred.” This is an important word because it tells us that as believers the cosmic system around us that permeates everything that we are involved in despises us as a believer, it hates us as a believer, and the believer is walking around from the moment he trusts Christ as saviour with a bulls eye right in the middle of his forehead and the world system is aiming at him day in and day out. The problem with most Christians is that they would rather compromise and assimilate with the world system to avoid being a target, rather than relying exclusively upon God. According to the Scripture there are only two competing ways of approaching life: God’s way, expressed in the Bible and is called doctrine, truth, light, wisdom, and sometimes referred to as divine viewpoint—on every issue of life from music, art, law, personal life, marriage, etc.; every subject is addressed in the Word of God. So the Bible presents God’s way of looking at life. Then there is man’s way which is called earthly, natural, demonic, darkness, the lie, and foolishness. Again, the root idea of cosmos is an orderly systematic approach to life, and so the cosmic system, then, is antagonistic and hateful of you as a believer and continually roars against you to get you to compromise with it.
“If the world hates you [and it does], you know that it has hated me before it hated you.” Satan is the ruler of this cosmic system and throughout history God has provided various protections for the human race from the incursions of Satan and the demons so that the human race can survive in the angelic conflict. God provided protection in the Old Testament at Sinai when He gave the law, and before that through the various covenants to provide a framework of legal protection so that if man operated within those establishment principles there would be a measure of protection from the evil that would ensue. In the period prior to the flood there was the Satanic attack on the human race when the “sons of God” [fallen angels] took for themselves wives in an attempt to destroy the genetic purity of the race and thus prevent God’s plan of salvation. God had to judge the earth at the flood, Later He had to judge it at the tower of Babel and scatter the languages in order to protect man. The God called out the nation Israel through Abraham in order to provide a specific nation through whom He would work His grace initiative plan. Primarily the way He did this in the Old Testament was through the divine institutions.
The divine institutions
4. Human government, which was established in the Noahic covenant at the conclusion of the flood when God delegated the responsibility of judicial decisions for capital punishment. National distinctions were established at the tower of Babel when God divided the race through languages—the division into people groups and tribes and nations. Whenever nations begin to expand and become an empire they begin to dominate other groups, they always take on messianic complexes, much like they did the tower of Babel. There is a theological reason for why they built the tower of Babel. They wanted to assert their independence from God, it was cosmic thinking. They were not going to obey God and scatter and fill the earth but instead stay in one place and build this tower so they wouldn’t be scattered. They were taking a position against God, so it was arrogance independence from and hostility to God. That is worldliness. The parallel today is the United Nations which is nothing more than a modern example of the tower of Babel and the attempt to unite mankind internationally against God. The purpose of government is to protect the personal rights and freedoms of the citizen. It is fundamentally to restrain evil and criminality within a nation through a police force and to protect the nation from an external enemy through a strong military. It is not the purpose of government to provide security. God defines the purpose of government, not man. As soon as we look to man to define the purpose of government it is sociology, and the collective opinions of man as the basis for the function of government is the sphere of cosmic thinking.
If as a believer we believe in what the Scriptures teach we are going to see that our opinions and our views on life are 180 degrees the opposite of everyone around us. So Jesus says, “If the world hates you [MISSEO [missew], a very strong word for antagonism].” Once the believer is in the plan of God he no longer belongs to the cosmic system. We are positionally different, therefore we shouldn’t think like that any more. “Verse 19—“If [2nd class condition; if, and you are not] the world would love its own; but because you are not [from the source of] the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.” The word “love” is PHILEO [filew], it would have an attraction for you. There is a natural affinity between the unbeliever, the “natural” [soulish—1 Corinthians 2] man, and human viewpoint thinking which is also classified in the Scriptures as natural. The world loves its own. The cosmic system is very attractive to people.
“Next to the lie itself, the
greatest delusion Satan imposes — reaching to all unsaved and to a large portion
of Christians — is the supposition that only such things as society considers
evil could originate with the devil — if, indeed, there be any devil to
originate anything. It is not the reason of man, but the revelation of God,
which points out that governments, morals, education, art, commercialism, vast
enterprises and organisations, and much of religious activity are included in
the cosmos diabolicus. That is. the
system which Satan has constructed includes all the good which he can
incorporate into it and be consistent with the thing he aims to accomplish. A
serious question arises whether the presence of gross evil in the world is due
to Satan’s intention to have it so, or whether it indicates Satan’s inability
to execute all he has designed. The probability is great that Satan’s ambition
has led him to undertake more than any creature could ever administer.
Revelation declares that the whole cosmos-system
must be annihilated — not its evil alone, but all that is in it, both good and
bad. God will incorporate nothing of Satan’s failure into that kingdom which He
will set up in the earth …
“… Since in pursuing his
determination to exalt himself above God Satan must oppose the divine
undertakings, his opposition naturally will be exerted where God is acting at a
given time. Since God has no present program which He is following along the
lines of reformation, education or civilisation (and any record that such
undertakings are in God’s present purpose will be sought in vain), there is no
conflict or satanic resistance in those spheres. The present relation of God to
the cosmos, beyond His sovereign permission and restraint of it, is to save out
of it an elect people for His heavenly glory. On the other hand, Satan’s
twofold objective — to exalt self, and to oppose God — is the key by which much
may be known that otherwise would be unknown. It is still further disclosed
that the enmity of Satan is not only toward the Person of God from whom he has
everything to fear, but also toward every true child of God. Too much emphasis
cannot be placed on this fact. Satan has no controversy or warfare with his
own, unregenerate people, but there is abundant scripture to prove that he
makes unceasing effort to mar the life and service of the Christian ...”
“Since the blood redemption of
the cross is the central truth and value of the true faith, it being the ‘power
of God unto salvation’ (Rom. 1:16; 1 Corinthians 1:23-24), any counterfeit
system of doctrine which would omit this essential, must force some secondary
truth into the place of prominence. Any of the great scriptural subjects which
are of universal interest to humanity, such as physical health, life after
death, morality, unfulfilled prophecy, or religious forms, may be substituted
in the false systems for that which is vital. And while those subjects are all
found in their proper relations and importance in the true faith, the fact that
people are universally inclined to give attention to them furnishes Satan an
opportunity to make a strong appeal to humanity through them, using these
subjects as central truths in his false and counterfeit systems. Many are
easily led to fix their attention upon the secondary things, and to neglect
wholly the one primary thing. Especially this is true since the secondary
things are tangible and seen, while the one essential thing is spiritual and
unseen; and Satan has blinded their eyes toward that which is of eternal
value...”
“… The idea that man will stand
on the basis of personal worthiness has been the chief heresy, opposing the
central doctrine of grace, from the time of Christ’s death to the present hour.
It so permeates the church that few who preach are able to exclude it from
their attempts at gospel preaching. It is safe to say that wherever the element
of human merit is allowed to intrude into the presentation of the plan of
salvation, the message is Satanic to that extent.”
— Lewis Sperry Chafer, “Systematic Theology”, vol. 2, pp 100-101, 108, 110.
Once we leave the cosmic system through faith alone in Christ alone we will become a target. We will have a target on our backs in the angelic conflict whether we like it or not. God’s selection of believers angers those who are rejected. Satan and all the demons are rejected, so we anger them. “I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.”
Verse 20—Jesus quotes what He has said previously to demonstrate the principle that a servant is not greater than his master. “If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if thy kept My word, they will keep yours also.” Two classifications here: those who are antagonistic to Christ will persecute those who are associated with Him; if they keep His word [but they don’t] they will keep yours also. So those who are positive and accept the Word of God, become positive and grow spiritually, will receive the word of the disciples also.
The cosmic system is willfully ignorant of the plan of God. Those in the cosmic system have rejected it knowingly. It is clear from Romans chapter one that the knowledge of God is evident to them because God made it evident within them. Everyone knows that God exists, everyone reaches a point of God-consciousness where they know He exists. It is at that point that they have to decide whether they are going to go on positive volition and want to know more about God, or to reject God and to worship the creation rather than the creator.
Verse 21—“But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake.” “For my name’s sake” is not simply because we attach the name of Jesus to ourselves or to our cause. The concept of name represents what a person is. It represents his character, essence. So when Jesus says they will do these things it is because of who He is. The issues are spiritual; they tie into the angelic conflict. Ultimately it is because “they do not know the one who sent Me.” “Know” here does not imply just an academic knowledge but a relationship. The do not have a relationship with Him because they have rejected the one who sent Him. This is the same thing He said to the Pharisees. They were steeped in the Mosaic law, religion and morality, but they still didn’t know Him because they had rejected grace.
Verse 22—the cosmic system and cosmic people react because the very presence of Jesus Christ and believers exposes the reality of their sin. Jesus, by His coming and His teaching, has exposed their sin, their religious system, their hypocrisy. Now they have no excuse and they react to that. He has exposed their hypocrisy and taught that spirituality is by grace, not by legalism. The world hates God and is antagonistic to God and therefore is antagonistic toward and hates those who are associated with His plan or purposes.
Verse 23—“He who hates Me hates My Father also.” Because there is antagonism to God there is antagonism to every believer. We are involved in this warfare and antagonism whether we like it or not. The world hates us because of Jesus and have no answer for Jesus’ impeccability—verse 25, “But they have done this in order that the word may be fulfilled that is written in their law, THEY HATED ME WITHOUT A CAUSE.”
The solution is found in verses 26 and 27. “When the Helper comes … that is the Spirit of truth.” The Spirit of truth is in contrast to cosmic thinking which is deceptive. This is the solution. It is the Holy Spirit who teaches us, and who leads and directs us.
Verse 26—this is one of the most significant verses in all of the New Testament on the Holy Spirit. We not only get a glimpse into two of the most important roles of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer but we also get a glimpse of an understanding of the eternal relationship among the members of the Trinity itself. Not only that, but this is specifically connected to disciples who were soon to be apostles—to their ministry in laying the foundation of doctrine for the Church Age. When we look at this verse we see that it is one of the most crucial verses and lies at the core of one of the most serious and devastating divisions which has ever occurred in church history. It is the ministry of God the Holy Spirit in this Church Age that makes the spiritual life of every believer in the Church Age crucially and uniquely dependent upon the Holy Spirit. Unlike any other age in history this age places the Holy Spirit at the core of the believer’s relationship with God and his spiritual growth.
“When the Helper comes.” In the Greek it begins with the temporal adverb HOTAN [o(tan] which indicates when it is used with an aorist tense verb a precondition for what takes place in the main clause. The phrase “the Spirit of truth” is simply an appositional phrase to describe the Helper. Then there is a second relative clause. “who proceeds from the Father.” The main verb is a future tense, “He will bear witness of Me.” The main thought is that the Helper will bear witness of Jesus Christ. The Helper must come before the witnessing takes place. What this is really referring to is when the Holy Spirit comes on the day of Pentecost. The verb in the first clause is an aorist active subjunctive of ERCHOMAI [e)rxomai] which means to come or to arrive. The subjunctive mood is the mood of potentiality or uncertainty, and the reason this is expressed in the subjunctive is because the Lord has not revealed exactly when the Holy Spirit is to come. The word that is translated “Helper” is PARACLETOS [paraklhtoj] with the definite article, and here it refers to a particular individual. The term PARAKLETOS is a technical term for the Holy Spirit and refers to someone who helps. It is the Holy Spirit who helps us to lead the spiritual life. Our responsibility is to exercise our volition to learn the Word of God and to apply the Word of God, but it is God the Holy Spirit who assists us advancing to maturity and producing fruit.
“He will bear witness of Me”—here we have in this sentence in the Greek a very unusual construction. The first word in the sentence is the third person singular pronoun in the English, “He.” This is a personal pronoun. A pronoun always refers to its most immediate or closest antecedent. Here the nearest is “Spirit of truth,” so “He” refers back to “Spirit”—PNEUMA [pneuma], a neuter noun. Yet in the Greek when you have a pronoun at this last phrase—the pronoun is from the word EKEINOS [e)keinoj], a masculine singular pronoun. Remember that the rule in grammar in Greek is that a pronoun must agree with the noun in case number and gender. However, here as in several other passages the pronoun shifts from being neuter to masculine. The Holy Spirit is not an “it.” It emphasizes the doctrine of the personality of God the Holy Spirit. “He will bear witness of me” is a present active indicative of the verb MARTUREO [marturew] which refers to witnessing, to give testimony as to who Jesus is. The thought of this verse is: “When the Helper arrives, He will bear witness of Me.” So the role of God the Holy Spirit is not to bring worship to Himself, not to bring attention to the person of Himself, but to bring attention to Christ. God has given us the Holy Spirit to strengthen us, especially as it relates to witnessing. It is the responsibility of every believer as a priest to witness and to explain the gospel to those who are unsaved. The real powerful influence in a witnessing scenario is not you, it is the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who comes along and helps us in the witnessing situation. As we present the gospel to an unbeliever the Holy Spirit is the one who is going to make it clear to the unbeliever. Our responsibility is not to get people saved or to answer all of their questions. Our responsibility is simply to make the issue clear. In verse 27, “and you will bear witness also.” Our witnessing is made effective by virtue of walking by means of the Holy Spirit. This specifically refers to the disciples because they had seen Jesus, they had walked with Jesus, they had seen all the miracles, they had observed everything that he had done and said. As a result they can go forth and communicate the gospel. This is reiterated in 1 John 1:1-4.
“whom I will send to you”—the verb here is PEMPO [pempo], future active indicative. The future tense indicates that it hasn’t happened yet and is future. This tells us that the Holy Spirit in His ministry in the Church Age was not known before Jesus sent Him. There is no ministry of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament like He has today. The word PEMPO here is slightly different from the next word that is used which is found in the next phrase, “who proceeds.” This is a crucial word and has been the subject of great ecclesiastical division. Te verb there is EKPOREUOMAI [e)kporeuomai]—POREUOMAI=go forth; EK=out from.—plus the preposition PARA [para]. He goes forth from the Father. PARA indicates coming from the side of something; EK indicates coming from the source of something. He proceeds from the Father. PARA indicates equality, therefore. The word “proceed” is a technical term which describes the eternal relationship of God the Holy Spirit to God the Father. It is called the procession of the Holy Spirit.