The Claims of Jesus Christ
10 - The Truth and the Vine
For the last study in this series we will be discovering two more claims made by Jesus in John’s Gospel. The first is found in chapter 14 verse 6. Here Jesus makes a threefold claim. He says, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” In previous studies we have considered his claim to be “The Way” and we have seen that He is the only way back to a living relationship with God. We have also seen that He only is the source of spiritual life. It is only as we turn to Him for salvation from our sins that we can know what eternal life truly is. And then He claims in this verse that in Him lies all truth, and with that there is all reality and all fulfilment.
Before we go on we must pause with a warning. This does not mean that Jesus reveals to people the truth about everything that they need to know. The ordinary things of everyday life, the scientific truths, the truths about biology and astronomy He leaves men to find out for themselves through the intellectual and critical powers that He has given them. Just because we know Jesus as our Saviour and Lord it does not mean that we can through Him know every bit of truth about all that is in the world. He is the basis and fount of all knowledge, but He does not reveal it all to us. When it comes, though, to our relationship with God, that is different. He came to earth to reveal God to people, to reveal to them their sin and show the way back to God.
Let’s think for a little while along these lines. “I am the Truth,” says Jesus. He is the one who reveals God to us, His nature and reality. A little further on in this chapter John tells us that Jesus said, “He who has seen me, has seen the Father.” He was the revelation of God, first of his reality, then of his nature. Jesus knew God was real. He knew his Father in a very special way and the relationship between Jesus and his Father was a real one. They could commune intimately together. This Gospel of John tells us so clearly that Jesus did his Father’s will, heard His Father’s voice, was sent by his Father, and was one with his Father. Jesus reveals just how utterly real God is.
Jesus also reveals the nature of God. In his life and in the attitudes He took, Jesus showed what God was like. He revealed his hatred and opposition to sin and to all hypocrisy. He was scathing in his condemnation of these things.
But He revealed God’s love and care for those who were weak and downtrodden and for those who fought against sin and longed to be different, though without success. You can see something of this in the loving, helpful way He dealt with the woman taken in adultery, recorded at the beginning of chapter eight of John. In his miracles He showed the power of God over nature, demons, disease and death.
Yes, Jesus is the truth; He is the only one who can show us the truth about God - what He is really like. He is the truth, too, because He reveals the awfulness of sin and its final result which is eternal separation from God in the place the Bible calls hell. But we see the revelation of the awfulness of sin most on the cross where Jesus gave his life for the sin of the world. There we see it at its worst. But there, too, we see the love of God at its highest and best. Sin did its worst, but God did his finest and best.
Jesus then, is the truth concerning salvation. What a glorious word that word salvation is. It makes us think of all sorts of exciting things, such as being rescued from dangerous and difficult situations. Jesus came to tell us the truth about this wonderful salvation and as we have said, we see it all at the cross where Jesus died for us. “He came to give His life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20 verse 28).
We have already seen in this Gospel that John said of Jesus, “Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” So Jesus came not only to reveal the truth about salvation from sin but also to make it ours through what He did on the cross. In Jesus alone can we find the truth about God, about sin and its consequences and about salvation and eternal life. God out of his love to us poor lost sinners laid our punishment on his own beloved Son. This is the truth about God that is revealed in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Have you taken hold of this truth for yourself and placed your faith in Him for your salvation?
Then Jesus is the truth in another sense also. He is the revelation of God who is utterly true and utterly trustworthy. When we hear Jesus saying, “I am the Truth,” we hear Him declaring, “I am utterly trustworthy and completely able. I will always keep my word and what I promise, I will do.” How good it is to know this when we read the promises that Jesus makes in the Bible. How good to know that what He says He will and He is able to do. Praise be to God for this.
We have one more claim of the Lord Jesus to discover. If we move on now to John’s Gospel chapter 15 we find Jesus calling Himself “the true vine.” It is a very good picture of the relationship of the Christian believer with the Lord Jesus. He says that He is the vine and that believers are the branches. The relationship between the two is quite clear in a general way. The branch is altogether dependent on the vine for all its life and strength and for the fruit it bears. The life is in the vine itself and comes up from the roots. The branch can only live as it is joined to the vine and allows the life, sap and strength of the vine to flow into it. Only so can it bear fruit. In the same way the believer is dependent upon the Lord Jesus. “Apart from Me,” Jesus says, “you can do nothing.”
Jesus draws one or two lessons from this illustration. First, He speaks of branches that do not bear fruit. A branch that does not bear fruit is useless; no one wants it. He says it does not bear fruit because it is not abiding in Him, so it withers away and dies. It is then thrown away. This is a terrible picture. May the Lord keep us from being barren and useless and being cast away as a fruitless branch that the Lord cannot use.
Then He speaks about those who do bear fruit. He says first of all that he prunes or purges them. He wants each branch to be the very best possible, so He cleanses away everything about it that might hinder the growth of the fruit, and stop it being the best fruit bearer possible. The fruit mentioned here may refer to the fruit of the Spirit, which we have already mentioned in these studies. It will mean that love, joy, peace and all the other kinds of fruit spoken of will abound in the life of the believer. It could also refer to men and women won to the Lord by our witness. Jesus is almost certainly speaking of both kinds of fruit.
Through the whole illustration Jesus is saying that the only branches that are any good are those that remain firmly fixed in the vine, drawing all their strength and fruitfulness from it. When applying this to the believer He says that they abide in Him and He abides in them. What does this mean? It means first that there must be continual faith and confidence in the Lord Jesus. Just as the branch rests simply and securely in the vine, so must the believer rest all his confidence in the Lord Jesus. He must trust Him fully in every area of his life, knowing that He always does all things well, and knowing too that all his salvation, grace and strength comes from the Lord. If we have put our trust in the Lord Jesus as our Saviour, we too are branches, united to Him and receiving all our life and strength from Him. There is another side to this, too. We must also take care that there is nothing in our lives, plans and desires or affections, which would prevent our resting with, utter faith and confidence on the Lord Jesus. There must be no unconfessed sin that would stop the life of the Lord Jesus flowing into us in full measure. Abiding in Jesus also means that in a positive way we walk in obedience to Him. Whatever He says we obey, wherever He sends we go, whatever task He asks us to take on we will do it. This will mean putting Him first in our lives in a very deliberate way.