Note 185 — TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Preliminary Note.—Some scholars suppose that Christ, at the close of the preceding discourse, arose with his disciples and passed out of the room where they had been at supper into the valley of the Kedron, the vicinity of the garden of Gethsemane, and that the discourse was continued there, in or near one of the vineyards which abound in the neighborhood of the city. Others suppose that they arose to go; that, the heart of the Master being surcharged with the truth which he was endeavoring to express to them, the Divine Immanence, he broke forth afresh with the same truth in a new form, and that the discourse recorded in this and the next chapter, and the prayer recorded in ch. 17, were uttered in the same room in which the preceding discourse was uttered. Both suppositions are purely conjectural; the latter appears to me the more rational, because: (1) The truths embodied in this and the succeeding chapter are the same as the one embodied in the preceding one; the form alone varies. The structure and the fibre of the discourse is that of one which flows from a heart burdened with a profound truth which can be expressed only by reiteration, and even then only inadequately. (2) It is hardly credible that such a conversation could have been uttered, as some have imagined, while Jesus and his disciples were on their way out of the city; and no reason is offered for the hypothesis that it was abruptly broken off and transferred to another and apparently less convenient place. (3) Ch. 18:1 plainly implies that Jesus did not go forth, i. e., from the room where they were gathered, till the end of this conversation with them and after the prayer with which it was closed. Various hypotheses have also been proffered respecting the probable circumstance that suggested to Christ the metaphor which underlies the first part of this chapter: Vineyards on the way to Gethsemane (Lampe), the carved vine on the great doors of the temple (Rosenmuller), a vine trained about the window of the great chamber (Knapp), the cup so lately partaken (Meyer, Stier), O. T. symbolism of the vineyard and the vine (Alford). These are also all conjectural; it is enough to say that the parable here must be studied in the light of the teachings both of nature and of the O. T. use of nature in the passages below referred to. The use of the vine as a symbol by O. T. prophets was so familiar that it could hardly have been absent from the minds of both Christ and the apostles. Examine with care Jer. 2:21; Ezek. 15:2, 6; and especially Psalm 80:8-19, and Isaiah 5:1-7. The truth taught here by a metaphor is the same as that taught in the preceding chapter unmetaphorically, and in other passages by other metaphors. (1) The vine and its branches are a perpetual parable of Christ and his church. It is not enough to learn of Christ as from a teacher, to follow him as an example, or to accept forgiveness through him as both priest and sacrifice; we must be personally united to him, and from him draw our spiritual life, and so grow into his image. As the branch draws its sap by a continuous flow from the vine, and becomes identified with it in character, and bears its fruit, and dies when separated from it, so we must abide in a living Christ, draw our spiritual sustenance from him, become more and more Christlike in our nature, and bear his fruit in our lives. See John 6:56-58, note, and refs. there cited. (2) In the O. T. imagery the vine planted by the husbandman was the house of Israel. But despite the divine cultivator it brought forth wild grapes; it proved to be no true vine. Wherefore it was broken down, laid waste, burned, and a new vine was planted in its place. This true vine is Christ; not the man Christ Jesus, but the living, abiding Christ, the Christ who is with his people alway, even unto the end of the world (Matt. 28:20), the Christ whose true body is his church (1 Cor. 12:27), who is the head from which they all draw their life (Ephes. 4:15; Col. 1:18), who reproduces himself in every true disciple, since only they in whom is the spirit of Christ are truly his (Rom. 8:9), and who is thus far more widely and potently in the earth to-day than he ever was or could be in the flesh. This living and perpetually incarnate Christ is in a sense identical with his living church, as the vine is identical with its branches; for as there could be no vine without branches, so neither could this Christ be without the church which he animates. This Christ incarnate, not in the body of a single man, but in the church universal which is now his body, is the true Israel of God, the nation to whom the kingdom of God has been given, that was taken from the old Israel because it brought not forth the fruits thereof (Matt. 21:43). This true vine is contrasted with the old Israel which proved to be no true vine. No longer is there any possibility that the vine shall be broken down and destroyed with fire as the old vine was (Isa. 5:5; Ps. 80:16); but each branch that abides not in this everlasting vine, this living, perpetually incarnate and ever extending Christ, is broken off from the vine and destroyed. In brief, in studying this parable, the student must not forget, what the commentators have often forgotten, that throughout this last discourse with his disciples Christ speaks of himself not as a man about to die, but as a living Christ, forever incarnate in the hearts and lives of his own, living on in the world with mightier and wider influence, and in more intimate communion and companionship with his disciples after his crucifixion than before. It is this ever-living Christ, reproduced in all his members, and spreading over the whole earth, that is the true vine, in contrast with the old Israel, which proved to be no true vine; of this vine the Father is the husbandman; in this vine each individual disciple is a branch or shoot.