'I am the True Vine,' of which the material one to which He perhaps
points, is but a shadow and an emblem. The reality lies in Him. We
shall best understand the deep significance and beauty of this thought
if we recur in imagination to some of those great vines which we
sometimes see in royal conservatories, where for hundred of yards the
pliant branches stretch along the espaliers, and yet one life pervades
the whole, from the root, through the crooked stem, right away to the
last leaf at the top of the farthest branch, and reddens and mellows
every cluster, 'So,' says Christ, 'between Me and the totality of them
that hold by Me in faith there is one life, passing ever from root
through branches, and ever bearing fruit.'
Let me remind you that this great thought of the unity of life between
Jesus Christ and all that believe upon Him is the familiar teaching of
Scripture, and is set forth by other emblems besides that of the vine,
the queen of the vegetable world; for we have it in the metaphor of the
body and its members, where not only are the many members declared to
be parts of one body, but the name of the collective body, made up of
many members, is Christ. 'So also is'--not as we might expect, 'the
Church,' but--'Christ,' the whole bearing the name of Him who is the
Source of life to every part. Personality remains, individuality
remains: I am I, and He is He, and thou art thou; but across the awful
gulf of individual consciousness which parts us from one another, Jesus
Christ assumes the Divine prerogative of passing and joining Himself to
each of us, if we love Him and trust Him, in a union so close, and with
a communication of life so real, that every other union which we know
is but a faint and far-off adumbration of it. A oneness of life from
root to branch, which is the sole cause of fruitfulness and growth, is
taught us here.
And then let me remind you that that living unity between Jesus Christ
and all who love Him is a oneness which necessarily results in oneness
of relation to God and men, in oneness of character, and in oneness of
destiny. In relation to God, He is the Son, and we in Him receive the
standing of sons. He has access ever into the Father's presence, and we
through Him and in Him have access with confidence and are accepted in
the Beloved. In relation to men, since He is Light, we, touched with
His light, are also, in our measure and degree, the lights of the
world; and in the proportion in which we receive into our souls, by
patient abiding in Jesus Christ, the very power of His Spirit, we, too,
become God's anointed, subordinately but truly His messiahs, for He
Himself says: 'As the Father hath sent Me, even so I send you.'
In regard to character, the living union between Christ and His members
results in a similarity if not identity of character, and with His
righteousness we are clothed, and by that righteousness we are
justified, and by that righteousness we are sanctified. The oneness
between Christ and His children is the ground at once of their
forgiveness and acceptance, and of all virtue and nobleness of life and
conduct that can ever be theirs.
And, in like manner, we can look forward and be sure that we are so
closely joined with Him, if we love Him and trust Him, that it is
impossible but that where He is there shall also His servants be; and
that what He is that shall also His servants be. For the oneness of
life, by which we are delivered from the bondage of corruption and the
law of sin and death here, will never halt nor cease until it brings us
into the unity of His glory, 'the measure of the stature of the
fullness of Christ.' And as He sits on the Father's throne, His
children must needs sit with Him, on His throne.
Therefore the name of the collective whole, of which the individual
Christian is part, is Christ. And as in the great Old Testament
prophecy of the Servant of the Lord, the figure that rises before
Isaiah's vision fluctuates between that which is clearly the collective
Israel and that which is, as clearly, the personal Messiah; so the
'Christ' is not only the individual Redeemer who bears the body of the
flesh literally here upon earth, but the whole of that redeemed Church,
of which it is said, 'It is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth
all in all.'