The Word
Vol.
9 No. 2
Upper Room Discourse
Outline John Chapter 15
The Great “I AM”
We
now turn to chapter 15 of John’s Gospel. Here Jesus gets into the meat of this
discourse as He discusses Divine Good production of the believer. So we could
have as a heading for this chapter, “What to do with God's provisions.”
Charles Ryrie notes in his
Study Bible, as a summary of chapter 15 and 16, “Chapters 15 and 16 contain the
second Farewell Discourse. In chapter 15 are the themes of fruit-bearing and
the hatred of the world for Christ’s disciples. The theme of persecution is
continued in chapter 16 along with teaching concerning the ministry of the Holy
Spirit.”
As we noted in the
conclusion of chapter 14, this discourse was given while on the road to the
Many Biblical commentators
suppose that during their walk from
Now we will begin with an
outline of chapter 15 which is broken down into two sections:
1) The
parable of the vine, vinedresser and branches in verses 1-11), with its commentary in verses 12-17, and
2) A warning regarding
the hatred of the world towards the believer in verses 18-27.”
So we see that Jesus
continues His last-night teaching as He compares His future relationship with
the Church Age believer to that of a vine to its branches. Jesus is saying that
He is the source of spiritual vitality and fruitfulness. When a believer
remains “in Him”, he is intimately connected to the Lord, not just positionally
but experientially, by positive volition (responsive obedience) to Jesus’
mandates, vs. 15:1-17. Then He tells
us that those who are lost and without salvation residing inside Satan’s Cosmic
System will hate Christ’s disciples even as the KOSMOS hated Jesus.
Nevertheless the Spirit,
resident in the believer, will testify about The Christ to the world, even as
the disciples themselves must testify, vs.
18-27.
This chapter ultimately
tells us that without Jesus, positionally and experientially, we can do
nothing, yet with Him we can do all things. As we explore this chapter we will see that there are three relationships
that are part of every believer’s experience:
1) Relationship with
God, (Jesus and the Father), vs. 1-11,
2) Relationship with
other believers, vs. 12-17, and
3) Relationship with
the indifferent and hostile world of nonbelievers, vs. 18-27.
Some of the highlighted
themes of this chapter that we will explore include:
1) Experiencing our
union with Christ. The image of the
Vine and branches focuses on the experiential aspect of a theological reality.
We are united with Jesus,
2) The Vine. In the O.T. and other gospel parables, the vine and
vineyard are metaphors for
3) The Vinedresser. Identifying the Father as the “Vinedresser”, (GEORGOS
– tiller of the soil, farmer), speaks of the Father’s role in our spiritual
walk as a loving parent to keep us experientially in His righteousness. Who
could have greater skill in nurturing our spiritual growth?
4) Removal and Pruning,
vs. 2 & 6. As you know, dead wood
on a tree might spread disease and decay to the rest of the branches.
Therefore, the removal of dead wood maintains the health of the entire tree. In
the spiritual realm “removal” speaks of divine discipline in order to remove the
ultra reversionistic believer from among the healthy
believers. Pruning of a vine involves a gentle cutting back of live wood so
that the branch’s fruitfulness is improved; we call this undeserved suffering,
which brings about spiritual growth in the positive believers life. Pruning
then speaks
of suffering for blessing and removal of divine
disciple, yet neither threatens the salvation of any believer.
5) Prayer, vs. 7. Once again our Lord emphasizes the importance of the
prayer life of the believer. As verse 10
states, “we abide in Jesus’ love”
experientially by responding obediently to Him. This begins with 1 John 1:9 the confession of our sins
and then continues as we offer petitions and thanksgiving in prayer. When we
do, we are attune to His leading, and praying in His
will. As we have noted in both this discourse and in 1 John
6) Glorifying God vs. 8. We glorify God by doing His will, which brings Him
praise. As noted here this means bearing fruit, Divine good production. This
glorifies God because we cannot do it without an intimate, dependent
relationship with Jesus, vs. 4, and
the enabling power of God the Holy Spirit.
7) Love each other, vs.
12-17. The key to an abiding
relationship with Christ is “obedience.” When we were obedient to the call of
the Gospel we were positionally placed in
8)
9) The world’s hatred
towards the believer, vs. 18-27. The “world” (KOSMOS) is the whole of Satan’s
realm here on earth as it exists without God, that is, Satan’s Cosmic System.
This KOSMOS was hostile toward Jesus, and we can expect it will be hostile to
us too. This hostility is rooted in the world’s failure to know God, vs. 21, but more specifically in a
fierce anger that flared when Jesus revealed God to them, vs. 24. How are we to respond? As Jesus did, by
testifying about God, vs. 26.
Don’t get caught up in others’ hate towards you or God. Remember God is still
choosing believers out of the world wherever the Gospel message is heard!
This completes our
outline of Chapter 15, so let’s
begin in John 15:1.
“I am the true
vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.” The transliteration is: EGO EIMI HE
EGO is the First Person Singular Pronoun in the
Nominative case that means “I”.
Jesus is referring to Himself as the subject of the verse.
EIMI is a verb in the Present, Active, Indicative, First
Person, Singular that means, “To be or exist”. Here
with EGO it means “am” in “I am”. This is stating the case of who
Jesus is at the present time as a statement of fact in the Indicative mood. In
other words even though He is in the form of a man, He is (and continues to be)
God. So He is saying, “I keep on being, always was, and always will be.”
This is one of the great “I AM” statements made by our Lord
Jesus Christ as quoted by John in His Gospel. The importance of this statement
is that He was identifying Himself as the one and true God of Israel and of all
people. This was the great insignia that God gave to Himself as a memorial name
for all generations according to
Exodus 3:13, “Then Moses said to God, “Behold, I am
going to the sons of
When God answered Moses’
query “what is Your name?”, the response is not simply
“Yahweh,” but rather a definition of the name is given, a further disclosure of
the God behind the name. “I AM” is the Hebrew verb HAYAH that means “to be, to
exist”. It is related to the name of God, YHWH, rendered LORD, which is derived from the
verb HAYAH, which is similar to the Greek EIMI. In fact the Septuagint uses,
EGO EIMI for this translation. “I AM WHO I AM” can literally say, “I was, I am, I
always will be!” The words express absoluteness, and therefore the unchanging
and eternal Being that is God. If God is “I AM,” then He is always the same,
and His purposes will be fulfilled. These words are intended to point out the
eternity and self-existence of God. By Jesus using the “I AM” statement,
followed by further definition, He was telling them that He was God Himself.
Most commentators state
that there are seven great “I AM” statements found in the Gospel of John. These
include verses
*1)
*2)
3)
4)
*5)
*6)
*7)
*8)
*9)
10)
11)
If you would
like more information on this subject,
you may listen
to lessons 10-001 and 10-002
Copyright 2010 - All Rights Reserved