The Word
Vol.
9 No. 15
Upper Room Discourse
John 15:4
Abiding in Christ
Thus far in
1. The Establishment
for fruit production in verse 1: the
Vine – Jesus Christ and the Farm owner/worker, Vinedresser – God the Father.
2. The Encouragement
for fruit production, growth, in verse 2:
Divine Discipline and Undeserved Suffering inside the Plan of God the Father.
3. The Environment for
fruit production in verse 3: Eternal
Security – Positional Sanctification.
4. Now we are given the
Empowerment for fruit production in verse
4: Abiding in Christ.
Our Lord states
The Greek word for “abide” is MEINATE. In the Constative
Aorist Tense it views the action as a whole, describing it in
summary fashion without focusing on the beginning or end of the action
specifically. It stresses the occurrence of abiding, “fellowship with Christ”,
not its nature. It’s a command to action that has been going on. In the Active Voice; Jesus Christ is commanding that
the believer produce the action of the verb, “abide” in Him. And in the Imperative
Mood is for a command in regards to the action as a whole, a general
precept with the force of urgency and priority. So the Aorist Imperative emphasis
is on the solemnity and urgency of the action, thus “I solemnly charge you to
act and do it now!” It’s as if Jesus is saying, “Make this your top priority.”
The top priority is to “remain” in Christ. The Second Person, Plural says, “You all abide.”
However, there is a possibility this Imperative could be a “Conditional
Imperative”, given the additional phrase “and I in You”.
The Conditional Imperative can still be a command but has the added emphasis of
potential to support, “and I in you”. This shows us that our top priority is to
have fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ which is accomplished when we have
positive volition and seek Him out, beginning with the utilization of
“In Me” – EN
EMOI is in the Greek Dative case that tells us we are commanded to reside in the sphere of Jesus Christ; that is, we are
to have fellowship with Him.
“And I in you”. This is the reciprocal nature of our fellowship with
Him. When we have positive volition we will take in God’s Word (the mind of
Christ) and build our Edification Complex of the Soul
that will lead us in application of Bible Doctrine to life. So here we see the
emphasis of Experiential Sanctification where in verses 2 and 3 we saw
the emphasis of Positional Sanctification. In verse 2 the plan “in Me” and in verse 3 ”you are already clean” spoke of our position in Christ,
our Union with Him which gives us the “Environment” for producing Divine Good.
However in verse 4 we have
Experiential Sanctification which “Empowers” us for producing Divine Good. As
we have stated previously, Jesus Christ, the Vine, is our spiritual sustenance
needed to produce the Fruit of the Spirit. Without Him we can produce nothing,
as we will see later in this chapter. He is our “Empowerment”
for fruit production. So we have “You all abide in the sphere of Me, as I want you to, and when
you do I will abide in you.”
Remember, this is not
positional sanctification. You have positional sanctification from the moment
of salvation,
The phrase “abide(s) in me”
is used four times in this passage,
So
let’s take a closer look at
Principles:
1)
In the passage of
2)
When eating and drinking you need to accept something. We accept something into
our body, our system, so eating and drinking need to appropriate something.
a) In the initial act of salvation it refers to the
initial act of eating and drinking, (receiving), the Word of God, specifically
the gospel of Jesus Christ, see verse 53-54.
3)
In verse 56 Jesus changes the
discussion from eternal life to “abiding” in Him. Eating and drinking are still
being used because they refer to faith, “receiving”.
4)
When comparing the usage of Greek verbs between vs. 53 and vs. 56, we
see the difference between “receiving” for salvation and “receiving” for
abiding.
5)
In verse 53, Jesus uses the Aorist,
Active, Subjunctive of ESTHIO for “eat” and PINO for
“drink”.
a) The Aorist Tense summarizes everything as one
event, a specific decision. The Subjunctive Mood is potential.
b) So in verse 53 it is saying “It depends upon your volition whether or not
you will eat or drink”.
c) The eating and drinking refer to that point in time
when you trust Christ as your Savior.
6)
In verse 56 eating and drinking are
no longer in the Aorist, Subjunctive, there they become Present, Participles:
indicating continuous action. In addition the word for eating is changed from
ESTHINO to TROGO that means, “to gnaw or crunch”.
7)
Further, eating and drinking are Present, Active, Participles
in verse 56, whereas the
verb MENO in verse 56, “to
abide”, is a Present, Active, Indicative, also indicating continuous action
with the results of a dogmatic fact of reality.
8)
So verse 53 focuses on Positional
Sanctification, that initial nourishment at the point of trust in Christ as
savior that gives eternal life and eternal security, while verse 56 is talking about Experiential Sanctification; a continual
gnawing on Christ which is necessary for “abiding” in Christ which results in
spiritual growth and Divine Good Production.
9)
Now in relation to “abiding” in
10)
Why? Because, if true belief prevented breaking fellowship
with Christ 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. In Experiential Sanctification the potential is there, but in
Positional Sanctification there is no potential to lose salvation, (see
Doctrine of Eternal Security), so there is no need for a command.
11)
How do we “abide” in Christ?
12) Therefore, to “abide in Christ” is not related to maintaining
your salvation, but is having God’s Word resident within your soul and applying
it through brotherly love on a consistent basis. It is the intake and
application of Bible Doctrine that results in “bearing much fruit”, Divine Good
Production. And none of that is possible without the filling of God the Holy
Spirit,
As noted above the only usage
of “abide in Me” are in the gospel of
As
was used in
It is the post salvation
renewing of your mind with the Word of God by means of the Grace Apparatus for
Perception (
Then in verse 10 we have an interesting principle:
Here
we are told to separate ourselves from those who bring false teachings into our
midst, which includes everything from false teachings from the Word of God such
as works for salvation to worldly fables like evolution and the acceptance of
the homosexual agenda. We are not to host or even greet such individuals.
Likewise, we are not to support them in any way.
Remember
that this passage was written in a time when technology was not present, but
our Lord knowing all things had today in mind as well. So hosting and greeting
for today includes what you bring into your home via TV, internet, video,
radio, etc. With technology you bring far more evil into your home than was
ever possible before.
For
those who want to call this legalistic, just remember the last part of your
favorite verse that you use to live life in sin, “All things are lawful”,
Now back to
The Greek words for “cannot”
are OUK, the Greek Negative, for “not”, and DUNAMAI that means to be able or to
have power.” It is a verb in the Present
tense, Middle Deponent voice and Indicative mood. So it come to mean, “not able, cannot, powerless, etc.”
The Customary Present Tense stands for what regularly
occurs when the believer is not taking in and applying God’s Word; there is no
Divine Good production. The Middle Deponent Voice, says the
believer is acting upon himself. In this case as a result of not taking in and
applying God’s Word, the effect back to the individual is that they are not
able to produce Divine Good. Therefore, the believer cannot bear fruit from the
source of itself. It must come from the source of God. The Declarative Indicative Mood is
for the reality that you can not produce Divine Good without abiding in Christ.
This negates human works and efforts.
The word for “bear” is PHEROS in the Present, Active, Infinitive that means to “bring, bring along, carry,
endure, bear, yield, produce
(fruit), etc.”
The
Customary Present Tense tells us what regularly occurs
when the believer is not taking in and applying God’s Word. The Active Voice,
the believer produces the action of not being able to produce Divine Good. The Infinitive
of Result tells us the outcome produced by not abiding in Christ in the
past. That is, we will not be able to produce Divine Good presently and into
the future as a result of negative past action.
Principles:
1) The branch that does not
abide in Christ is the source of non production.
2) It is not God’s or
Christ’s fault that you do not produce; it is your own because of:
a) Your lack of
fellowship with Christ.
b) The lack of your
intake and application of God’s Word.
c) The lack of being
filled with the Holy Spirit.
So we have, “As the branch
(believer) is not able to produce fruit (Divine Good) by means of itself.”
Principles:
1) The believer is not able to
produce Divine Good from himself, that is, by his own human works or effort.
2) No believer in the Christian
life can produce on the basis of his or her own ability.
3) We can only produce by the
power of God operating within our souls.
4) Divine Good has to start in
the soul and it has to be the thinking of Divine Viewpoint, as we will see in
the remaining portion of this verse and verse
5.
Next we have, “unless it abides in the vine.” This is a
conditional clause in reverse order. Here we have the “if statement” coming
second where the “then statement” was previously given in “As the branch is
not able to produce fruit by
means of itself.”
This is a timeless general
fact. It’s a proverbial statement as to what is necessary for Divine Good
Production; we must abide in Christ. It doesn’t say something is happening but
that something does happen. The believer produces the action of abiding in
Christ. And as a fifth class conditional clause. It represents the volitional responsibility
of the believer in a dogmatic maxim. The fifth class simply says, “if A, then
B.” Our Lord is simply saying, “Unless you abide in Me
“A”, then you cannot bear fruit “B”.”
So we have the Protasis, “Unless
it (the
branch / believer) abides in the
sphere of the Vine (Bible Doctrine).”
If you would
like more information on this subject,
you may listen
to lessons 10-039 and 10-040.