Origins: Vine

    In John 15:1, Why does Jesus say "I am the true vine" and not just "I am the vine"? Is it a big deal? Is there any difference?

    Decades ago Ernst Haenchen initiated the discourse by explaining what isn't. Some refer to this as the "reality of discipleship" or segregation of physical and spiritual life. Ernst corrected those proposals by stating, "[This] invites misunderstanding as something intellectual, as something that somehow floats colorless over authentic reality. But that is precisely what [John] does not mean. Spiritual existence is living reality in a concrete time and space".1 His contribution to the development of explaining this passage is how he treats the spiritual as inseparable from the material realm.

    Recent scholars such as Gary Burge and George Beasley-Murray shed more light by giving us some historical information "The vine and the vineyard were old and sacred images in Judaism".2 The Israelites are "depicted in the OT as a vine or vineyard, [when they are] set under the judgment of God for its corruption, sometimes explicitly for its failure to produce good fruit".3

    Before the "vine represented the covenant people of God, planted and tended by him so that Israel would produce fruit".2 Now the "Vine is Jesus, not the Church".3 The church or the people of God are referred on this passage as the "branches". The only way for the branches to fulfill their design, purpose, and calling of producing good fruit is by staying connected with the Vine. "FRUITFULNESS is the by-product of staying connected to the VINE."4



Footnotes:

1 Ernst Haenchen, John 2, Hermeneia - A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1984), 131.
2 Gary M. Burge, John, The NIV Application Commentary: From biblical text...  to contemporary life (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2000),  417.
3 George R, Beasley-Murray, John Second Edition, Word Biblical Commentary (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1999),  272.
4 Valelo, Joan. Abide, Week 8. Sermon at ENCM, Mississauga, ON, March 27, 2022.





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