The promise…

Of the Spirit (part 22) 

Through the Holy Spirit the Father and Jesus are opening up the world of love they live in. It’s in the works, then, John 14:31, that “the world may know that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me.” Because that’s the key to understanding God’s world; it’s based on love, pictured by Jesus’ saying and doing exactly what his Father wanted said and done.   

The Father demonstrated his love too, by providing a group of friends his Son could love and share his life and learning with (15:15), who love him in return and show it too, by wanting to obey everything he teaches them (14:23). The Father also expresses his deep love for his Son by honouring and answering any request made in his Son’s name (15:16).  

I imagine all this must have seemed unreal to the disciples, as their minds and imagination were being lifted into this very different world. So Jesus uses an analogy at their level of understanding when he tells them in John 15:1, “I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener.” It gets the point across that Father and Son are totally in this together, the Father as Master Gardener doing the planning and overseeing, but giving the challenge and joy to his Son to bring all those plans to life.  

It shows what the Father’s plan was too, because he “cuts off every branch that bears no fruit,” verse 2. He’s after a garden for his Son that flourishes at its fruitful best. And how he’d do that was give his Son the very words to teach to his disciples that would enable them to flourish at their fruitful best (verse 3).   

With that in mind, then, Jesus says, “Remain in me,” verse 4, “and I will remain in you.” To remain in him meant sticking to what he’d taught them, verse 10, because that’s how they’d flourish as the Father intended – just as Jesus stuck to what his Father taught him and he flourished too (verse 10).  

And what the disciples would discover from this simple process of obeying what Jesus had taught them, was “remaining in Jesus’ love” (verse 10). Because in his love for them he would continue to teach and guide them so they would “bear much good fruit,” verse 16. Because that’s what the Father as Master Gardener loved setting up this whole process for…(more on this tomorrow)