John 15:1 I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman. (5) I am the vine; you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing. (8) In this is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and so you will become My disciples.
In this revelation the church [the believers] is likened to the branches of a vine. The branches of a vine are simply the body of the vine. If you take away the branches from the vine, the vine will have no body. Without the branches, the vine has nothing remaining except the root and the stem. But today this universal vine tree has many branches, and these branches are simply His branching out. When the Lord Jesus was on earth, He was just a small man living in a certain place. But look at His branching out today: He has parts in New York, Los Angeles, London, Tokyo, Taipei, and throughout the world. Praise the Lord that throughout the whole earth we see the branching out of this vine tree! This is not an organization; it is an organism that has life with many organs, organic systems, and organic elements growing in it. As an organism to glorify the Father, the vine and the branches express the riches of the divine life. When the vine tree bears clusters of grapes, that is the time when the riches of the divine life are expressed... Without the fruit, the essence, substance, and life of the vine tree would be concealed, hidden, and confined. However, the riches of the inner life of the vine are expressed in the clusters of fruit. I say again that to express the inner life in this way is to release the divine substance from within the vine. This is the glorification of the Father.
Bible verses are taken from the Recovery Version of the Bible and Words of Ministry from Witness Lee, Life-study of John, pp. 393-396. Both are published by Living Stream Ministry, Anaheim, CA. Please visit us at www.emanna.com. Send comments to: [email protected].
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