In John 15 Jesus says, “I am the vine; you are the branches.” The believer is constituted a branch in Christ who comes to dwell in Him. Let us look more closely at this parable of the vine and the branches.

He begins by saying, “I am the true vine” (Jn. 15:1 ). The construction of the sentence in the Greek gives special emphasis to the word true. The Lord is contrasting Himself with another vine that was not the true vine, which proved a failure.

The Old Testament abounds in references to this vine. The psalmist says, “You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it. You cleared the ground for it, and it took root and filled the land” (Ps. 80:8-9 ). This vine was the children of Israel, and God’s intention in bringing them out of Egypt and planting them in their own land was that they might bring forth fruit for the nations, so that in them all nations of the world could be blessed. But that vine failed in that high purpose, for they regarded their privileges and blessings as being only for themselves and turned away from their God to idols. [Thus] we hear God saying, “Israel is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself” (Hos. 10:1 , KJV).

The most dramatic passage, however, about the failure of this Old Testament vine is the beautiful song of the vineyard in Isaiah 5 :

Why was this the state of things with Israel, God’s Old Testament vine? The simple reason was that just as long as Israel was the vine, she could not but produce this kind of fruit—for such fruit is characteristic of fallen human nature, for its center is always itself. If human nature could have been improved to produce sweet grapes, then it would have been seen in Israel’s case, for no vine received so much from God as Israel did. But in the failure of Israel was demonstrated the complete inability of man ever to be a vine to produce fruit for God.

This likewise is the reason for our failure. We have been trying to be the vine; we have been trying to find a holiness and a love for others in ourselves and from ourselves that Scripture never encourages us to expect to find there. We have discovered what Paul had to discover long before us: “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature” (Ro. 7:18 ). Another who made the same discovery once prayed, “O God, forgive me the wrong I do by being me.”

The New Vine

This, then, was the vine with which the Lord Jesus contrasted Himself. So standing in the midst of the ruins of the vine that had been such a sorrow to God, He cried, “I am the true vine.” It was as if He said, “Man’s day of being the vine is over. From now on, I am the vine. From Me now is God’s fruit to be found and from nowhere else.”

Rightly understood, this is the best news we could have. God no longer expects us to be the vine. We need not even try. The responsibility for producing fruit is no longer ours. God has His own true vine, the risen Lord Jesus, who is well able to produce all the fruit God requires for others and to fulfill all the purposes of His grace for men.

But we—where do we come in? Simply as branches in Him, the vine. We do not produce the fruit but simply bear what He produces as we permit Him to live in us. This throws a new light on those words of Paul, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live” (Gal. 2:20 , KJV). There is a Paul here who was crucified with Christ and a Paul who nonetheless lives. Which is which? The Paul who was crucified with Christ was Paul the vine, the man who vainly tried to do his best. The Paul who nevertheless lived was Paul the branch, the man who was broken as to his self-confidence and was dependent on his Lord. And in Paul the branch, the Lord Jesus lived His life again; for the apostle goes on to say immediately, “Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me”—just as the vine by its sap lives in the branch. Jesus became for him the vine, the source of all the fruit that was seen in his life and service.

The Way of Victory

We come now to the practical implementing of all this in our daily experience.

It is possible for any of us at any time to assume the position, often unconsciously, of the vine. We start the day as if it were our day, and we make our plans for our day and fully intend to do our best for the Lord.

But just because it is our day and we are the vine, things soon go wrong. People and circumstances interfere with what we wanted to do, and there is a reaction of hardness, irritation, and resentment in our hearts and often a sharp retort on our lips. The very responsibility of trying to be the vine makes us tense, and tenseness always predisposes us to further sin.

The way of repentance, however, is always open to us. Our true vine, Jesus Himself, has, like many an ordinary vine, been tied to a stake, the stake of Calvary. He invites us to return to Him in repentance and to confess the source of these things as being our attempt to be ourselves the vine and to receive from His hands forgiveness and cleansing. Immediately He becomes the vine to us again, and we become the branch that rests in Him.

And in the very place of failure we have the fruits of the Spirit, the products of His life and nature. What a contrast to the works of the flesh, so characteristic of us! “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23 ).

The way of victory is, however, always by repentance. Jesus cannot be the vine to us except as we repent of the works of the flesh as God shows them to us. A mere attempt to trust Him more completely and to rest in Him, without an acknowledgment of the sin there is, never brings victory. He is the vine to me only as I repent of trying to be the vine myself. It is only as I repent of my unlove that I have His love; only as I confess my worry and lack of peace that I have His peace; only as I confess my impatience that I have His longsuffering; only as I confess my resentment that I have His meekness, and so on.

More than that, when we are willing for Him to be the vine and we but the branch, His purposes of salvation and blessing for other lives begin to be worked out. Things just happen, marvelous things. Being what He is, it could hardly be otherwise. He does not need us to persuade Him to save and revive others. This is His work. He does not begin to work only when we begin to pray and believe. He is working like this all the time, only we have not been linked to Him. But when we begin to pray, and—even more important than praying—when we begin to believe, we are caught up into the purposes in which He is already engaged and become the branches on which His fruit is borne. The degree to which this is our experience is simply the degree to which we expect it of Him!

Life as a Branch

Finally, we now come to ask, What is our part as branches?

First, we must be continually seeing by faith Jesus to be the vine. He is never at a loss, never discouraged, never defeated, and He is our vine! Our weakness and emptiness are no hindrance to Him; indeed, they give Him the more room in which to prove Himself. Boldness, confidence, and assurance spring up in our hearts as the natural result. As we become victorious in spirit, the battle is won before it is begun, and His fruits cannot but appear.

Second, there must be the willingness to become available to Him as a branch. A branch exists only to bear the fruit of the vine. So it must be with us. What a battle there is in our hearts so often with our selfishness and personal interests! So often we are just not available to Him because we have lapsed back to our old center, self. But it must be surrendered if we are to be available to Him as His branch, and that not just in one sweeping surrender that we may make in a solemn moment of dedication, but just as things come up and as He deals with us. This will involve a continuous dying to self and its rights and wishes, but only so can the Lord Jesus bring forth His fruit on the branch.

A word of testimony will illustrate this point. The writer was traveling by train to conduct some meetings. He had to change trains twice before he reached his destination. For the first part of the journey he was buried in his newspaper, and although he was conscious of a little voice telling him he ought to have a heart for the others in the compartment, he was unwilling to lay aside his paper. He was not available to the vine.

On the second part of his journey, he was occupied in preparing his message for the meetings at which he was to preach. Once again the little voice told him he should have a heart for the others around him. But he was tense and anxious about the meeting ahead of him, and he felt he must continue. Once again he was not available. But as he approached the third part of his journey, the Lord Jesus broke him, and he at last told the Lord Jesus of his willingness to be His branch.

The compartment into which he now entered was empty, and he wondered if God really had been speaking to him. Very soon a man came in and continued to be the only occupant with him until the end of the journey. The conversation was easily turned to spiritual things and to the man’s need of the Lord Jesus. He proved to be a prepared heart indeed. Five minutes from the destination, he received Him as his personal Savior there on the train, and letters from him have since evidenced the fact that God did a work in his heart that day.

That very experience gave the writer the fresh vision of his Lord that he needed at the time; a new confidence in Christ sprang up in his heart, and in the days that followed he saw the Lord Jesus bring revival and salvation to a church in a way he had seldom seen before.

This blessed vine, then, is compassionate and touched with the needs of men, but we are selfish and unconcerned. This vine exists just for others, but we are self-centered. This vine is gloriously sufficient to implement His own purposes of love for men, but we are unbelieving and not available. May God deal with us and break us so that we shall be willing to be available to Him as His branches!

Roy Hession (1908-1992) was an internationally known Bible teacher and evangelist. He came to Christ in 1926 at a boys’ camp. After he finished his schooling, he worked for 10 years in a London bank. Through the well-known Bible teacher Alan Redpath, Hession was introduced to the National Young Life Campaign, and in 1935 he joined its staff as an evangelist. On one of his early evangelistic campaigns in Birmingham, England, he met and married Revel. The first book they coauthored was the classic The Calvary Road.

This article is excerpted from the book We Would See Jesus. © 1958 by Roy Hession Book Trust, Bromley, England, and published by Christian Literature Crusade , Fort Washington, Pennsylvania. Used by permission. All rights reserved.