Christians are divided in their understanding of what Jesus
wanted us to do when He charged His followers to ‘abide’ in Him in John 15.
Soon after my conversion I read through a biography of
Hudson Taylor; it told of his struggle to understand how this command was to be
applied in his life. I read and re-read the story. I went on to read a number
of devotional commentaries that dealt with this subject. Many seemed to be
telling me to pray more fervently or read the word more diligently. This was
good advice, yet the way to enter into this heightened experience of eternal
life (that is what I thought it offered) still eluded me; I was trying to apply
His words to my need in the 21st century before I understood them in the light
of the situation facing His disciples in the 1st century. I saw it as something
I had to learn to do, a level of Christian living which I hadn’t experienced
yet.
Was abiding some state to which only the super-spiritual
attained?
The Greek word meno
was commonly used in the days of the New Testament and appears in the text
about 100 times but, when translating it for our versions, scholars chose to
use different English equivalents in different contexts. Sometimes it seemed
best to them to use ‘remain’. In other cases they translated it as ‘tarry’, ‘dwell’,
‘endure’, ‘stand’, or ‘continue’. The important thing to remember is that those
disciples were to remain as they were
when the charge was given; that is, in the enjoyment of the truth the Lord had passed
on to them, especially as it related to
His person and work; He was about to be taken from them.
In my late teens I was given an Alsatian. This fine animal
and I spent many hours together as I trained the dog to be obedient to
different orders. First he learned to remain by my side when I threw a stick
among the trees, then to fetch it on command. The most difficult test for Rex
was when I would select an open area and the order was ‘stay’. I would then go
some distance away and hide behind a tree. If I waited for what he thought was too
long, Rex would easily be distracted by another animal or decide he needed to
hunt for his master. It was difficult for him to learn that my word was to be
obeyed when I was out of his sight.
The ‘Little While’
The Lord knew it was but a little while before his disciples
would see Him again (Jn. 16:16). His teaching about resurrection was hard for
them to receive; His prophesied death and burial would seem so final. It was
written, “Smite the Shepherd and the sheep will be scattered” (Zech. 13:7), but
to whom would they go if the One who had the words of eternal life was
crucified? The lessons He had already taught them far exceeded anything other
Rabbis had to offer. It might seem logical to them to return to secular
employment, and Peter would suggest that, but the promise of becoming fishers
of men made it a pale alternative.
Christ’s word to them was ‘stay’.
We know now that, following His resurrection, Christ would go
on to spend forty more days with them full of instruction concerning the
Kingdom of God. We know also His ascension to heaven would mean the Holy Spirit
would come to lead them into all truth, that which they as yet were not in a
position to receive. For the most part the disciples had been loyal to Him
while they could see Him; now He called them to be loyal when they would not
see Him. They were not Christians but Jewish believers who, without realizing
it, were standing on a bridge between the Old Covenant and the New. He was
going ahead to open the gate on the farther side. It would cost Him His life.
He charged them to stay in the knowledge of who He was and what He had taught
them to this point. In the 21st century we must stand in the shoes of those men
to understand His word ‘abide’ as spoken in John 15.
The True Vine
We may find ourselves passing over the Lord’s claim to be
the ‘true vine’ without being startled by it; the disciples could not. Isaiah,
Jeremiah and Ezekiel had insisted that Israel was the vine. Hadn’t God brought
their nation out of Egypt to bear fruit for His pleasure and their blessing?
But its only product had been “wild grapes”. A new Root and Stem was needed,
and a Vinedresser. Only in that way could the purpose of God be fulfilled. The
disciples would be like branches but they must remain in Him; Judas would not.
The immediate lesson for those who belonged to that nation was that only by
staying “in Him” could they form the Israel of God.
Now we must not make the mistake of interpreting the Lord’s
“in Me” in John 15 as though it was meant exactly the same way as the words “in
Christ” in Ephesians 1. In John, the Jewish disciple’s responsibility is in
view; he or she must believe and continue in order to be fruitful. In Ephesians,
the readers are informed that both Jews and Gentiles who believe were chosen by
God in Him [Christ] before the foundation of the world, that they would be “holy
and blameless before Him”. The same concept, being “in Christ”, is used in both
passages, but in two very different contexts. “In Me” in John 15 is
spoken to those close to Him on earth. “In Christ” in Ephesians 1 is written to
those “risen with Him” (2:6), the One “who was delivered up for our offences”,
and was raised “because of our justification” (Rom. 4:25).
Those chosen by God in Christ will never be cut off like those in John 15.
Those chosen by God in Christ will never be cut off like those in John 15.
Abiding Today
The application of that word ‘abide’ is loaded with meaning,
to the twelve disciples and to everyone who wishes to be a fruitful disciple.
Abiding does not call for human effort. It is where we must begin if we desire to
be spiritually fruitful, to lay aside the kind of energy we have been taught to
exert in order to succeed in life. We may want to know what we “must do in
order to work the works of God”. Christ’s answer is, “to believe on Him who He
has sent”.
Paul’s life provides an illustration of this principle; his
soul or inner man was at rest while he “laboured more abundantly than they
all”. It was not “I”, he says, but “Christ that lives in me”.
“But”, we may ask, “how can we, who were never with Christ, ‘remain’
in One we never met?”
The Lord’s promise to those who had been with Him (and so
also to us) is profound but practical:
“A little while and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also. At that day you will know that I am in the Father, and you in me, and I in you. He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” (Jn. 14:19-21)
Who would not want to abide in that?
CFA
Republished by permission of the author
No comments :
Post a Comment