Jeremy approaches Bible teaching with a passion for getting the basic doctrines explained so that the individual can understand them and then apply them to circumstances in their life. These basic and important lessons are nestled in a framework of history and progression of revelation from the Bible so the whole of Scripture can be applied to your physical and spiritual life.
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Walking by the Spirit. Abiding in Christ. Obeying the Father. Are these the same or different? And is this just a spiritual state or an emotional response? Jeremy contends that the Bible lays out a more tangible response.
Jeremy Thomas is the pastor at Spokane Bible Church in Spokane, Washington and a professor at Chafer Theological Seminary. He has been teaching the Bible for over 20 years, always seeking to present its truths in a clear and understandable manner.
Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and our series on the New Testament framework. Today, a smaller, bite-sized piece from the larger lesson. We hope you enjoy it.
Third command is we're told to abide in Christ. Let's turn to John 15. This is the root of a lot of the teaching later, like in 1 John, a lot of the language like abiding and so forth is used in 1 John. That grows out of this background where Jesus taught about the vine and the branches, right? This is also commanded that we abide. Because if we don't abide, we can't produce anything of value, we see. So remember, this one is talking about this is Christ. This is the red words, right? Red letters. If you have red letter edition, you can see Christ taught this. Um, although he really taught the whole Bible, but anyway. Verse 1, I am the true vine. So Christ is the true vine. My father is the vine dresser, he's the one that takes care of this. This is a viticulture. This is taking care of grapes. This is a vineyard. Okay, that's
what this is. And he's the vine. Christ is the vine. The father is the one who dresses the vine. You have to really take care of these vines and vineyards to make them productive. Where we lived before in Fredericksburg, Texas, um, is known as the little Napa Valley of Texas because there's all these little vineyards, little boat boutique vineyards all over the place. I mean, there must be 75 of them everywhere. And people come up there from Dow uh from uh San Antonio and Austin every weekend. It's a big tourist spot. So you can wine and dine. That's what it was like. So, but you could see these little vines everywhere, and you know that it takes a lot of care to actually make them productive. So, verse 2 every branch in me that is in the vine that does not bear fruit, he takes away. And every branch that he bears that bears fruit, he prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. And it's a little um grammatical issue in 15.2,
where he's talking about the branch that does not bear fruit. And most translations, I think, say he takes away, right? But uh actually, if you look very carefully in Vidiculture practices, what Christ is probably referring to is a different meaning of this word Iroh. That word Iro, translated take away here, is used elsewhere or lifts up or pick up. Uh for example, when Jesus claimed to be God in the same book, a few chapters earlier, it says the Jews picked up stones, throw it. Using the exact same word. So this word doesn't necessarily mean take away, it can mean that, but uh in this case it's more like picking up a stone or lifting up the branch. Because when you have the new little tendrils that shoot out from the stalk, what they'll tend to do is they'll tend to want to fall down into the dirt because they're weak and they can't support themselves. And so what a viticulture, you know, a vine dresser would do is he come along and they they take, they make these little sticks that look like a slingshot, that little Y at the top, and they lay they lay them in there and they just support it till it grows strong enough just to hold itself up. Okay, and so that's this first action that the vine dresser takes. It's with a brand new tendril, a little, we would say baby believer. And what does God do with the baby believer? Because the baby believer is weak, he doesn't know a lot, he's not strong in the faith, so he needs God's support early on. And so he lifts him up. And those that do bear fruit, he says in verse 2, he prunes so that they bear more fruit. He says, You're already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you, meaning they're already regenerate, right? He's talking to well, Judas has already left, so he's talking to the eleven. And so this instruction is for believers, like the eleven.
And he says in verse 11, Abide in me and I in you. So we call this reciprocal abiding, okay? Us abiding in him, the true vine, and he abiding in us. In other words, his life flowing through us. It's just a vital, vital link. It has to be both ways. If we decide we don't want to be connected and have his life flowing through us, there's not going to be any production. Because you have to have the vine to bring the production through the branch. And so that's the whole idea, he says in verse 4, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in me. So if you want to have the results of his fruit, then our side, our responsibility, right, is to abide. Just like being filled or walking by the Spirit, this is a conscious decision that you make. Like you have to say to yourself, Am I in vital connection with divine, with Jesus Christ? Am I walking in that close communion with Him? Of course, we all have union. We're believers. Um, that's not the issue here. The issue is communion, closeness. And so walking, abiding. And that's the requirement in order for there to be fruit production. Because he says if you don't abide in me, the production is going to be absolutely zero. Just like a branch on a fruit tree that cannot produce fruit if it was not attached vitally to the tree itself. So this is the third description of what this vital part of your Christian life is all about, where we're commanded to do something in order to see fruit.
Now, having said these things, we should perhaps emphasize more greatly the study of the word, the careful and diligent study of the word of God. Because only when we know what the word of God teaches in its original context, what God's intent with that is, that is it that we actually know the truth. Um we don't just make up what it means or say, well, this is what it means to me. Um it doesn't matter really what it means to me, it matters what it actually means. And only then is my mind and God's mind actually on the same page, right? So if I have to have the word of Christ dwelling ritually within me, I hope I know what it is. Right. If I'm to abide in him, if I'm to walk by the Spirit, all these things are tied together with the Word of God. So we have to keep these things closely associated, and we really have to be studying the word to know what it visually meant, what God intended us to understand.
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