\ Christ was the Son of God. But remember in what sense He ever used this name — Son of God because Son of Man. He claims Sonship in virtue of His Humanity. Now, in the whole previous revelation through the Prophets, etc., one thing was implied — only through man can God be known ; only through a perfect man, perfectly revealed. Hence He came, the brightness of His Father's glory, the express image of His person. Christ, then, must be loved as Son of Man before He can be adored as Son of God.2
^ Dean Alford. ' F. W. Robertson, Life and Letters, 417.
i86 THE TRUE VINE
2. There is a vital union. The figure of the vine offers a type of manifold, of combined, of fruitful energy. It presents to us Christ and the believers in Christ in their highest unity, as a living whole. The figure of the shepherd and the sheep does not indicate relationship so close and wonderful. The shepherd has one nature and the sheep another. Shepherd and sheep are separate and independent beings. What the sheep receive is not directly from the shepherd himself, but only through his agency. The unity of the stem and the branches is organic and living. The branch has a nature like that of the tree. It is the prolonga- tion of its tissues and fibres. The sap that is the life of the trunk is the life of the boughs. A relationship very close indeed is denoted. Stalk and limbs have a resembling nature. Stem and branch perform similar vital functions, are animated by a common principle of life, and act together for the attainment of the same identical ends.
^ Some day you go down to the shore. Your dingy lies in a wee reed-fringed inlet of one of the many bays that indent the coast of Long Island. You get into your boat and shove off the yellow sand. You drop your oars in and then pull away, away down the winding inlet, from behind the fringe of reeds, across the little bar, over the rocking waves of the bay, out into the deep, green, long, low swell of the limitless ocean. From the inlet into the ocean ! And where did the inlet end, and where did the ocean begin ? And what is the difference between the water of the inlet and the water of the ocean ? The same elements combine in both ; the same winds that blow in from the distances sweep over the surface of both ; the same tides which roll in from the middle seas swell the waves of both. The difference is shallow and unplumbed, land-locked and unlimited. But the likeness is more than the difference, the likeness of water, wind and tides which bring the ocean into the reed-fringed inlet, and carry you out of the inlet upon the bosom of the shoreless flood.^
^ If we pour a glass of wine into a glass of water, and mix them, the water will be in the wine, and the wine in the water. So in like manner all that we do, while our own acts, should be manifestations of the indwelling Saviour.*
(1) In this vital union the branches are wholly dependent on the vine. The relation in which the vine stands to the branches
» T. C. McClelland, The Mind of Christ, 55. " Hudson Taylor's Choice Sayings, 1.
ST. JOHN XV. I, 2 187
in the natural world is, on the part of the vine, a relation of supreme support and nourishment. It provides, it contains, it distributes the life by v?hich the whole tree Hves. Without the stem, without the root, the branches are nothing and can do nothing. Instead of bearing fruit they can only wither and perish. A branch is nothing of itself. It is only as it abides in the vine that it has either value or continued existence. And as it is in the natural world so is it in the spiritual counterpart — the kingdom of grace. Jesus Christ, the True Vine, is the supreme and only source of spiritual life to His disciples. Without Him they can do nothing. Without Him they are nothing. It is only as they abide in Him that they can brincr forth any fruit, not to speak of bringing forth much fruit. A Christian's life, in one word, is " hid with Christ in God." Christ is his life, the source and the sustaining power of his spiritual being.
It is impossible to conceive a more complete image of total dependence than that of the branch on the vine. It is not a partial dependence. One tree may give rise to another tree; but the new plant, whether seedling or sucker, becomes a separate individual, and derives nothing more from the original tree. There is dependence at the beginning, but no further. So, for a while, a child is dependent on the parent ; but by and by he is cast entirely on his own resources. The living and thriving branch, on the contrary, is always dependent. To be removed from the stem is death and destruction. ^
^ Without something higher and nobler than yourself you will do nothing good. You must have an aim to evolve yourself to. This is an imperceptible and a natm-al thing. You do not thinh about breathing. It is natural. Your mother has thrown a sacredness over your life. Her name brings to you purity and love in their highest forms ; you are bound to something higher, and through her you are bound to Christ. Thus naturally you are evolved into the Perfect Man. You reflect Him everywhere — in other words, you are growing like Him. A man at college who reflects Christ is a man who is bound to Christ, and thus the " man " in him rules his life. You must bind yourselves to Christ to get it at first hand; you must become acquainted with the Lord Jesus Christ as your best Friend.^ — -