I. The Vine and the Branches John 15 V1-8
A. I believe it is important for us to understand what Yahshua is speaking about
here.
1. I am not a grower of grapes and do not understand allot of what is discussed:
a. So what I did was study about grape growing. (And I looked at pictures of
what is being discussed, let's look at the power point slides that I have
made)
1). So when Yahshua says. (That He is the True Vine this is what is being
discussed, and the idea of Him being the "True" Vine is important)
2). The word "True" in the GK. (Is alethinos and it means is used to
to describe Yahweh in 1 Thess. 1:9 where Paul is speaking to them
and telling them that they had turned from these other gods and
turned to the one and only True Eloheem)
3). We find this being spoken of Yahshua. (Look at Rev. 19:11 where we
find Yahshua on a white horse and He is called faithful and true and
in John 1:14,17 Yahshua is known as full of grace and truth, and
in fact is known as the Truth in John 14:6, and if we are His disciples
we will know the Truth in John 8:32 which identifies the Truth as
Yahshua so we will know Him)
4). Now true or truth in the Hebrew. (Is eh-meth and it means stability,
certainty, truth, trustworthiness, assured, established, faithful, right,
true, and sure, it comes from a RT word that means to build up or
to support, to foster as a parent or a nurse, to render trustful or
faithful, to trust or believe and to establish)
5). So as we look at this. (The Vine is the part of the grape plant that has
the Root system The part that the branches come out of and produce
the grapes, now this is important because it takes a healthy root
system to produce not only grapes but good grapes and good wine to
drink, we see this in Is. 5:1-7 where Yahweh is speaking to Israel and
Judah telling them that He had prepared everything in the right way
but instead of producing good grapes they had produces bad grapes
because they were not connected to justice but injustice showing they
were not connected to the righteous one)
6). Once again Is. 27:2-6. (If Jacob will get right with Yahweh then they
will produce the grapes that Yahweh had expected them to produce
and the fruit they will produce will be seen throughout the world)
7). In John 15:1 we also see. (That the Father is the is the vine keeper just
just as we have seen in the two Isaiah passages Yahweh describes Him
self as the one who takes care of the vineyard)
8). Now look carefully here. (There is a transition that takes place, He
moves us from the vine to the branches, look at the last slide on the
powerpoint, in this slide we see the branches and we can see that it is
the branches that the grapes are hanging from)
9). He says. (Every branch in Me, and we have discussed the before, but
this 2 letter word is important, the word used here is "en" and it
means denotes to be in fixed position and in a relationship of rest and
to give ones self wholly to, it comes from a root word "Ek" which
means origin or to come out of the original or to come from the vine)
10). Now your going to want to listen to this next part. (It says that every
every branch that come from Him that does not produce fruit He
removes, now this word "removes" in the GK is ah-ee-ro and it means
to lift up, to raise up and is associated with a Hebrew word Naw-saw
which means to lift up and to bear up and is associated with expiate
sin)
11). To expiate sin means. (To expiate sin is to make amend for or to atone
for sin, lets look once again and the first picture on the powerpoint in
this picture you can see these wires that are placed next to the vine
and you can see the branches beginning to grow, what they do is
training the branches and as they get longer the train them to rap
around the wires this keeps the branches from falling down into the
dirt where they get muddy and die they will produce mold and die)
12). So the Vine dresser takes them. (And He washes them off so the will be
clean and able to receive the things it need to not only live but to
produce grapes as well or the fruit)
13). As I studied the process of taking care of a vineyard. (I found out that
are a couple more things to watch for, one of these is called sucker
shoots that are these branch like this that look like a branch but don't
produce any grapes, all they do is use up the energy sent to the
branches to produce fruit, so they must be pruned and removed so
the branches that are producing fruit and have that energy to
produce good grapes)
14). The other thing they do. (Is that in each cluster of grape there is a little
cluster hanging just below each cluster they will remove that and that
will cause the main cluster to grow bigger and juicier grapes)
15). Now look closely at John 15:3. (We are already clean because of the
Word I have spoken to you, Look at Eph. 5:26 we are cleansed by the
washing of the Word, and also John 1:1)
16). Look at John 15:4. (The word to "remain" or "abide" in the GK is to
stay in one position, to dwell, and to continue in and remain with
Him in us the reason is that as branches we cannot do or produce fruit
on our own, and we know that branches do not produce the sap that is
need or the nutrients that is need to produce fruit it only comes from
root system which is the Vine)
17). Look at Matt. 26:26-30. (Specifically look at verses 27-28 and look at
John 6:53-57, this is also about eating His flesh and drinking His blood
and in John it records that many that were disciples left and stopped
being His disciples because of this teaching)
18). Let's go back to John 6:53-57. (Look at John 6:47-57 and have a
good look at this because He is really talking about the
same thing in both of these passages)
a. In my version. (It says "Anyone who believes has eternal life"
and it leaves it right there)
b. The King James says. ("He that believeth "on" Me hath
everlasting life)
c. The Greek NT. (Agrees with the King James version having
the "on Me" as how this verse reads)
1). This is important. (This word "on" is a preposition and it
shows or indicates the relationship of a noun, for
"Me" and in can mean "into, purpose and can evening
relay the idea of being of one mind")
2). Now let's couple that with "believeth". (GK is pist-yoo-o which
the RT word is pistis meaning to have "moral conviction"
and that is tied to a Hebrew word "shama" to hear and
obey)
3). How many of you know about picking the right mushrooms? (I
don't, but I have been places where we ran across some
mushrooms and I with some other people)
4). Now one said, "I think this is a good mushroom to eat. (Now I
don't know about you, but the words "I think" did not
give me a lot of faith about eating that mushroom)
5). So I said. (Great! And I tossed that mushroom over my
shoulder and continued to walk out of there)
6). I did not put a lot of. (Faith in his ability to tell what
mushrooms were which, but on the other hand had I
been convinced of his ability I would have eaten that
mushroom)
2. Once again Yahshua brings up the idea that He is the Bread of Life
Life that came down from heaven, and we discussed this:
a. Now back to John 6:30-32. (Now look at this, and let's keep this within
the context of Yahshua having already fed the 5,000-20,000 people just
days before this conversation)
1). It would seem that feeding the people. (With these 5 fish and two barley
loaves seems like to kind of magic trick or something, because they
want some kind of other miracle and they referred to Moses feeding
the people with manna in the desert)
2). Look at Ex. 16:4. ("Yahweh tells Moses that He (Yahweh)" is going to
rain down "bread" from heaven for you)
3). The word "bread". (Heb. is lehk-em and it means food and grain or
bread, and we find that Israel named it "manna" which in Heb.
means "whatness" or what is it? Look at Ex. 16:16-17 Moses
answered "It is the bread that Yahweh has given you to eat)
4). What may have been going on is this. (Look at Ex. 16:35, which says
that Israel ate the "bread" or "manna" for 40 years, until they came
to the land of Canaan, so they were saying something like that was
just once, where is the bread everyday?)
5). This goes back to John 6:25-27. (They may have been looking for
Yahshua to continue to feed them the bread and the fish)
6). To truly understand what is being discussed in V32 we must understand
a couple of GK words. (The first is "ouranios" this form of the word
denotes the "sky", we can see this in Matt. 16:3 where Yahshua is
referring to the appearance of the "sky")
7). The second is. (GK "ouranos" notice the only difference is an "i" is
missing in this form, and this word refers to the heaven where we
find the Kingdom of Yahweh or heavens, look at Matt. 3:2)
8). So Yahshua is saying in John 6:32. (Moses didn't give you the bread
that can from the Kingdom of Heaven, referring to the manna
coming from the "sky" or where the rain comes from, remember
Yahweh made it to "rain" the manna from the "sky" look at Ex.
16:13-14, the manna came in with the "dew")
9). Yahshua is explaining the picture. (The manna was a picture of the
"true" bread that comes down from the heaven)
10). The difference is. (One gives you life for today and you must eat it or
have it everyday or you will starve, but the other give you eternal
life when you partake of it once)
a). Look at John 6:49. (Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and
they died)
11). But look at John 6:50-58. (Here Yahshua starts telling them they must
eat His flesh and drink His blood, and they have a strong reaction to
what He is saying, look at John 6:52, how can this man give us His
flesh to eat?)
3. Look at Heb. 9:23-28:
a. . The writer explains that the first things were copies of Heavenly things:
b. This word “copies” is important. (In the GK it means “an example, or a
thing of imitation, something used to imitate something else)
1). But the RT word means. (GK “to instruct or to admonish, so these
Sacrifices were to instruct and admonish them of something else)
c. The instruction was one of purification. (GK means “to make clean or to
cleanse something)
1). But this word also carries with it a moral sense. (Means to be cleansed
From defilement, or from sin and also means to make pure)
2). This also goes back to Lev. 17:10-11. (Yahweh admonishes Israel and
The foreigners among them not to eats blood)
a). Yahweh points out that it is for atonement. (They are use it to atone for
for their sins)
b). The word “atonement”. (Heb. means “to cover our souls”)
c). The word “souls”. (Heb. means “breathing creature” and can mean
“vitality)
d). The word for “flesh” (Heb. means “Flesh, body, fat, and can means
nakedness”)
e). The word for “Life”. (Heb. means “breathing creature” and can mean
vitality” and is the same word as soul in the Heb.)
f). The word “eat” is. (Heb. means “to eat, to consume, or devour”)
g). So, the blood sacrifice was for the covering of the souls. (And was to be
to be done as prescribed by Yahweh on the altar)
h). So to consume the blood. (Is to take on the soul of the sacrifice and
make that soul part of us)
1). Look at Gen. 4:10. (The voice of Abel’s blood crying out from the
Ground was his soul crying out to Yahweh)
2). Look at Gen. 9:4. (Noah was told not to eat meat with its life blood
In it, or its soul)
3). Look at Gen. 2:23. (Made one flesh, this is a union of the flesh, we
Don’t understand the significance of these union’s)
4). Look at 1 Cor. 6:16-20. (Ties the flesh to the flesh of a harlot and will
Destroy the flesh)
5). Look at John 6:53-63. (This is why this were so offended by His
His teaching, it was about taking on His life the Ruach or the Spirit)
6). Look at John 6:56. (The one who does this lives in Me and I in them
showing that there no life separate from this intimacy with Him)
7). Look at John 6:53. (Unless you eat His flesh and drink His blood you
do not have life in yourselves)