Send us Fan Mail Everything Jesus has done for us is to make us one with Him. That’s what the atonement (His sacrifice) was all about, His resurrection, the outpouring of His Spirit, His ascension, everything He’s ever done. Your salvation is to this end – to make us one with Him (Jn.14:20; 17:20-23). Everything that is in Him, everything that He is, is in you! His glory. “The glory which You gave Me, I give to them.” (Jn.17:22) His life and power are in you. His peace is in you. His love and joy. His wisdom. His righteousness (1Cor.1:30). His very person is in you. You and He are one. Not one and the same, but one. By Christ Jesus you have been reconciled to God. Your reconciliation is so complete, so perfect, that you are one with Him. We are one, yet distinct. He makes a distinction between the vine and the branch. He’s the vine and we’re the branches. “As He is, so are we in this world.” (1Jn.4:17) Where is He? He is in heaven. And we are seated with Him in heavenly places (Eph.2:6). Our person is on earth, but our position is in heaven. What is He? Is He the Son of God? So are we sons of God (1Jn.1:2; Rm.8:16). He is healthy. He is wealthy. He is wise. He has dominion. He has given us dominion. So are we in this world! Right now. In this world. As He is right now, so are we in this world. Somewhere and why not here, someone and I’m including myself in this, at some time, is going to get a hold of this, and his or her world, and the whole world, is never going to be the same. You are like Jesus, because you are connected to Him in a living vital way, as a branch is connected to the trunk of a tree, as a branch is connected to a vine. You have been made one with Christ and the Father by the Spirit. You have been called to a ministry of reconciliation in your little part of the world. Called to share the gospel. To do what Jesus did. Our oneness with Christ is what our salvation is all about. The Bible puts it like this: Christ is in us and we are in Christ. That is our salvation. Our oneness is our salvation. He has identified with us by becoming a Son of Man, in order that we might identify with Him in becoming a son of God. As any good teacher will do, to show all this, Jesus gives an illustration of our oneness. This is where our oneness with God gets practical. This is where Jesus lets in the light. This oneness is not some mystical thing for monks hidden away in some monastery who devote all their time to prayer, fasting, and reading the Bible. In John 14-16 Jesus is speaking to us, and in cha.17 He is praying for people who would “turn the world upside down” by preaching the gospel to all nations, healing the sick, and casting out demons. This oneness is for you who live in the real world of jobs, children, inflation, costs of living, monthly bills, and gas prices. All of this brings us to John, chapter fifteen. Any good teacher uses illustrations. Jesus, the master teacher, filled His sermons with illustrations in the form of parables, metaphors, similes, and other word pictures. “Without a parable He did not speak to the people.” (Mk.4:34) When we come to Jn.15 we come to the illustration of what He’s been teaching us in cha.14 and what He will be praying for us in cha.17. Jesus didn’t just say He was the Light of the world; He opened blind eyes. He didn’t just teach that He was the Bread of life, He fed multitudes with only a couple of biscuits. He didn’t just say, “I am the Resurrection and the Life,” He raised Lazarus from the dead. Examples and illustrations let in the light. The truth is there, but without the light we can’t see it. The Holy Spirit enlightens us. His work is to illumine the word of God to us. Theologians call this illumination. Illustrations illumine the truth so we can see it. Jesus continually illustrated and demonstrated what He taught and preached. This illustration is so important He uses one of His famous “I Am” statements. There are seven of them in the Gospel of John: “I Am the Light of the world. I am the Good Shepherd.” And so on. Here He speaks of Himself as the Vine. Or as Keith Green sang, “He is d’vine and we are the branches.” This is one of the most powerful illustrations of Jesus, in the rest of the Bible, and in all of literature. First notice that the purpose of the Vine is to bear fruit. To do that requires branches. Fruit doesn’t grow on the vine; it grows on the branch. That’s you! The purpose of the branch is to bear fruit. But what is the purpose of the fruit? This is critical to understanding this teaching of Jesus. There are two purposes: To glorify God and reach others for Christ. These will be discussed in the next lesson. Stay Connected with Grace Church! 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