NOTES for Joh 14:27-15:7
27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. |
28 Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I. |
29 And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe. |
30 Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me. |
31 But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence. |
1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. |
2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. |
3 Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. |
4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. |
5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. |
6 If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. |
7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. |
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Describing the Kingdom, Jesus turns to the image of a vineyard, a vine, traditional for Yahwism and Judaism. But into this traditional image He places a new meaning connected with the essence of the Kingdom that He brought into the world. Of course, there is also room here for the traditional understanding of the Kingdom as a place where only one will acts: the will of God, who created the world. It is no accident that Jesus says that the "prince of this world" "has nothing in Him": for the Kingdom He brought into the world does not exist according to the laws of this world, so that the "prince of this world" can have no power over it, even though the Kingdom, while abiding in our untransfigured world, constantly touches it.
But the image of the vine also becomes an image of relations within the Kingdom, where all are connected with one another and with Christ just as branches are on a vine. This bond is absolute, immediate, and organic: every branch is a continuation of the vine; if it is torn off, it dries up. All the branches live one life with the vine, fed with it by the same sap from one source. Evidently this is exactly how the inhabitants of the Kingdom are connected with one another and with Christ.
From this point of view, the Kingdom can be defined as a single space of relations linking all its inhabitants with one another, with Christ at the center. And it is precisely the fact of Christ's presence that makes the Kingdom the Kingdom. For in order for it to remain itself, such constancy of relations, such stability, is necessary as is unthinkable in the fallen world for the human will damaged by the fall. Only the will of the One who, being Man, remained untouched by sin can become the basis of the stable unity necessary as an indispensable condition for the existence of the Kingdom in our transfiguring, but not yet transfigured, world. This is what the Savior evidently has in mind when He says, "Without Me you can do nothing."
Of course, even in a fallen state a person can sometimes, with God's help, do something good. But to do anything at all for the Kingdom is possible only by being part of the Kingdom. And it is impossible to be part of it without spiritual unity with the One who constitutes its spiritual foundation, who is the spiritual core on which the Kingdom rests.
One end of this core is held by God, who raised His Son from the dead. At the other end are we, who consider ourselves Christians and try, as far as we can, to be Christians. And between us is the Kingdom, entering the world through us.
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Readings for 25 May 2026
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