As Jesus prepared His apostles for His departure, He told them the parable of the vine and the branches. He had just instituted the Lord’s Supper, with the elements of the bread and the fruit of the vine, so the picture of the vine and the branches would have been very clear to the disciples. Jesus immediately identified Himself as the vine: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman” (John 15:1). Having identified Himself as the vine, He identified the work of the branches as that of bearing fruit, warning that the husbandman takes away unfruitful branches. “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” (John 15:2).

Some suggest that this parable is a picture of the contemporary church, with all the various denominations and sects coming together to form the Lord’s church. It is sometimes shown in the form of a tree, with various branches depicting the way in which different religious groups have grown out of one another. The text reveals, however, that the branches are not the different religious sects of “Christendom,” but instead are individual Christians.

Jesus was speaking in John 15 to the apostles, individuals, not religious groups. Notice the emphasis on what the individual disciple must do. “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. 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. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples” (John 15:5-8). Jesus told the disciples, “ye are the branches,” and “if a man abide not in me.” The branches are people, not churches!

The branches must bear fruit for the husbandman. The fruitfulness that the Lord wants, which is the product of a Christian life, comes only from abiding in Christ. The branch cannot bear fruit of itself, “for without me ye can do nothing” (John 15:4-5). What we can do in Christ, however, is unlimited. “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13). The key is to be in Christ, abiding in Him. Paul said, “as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27).

Christ did not want His followers to be divided among the various religious groups and denominations. As He prepared for the cross, He prayed, “Neither pray I for these alone [the apostles], but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me” (John 17:20-21). He wanted all who believe the testimony of the apostles to be united.