Life in the Vine Part 2

LIFE IN THE VINE: A VISION FOR SPIRITUAL VITALITY IN 2018

A Three-Part Exposition of John 15:1-17

Part 2: The Form of Abiding in Jesus

By Pastor Brian Wilbur

Date: January 14, 2018

Series: Vision 2018

Note:   Scripture quotations are from The ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version), copyright 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

 

INTRODUCTION

The Father’s will for your life is that you bear good fruit! As we fragile little branches abide in our Lord Jesus Christ, the True Vine, and as He abides in us, we bear much fruit.

The purpose of this fruit in and through your life is not to make you look good. You are a fragile little branch, and the point of being a fruitful branch is not so that passersby walk up to the Vine, notice your tiny little branch with a few clusters – or a hundred clusters – of grapes on it, and offer you praise: My, oh my, what an awesome fragile little branch, what an amazing ability to produce grapes, what a stupendous skill to exist and support itself and stay alive on cold nights in early spring.

The fruitfulness of the branches is a glorious thing, but it is not about the glory of the branches. Instead, the fruitfulness of the branches is a testimony to what? To the excellence and vitality of the Vine! We behold the good fruit, the grapes and grape clusters, the branches and leaves, all nourished and supported by the Vine, so that we will admire the Vine. The Father delights in the praise of His Son! (see, e.g., John 17:1-2)

Equally, the Son delights in the praise of His Father! In John 15, Jesus calls particular attention to the fact that our good fruit glorifies the Father: 

“By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.” (John 15:8)

Good fruit demonstrates that we are true branches in the True Vine and it also glorifies the Father, the One who watches over the Vine. Our fruitfulness testifies to the Father’s graciousness to make us fruitful participants in the life of the Vine.

And our fruitfulness is assured, for Jesus promises to produce much fruit through us, if only we abide in Him.

But all this raises a question: this Vine-branches-fruit metaphor is well and good, but what is the fruit in literal terms? Once we move from the vineyard metaphor of grapes and grape clusters to the human relationships and responsibilities that characterize our everyday lives, what is the actual fruit? What should our lives be producing – not only on an individual basis but also together as a congregation? The Father grafted us into Jesus so that Jesus’ life would flow in and through and out of us – so what should be coming out of us, what is our life for? What is your life for?

These are really good questions, and I really hope you join us next Sunday as we seek an answer. (I know, I set you up and you want the answer now, but I’m trying to whet your appetite for additional insight into our Lord’s instruction.)

In any case, we are in a three-part sermon series entitled “Life in the Vine: A Vision for Spiritual Vitality in 2018.” In the third sermon (next Sunday) we will consider “The Fruit of Abiding.” In the first sermon (last Sunday), we looked at “The Foundation of Abiding” – and what we considered is that any vision for spiritual vitality must begin with Jesus:

• The Lord is the True Vine who supplies us with life and strength. Every capacity for growth and productivity comes from Jesus. Stay close to Him!

• The Lord’s work is the primary work: He enables all the activity that takes place in the branches, He speaks life-giving words, He sets the example, He lays down His life for us. His work is primary; ours is secondary. Our work is response and submission to what He does. Gladly receive all that He gives!

• The Lord washes us from our sins before He calls us to walk with Him. He forgives our sins, gives us His Spirit, and incorporates us into His forever family – and all this before we have done a single thing. Our gracious Lord secured for us all the blessings of this salvation when He offered Himself on Calvary as the atoning sacrifice for our sins and then rose from the dead in mighty triumph over all the powers of darkness and death. Live in the Good News of His triumphant grace!

Abiding involves resting in these foundational realities. We don’t make ourselves holy, but we trust Jesus who made us holy through His broken body and shed blood. We don’t labor to produce, but we rest in the Lord who works in our lives what is pleasing to Him. As Arthur Pink reminds us: “One must first be “in him” before he can “abide in him.””[1] Very true! Abiding in Jesus is not figuring out how to form a relationship with Jesus. Abiding, rather, is continuing and deepening our relationship with Jesus that we already have on account of His grace.

The great matter of the Christian life is to stay connected to Jesus: “Abide in me, and I in you.” The great danger is to drift into disconnection from Him.

THE SCRIPTURAL TEXT

Now let me read a portion of our passage. I will read verses 1-8 now and 9-14 later. The Lord Jesus says:

¹ “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. ² Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. ³ Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. ⁴ Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. ⁵ I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶ If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. ⁷ If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸ By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.” (John 15:1-8)

WHAT IS OUR ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITY?

The question before us this morning is: What is our role and responsibility in this journey of abiding? Granted that the Lord’s work is primary and ours secondary, we still must ask what does our secondary work consist of? We’ve already provided an initial answer by saying that abiding means resting in what He has done and is doing for us. And this is true indeed! But there’s more to say – additional details in the passage that are meant to shape our daily experience of abiding. Thus today’s sermon entitled The Form of Abiding – in which we will highlight three characteristics of a healthy spiritual life.

THE FORM OF ABIDING IN JESUS

Abiding Reality #1: Deep Mutual Relationship

First, abiding means entrusting yourself completely to Jesus in a deep mutual relationship of self-giving love. Abiding means you’re ‘all in’ with Jesus, understanding fully that He is ‘all in’ for you. The key concept here is deep mutual relationship, or what theologians call ‘communion’ with Jesus. Look at what Jesus says:

“Abide in me, and I in you.” (v. 4)

“Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit…” (v. 5)

Do you hear the mutuality, the self-giving love one to another? You in Him, and He in you. This is a deep and intimate inter-personal connection in which the branch gives itself fully to the Vine in order to receive from it, and the Vine gives itself fully to the branch in order to give to it. The branch is united to the Vine in deep fellowship, and the Vine is likewise united to the branch. And none of this is like a carefully constructed business contract dressed up in religious language!

The word ‘contract’ is a great word in understanding what abiding isn’t like! Generally speaking, contracts are not characterized by deep mutual relationship. I am not intimately connected to Verizon Wireless, nor it to me, though we are bound by contract: they provide cell phone service, and we pay. This is an agreement, not abiding love.

Sadly, the Christian world is full of religiosity that is void of true relationship. Religion itself is not a bad word, for it helps to communicate the fact that there are doctrinal and moral and social and institutional dimensions to Christianity – and these are good and necessary things. However, the danger is that you can have all your ducks in a row – you’ve got your basic doctrine straight and your moral standards in line, you’ve agreed to tolerate the imperfect folks around you and you even became an official church member! – but where is Jesus? Where is the Spirit of the living God? Where is the Father who calls you His dear children? You’ve got religion all around you but no grace in the heart!

And when you have the shell of Christian religion without the Savior Himself dwelling among His people, then what you get is contractual approach to God. One of the reasons that we sign contracts is to limit our responsibilities, reduce our liabilities, and make sure that there are escape clauses. On the one side, we bring our warm bodies, offering checks, and reasonably respectable lives to the equation, and we expect God to hold up His end of the bargain: a good life now (which minimally means fewer troubles than the less blessed folks across town), and then heaven after our good-life-with-fewer-troubles is all over. The ‘contract Christian’ doesn’t give himself wholeheartedly to the Lord, but instead only makes the minimum payment. Tragically the ‘contract Christian’ doesn’t have the Father’s love written on his heart, but has a strictly business relationship with God, and consequently self-giving love isn’t part of the equation. The ‘contract Christian’ understands duties, but not devotion.

Dear friends, we need to be clear that abiding is not contractual in nature. Instead, it is an inter-personal relationship, a mutual indwelling in which the disciple’s heart is walking in loving unity with the Lord’s heart. Think about it: the Lord of glory has given Himself fully to you. He is “the good shepherd” who “lays down his life for the sheep.” (John 10:11) He is ‘the Lord of love’ who “[laid] down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) He is the tenderhearted Savior who has brought us into fellowship with the Father, and He is the exalted Messiah who has poured out His Spirit upon His people. Christian brothers and sisters, you have been called into fellowship with God’s Son, not into a religious program. Abide in Him, and He in you.

But We Must Say More About This Relationship

If we stopped here, however, we might get confused or off-track. If the only thing we said about abiding is that it is deep mutual relationship, then you might be tempted to think that there is no definition or shape to that relationship. You might be tempted to think that it’s just a mystical or transcendent experience, something that defies any kind of description, a relationship that might happen unexpectedly while you are walking under a moonlit sky, or while savoring the aroma of freshly brewed herbal tea, or while meditating on nothing in particular in the early hours of the morning. Someone might say, I have a personal relationship with Jesus, it’s a very private thing, He speaks to me in ‘the rustling grass,’ and who are you to tell me that there is supposed to be definition and shape to my relationship with Jesus? Doesn’t the phrase ‘personal relationship with Jesus’ mean that the whole thing is an individual affair?

Treasuring His Words

Well, no! As we read on in John 15, we discover the second characteristic of abiding. Abiding in Jesus means treasuring His words in your heart. In this section I am going to call us to be radical ‘Bible people’ – but I hasten to remind you that this call is issued in the context of first of all bring radical ‘Jesus people’. Jesus taught us that it is entirely possible to be a diligent student of Scripture without being a lover of Jesus. But He also taught us that it is not possible to be a lover of Jesus without being devoted to His words. For Jesus said in John 14,

“If anyone loves me, he will keep my word…” (John 14:23)

Our passage makes clear that our deep mutual relationship with Jesus is largely mediated through words: the Lord Jesus speaks life-giving words, and we cherish and obey His words.

1) Because of the Word

The first statement about the Word-centered spiritual life comes in verse 3:

“Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.” (v. 3)

We are forgiven – and have the assurance of forgiveness – because Jesus has spoken the Good News to us. We would not be clean, if He had not spoken.

How many people live in an ongoing state of anxiety over their sin? They are plagued by guilt and shame, and they spend their already depleted energy employing mental tricks to manage their guilt feelings. They have not received, or they are not resting in, the Lord’s decisive and gracious pronouncement of forgiveness. The Lord’s word of grace doesn’t abide in their heart, so guilt abides there instead.

2) If My Words Abide in You

The second statement about the Word-centered spiritual life comes in verse 7:

“If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” (v. 7)

In verses 4-5 the key to fruitfulness was us abiding in Jesus and Jesus abiding in us. Now in verse 7 the key to fruitfulness is us abiding in Jesus and Jesus’ words abiding in us. This teaches us that the Lord Jesus comes to us with words, with promises, with warnings, with instructions. We cannot enjoy close fellowship with Jesus if we hold His words at arm’s length. To receive Jesus is to receive His life-giving words! And, as verse 7 makes so clear, Jesus’ words abiding in us are the key to effective prayer.

How many people pray on a merely human level? It is sobering to think about the fact that it is not uncommon for unbelievers to pray. Jews pray. Muslims pray. Members of cults pray. Adherents of eastern religions pray. Even secular people pray. Although their prayers are not acceptable in God’s sight, they are praying nonetheless. Therefore the mere activity of praying doesn’t necessarily mean that God is in on it. Everyone wants guidance; everyone wants healing; everyone wants peace; everyone wants a transcendent experience. So what if we also pray for these things in a superficial way? The True Vine doesn’t produce flaky, vague, superficial, merely human praying. Instead the True Vine produces substantive, Spirit-generated praying that accords with the Father’s will: “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” (v. 7, italics mine)

I trust you understand that this doesn’t mean that you can use Jesus’ words as a charm or bargaining chip to get the Mercedes-Benz luxury sports car that you always wanted. I mean, “whatever you wish,” right? The only person who should expect to receive from the Father whatever they wish and ask for, is the person who is abiding in the Vine and whose heart and mind are being continually transformed by the indwelling words of Jesus – so that their wishes, desires, and deepest longings are arising from their meditation on His Word. When the Lord’s word doesn’t abide in our heart, unfruitful praying and vain repetition abide there instead.

3) These Things I Have Spoken

The third statement about the Word-centered spiritual life comes in verse 11:

“These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” (v. 11)

Everything that Jesus has been telling us in John 15 is for our joy. The True Vine is full of joy, and He delights to share His fullness of joy with every one of His branches. The Lord Jesus desires to communicate joy to everyone who communes with Him in true faith. But how can we receive His joy if we ignore the things He has spoken to us? In fact, according to verse 11, the things that He has spoken to us are the key to receiving His joy. So we see a development of thought: “abide in me, and I in you,” then “if you abide in me, and my words abide in you,” and now the implied ‘my words in you’ is followed by “my joy… in you.” Do you see the progression of thought? The Lord in you, and if the Lord in you then His words in you, and if His words in you then His joy in you.

So if you come to me and say, ‘I’ve got a joy problem; I don’t have joy in my life,’ what do you think I should say in light of Jesus’ teaching in John 15? I think I should say, ‘You’ve got a word problem; you don’t have His words abiding in your heart.’ I’m not at all suggesting that all of your emotional complexities can be solved by a thirty-second mechanical recitation of a Bible verse, as if the sound waves in the air will magically carry the darkness far away. What Jesus is saying is that true spiritual joy – His joy, joy that endures – will not come to you apart from His precious words being believed, loved, and lived out. When the word of the Lord doesn’t abide in our heart, then neither will the joy of the Lord be our strength.

Are You Treasuring His Words?

How many people do not have the Lord’s words abiding within? Some people have abiding angst, abiding fear, abiding discouragement, abiding volatility – and why? Because His words of life and truth are storing up dust on a shelf, rather than being stored up as the delight of your soul.

Words have been spoken to you and words are abiding in you, but they are not His words. They might be the words of someone who spoke unkindly to you (perhaps the playground bully or a discontented parent), or they might be the words of the latest gossip, or they might be your own words formed out of the confusion of your own mind – all words that the devil, the father of lies, is only too happy to bring to your attention. But where are His words?

You make sure you get a daily dose of news, but not the good news. You make sure you get a steady stream of largely irrelevant and unhelpful tidbits of whatever on social media, but you know precious little of the soul athirst “for the living God” even as the “deer pants for flowing streams,” (Psalm 42:1, 2) and what is the answer to that inner thirst?

“Send out your light and your truth; let them lead me;

let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling!

Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy…” (Psalm 43:3-4)

The Bible tells us that the Lord’s Word is sweeter than honey and more valuable than gold, that it is like refreshing water and strengthening bread and exhilarating wine and nourishing milk, that it is like seed going into the soil of the heart – fully capable of yielding an abundant harvest of good fruit. So much joy, so frequently neglected. Is it any wonder why some remain in this perpetual state of spiritual weakness? They live in the dark counsels of a faithless world, but not in the bright counsels of the Lord’s faithful Word.

Have you recently heard the sovereign Lord speak grace to your heart?

“… fear not, for I am with you;

be not dismayed, for I am your God;

I will strengthen you, I will help you,

I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” (Isaiah 41:10)

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by name, you are mine.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;

when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,

and the flame shall not consume you.

For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.” (Isaiah 43:1-3)

“I am the LORD your God,

who teaches you to profit,

who leads you in the way you should go.

Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments!

Then your peace would have been like a river,

and your righteousness like the saves of the sea;” (Isaiah 48:17b-18)

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” (John 14:1-3)

“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

Fragile little branches, if the Lord’s words are not abiding in your heart, then be assured that trouble will be. But wherever His words are believed and cherished, His joy and peace and strength will fill your cup.

So let me ask you a simple question: How are you and the Bible getting along these days? How are your heart and the heartfelt words of God getting along? Have you forgotten the incomparable power of God’s Word?

“By the word of the LORD the heavens were made,

and by the breath of his mouth all their host….

For he spoke, and it came to be;

he commanded, and it stood firm.” (Psalm 33:6, 9)

By speaking, God is able to bring order to your disordered life. Are you listening?

Have you forgotten the sovereign authority of our Lord Jesus Christ? He speaks, and by His speaking the blind see and the deaf hear and the demoniacs are set free and the dead are raised up and the prostitutes becomes worshipers and the misfits come together as a family and the sins of the redeemed are buried beneath an ocean of grace! Blessed are those who eat and drink the words of the Lord!

We are so blessed to have the Lord’s life-giving words written down – inscripturated for us in the Bible. We are blessed to have preaching and teaching from the Bible every Lord’s Day. We are blessed to have capable teachers in this congregation and opportunities for Bible study groups. My appeal to you this morning is to avail yourself of God’s holy words: read, reflect on, wrestle with, and rejoice in His words – in personal devotions, in family devotions, in small groups and Sunday School classes, and in our worship service. Although understanding with the mind is essential, that is not the end goal. The end goal is that the Lord’s words, understood rightly, will abide in the very fabric of your being, filling you with life and peace and joy and Spirit-empowered prayer, bearing all kinds of fruit that bring glory to the Father. Love the truth, my brothers and sisters, that the truth might dwell richly among you!

Cherishing and…

Abiding in the Lord means cherishing His life-giving words. But you may recall that I have included another word when discussing our proper response to His Word. I said ‘cherish and obey.’ How easy it is to get excited about some fresh discovery in the moment of studying the Bible or hearing a sermon, but then after leaving the safety of the sanctuary we immediately lose steam, forget what we learned, and return to our bumpy and grumpy ways. We must not be content with the striking blossoms of pretty springtime flowers on the tree (which bid us farewell so quickly), but instead must press on all the way to long-term vitality.

Abiding Reailty #3: Obeying His Commands

This brings me to a third and no less important aspect of abiding: abiding in the Lord means abiding in His love, and abiding in His love means keeping His commands. To put it simply: abiding involves obeying the Lord’s commands. Listen to verses 9-14:

⁹ As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. ¹⁰ If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. ¹¹ These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

¹² “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command you.” (John 15:9-14)

The Lord has loved us in profound and sacrificial ways: so great is His love that He laid down His life for us. With great love He has graciously forgiven us and brought us into His family and made us joyful participants in His mission. To abide in the Lord is to abide in His love for us – which means living in the joyful assurance that He is for us, that He is with us, that He upholds us, and that He leads us to glory.

This same Lord, who has loved us with such a great love, tells us that if we would abide in His love, then we must keep His commandments: “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.” (v. 10) This may strike us as a paradox: how can it be that abiding in the Savior’s free gift of gracious love is in some way conditioned on our obedience to His commands? ‘I have loved you’ (v. 9) sounds like grace, a free gift. ‘If you keep my commandments’ (v. 10) sounds like law, like a hoop we have to jump through to in order to get the payout.

But obedience is not jumping through a hoop, and the continued enjoyment of the Savior’s grace is not a payout. This is a deep mutual relationship, but it is a relationship of unequals: “You are my friends if you do what I command you.” (v. 14) Now if I ever say to you, ‘You are my friends if you do what I say,’ run the other way! For we are all brothers and sisters, but Jesus is the King! We are all fragile little branches, but He is the strong Vine. He is the Lord of glory, and we are creatures of the dust – and sinful ones at that. He is the source of every good gift, and we are dependent receivers. We cannot go to the Vine and say: I’ll take part of what you offer: I’ll take compassion but not commandments, I’ll take encouragement but not exhortation, I’ll take pardon but not pruning and purification, I’ll take relationship but not responsibility. You’re either ‘all in’ or not in at all.

Let it be clearly understood that one of the ways that the Lord loves us, one of the ways that the Vine supports us, is by leading us into a godly way of life. These commandments don’t come to us from a faraway absentee landlord who is trying to make a good deal: you pay higher rent, I’ll let you stay and live off a fifth of the land. This is not a business contract. This is the personal Lord who lives among and in His people, who has loved us with an everlasting love and incorporated us into His family – this is the personal Lord directing us in the path of life that leads to good fruit.

Notice that Jesus doesn’t say, ‘If you abide in Me, you will bear the fruit of obedience.’ He doesn’t say that, does He? What does He say? He says, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.” (v. 10) So obedience is not the fruit. Obedience is a precursor to the fruit: if through heartfelt obedience we abide in Him, then we shall bear fruit. So obedience is actually part of the abiding. Abiding involves the humble acceptance of the Lord’s will, the glad reception of every good gift that comes from the Vine, including the good gift of commandments. Abiding is, among other things, agreeableness – agreeableness to the ways of the Vine, response and submission to the words of the Lord. How can we be part of this holy Vine, if we insist on indulging in sin? How can we be wedded to the glorious Bridegroom, if we keep playing around with idols?

Jesus Highlights One Command in Particular

Of all the commandments that Jesus might have mentioned at this point, He highlights one: “love one another as I have loved you.” (v. 12) The Lord gave of Himself completely, laying down His life for the salvation of His unfaithful friends; the Vine giving itself in love for the health of the branches. Nothing is more Vine-like, nothing is more Christ-like, than sacrificial love. If we are true branches in the true Vine, then we are acquainted with His love, because it is only by His love that we have become His branches in the first place. Which means that to be alive in the Vine is to have the Vine’s love coursing through your fragile little branch. And be assured that the Lord’s purpose in loving you is not for you to keep all that love to yourself, but rather to share that love with others – especially with your brothers and sisters in the Lord.

Here we learn a great lesson: there can be no ongoing spiritual vitality within the church if we fail to love each other with a tenderhearted, sacrificial love that aims to bless and build up. If we ever find that we as a congregation are characterized by relational disconnection, suspicion, criticism, envy, one-upmanship, whining, and reluctance to serve others, then we can be assured that we as a congregation have grown cold to Jesus’ love. For where Jesus’ love flows freely and warmly to His people, that same love flows freely and warmly among His people as they serve one another in love.

BRIEF SUMMARY

Abiding in the Lord means abiding in His love.

Abiding means entrusting yourself completely to Jesus in a deep mutual relationship of self-giving love.

Abiding means cherishing the Lord’s life-giving words and keeping His live-giving commands, especially the command to love another in the same way that He has loved us.

Therefore abiding in His love means extending His love to each other.

It is only by thus abiding in our Lord that we will bear much fruit.

In just a few moments we will sing the hymn “Trust and Obey,” which is a fitting response to this passage. Before we do that, let me highlight the words from two of the stanzas:

“When we walk with the Lord in the light of His Word,

What a glory He sheds on our way!

While we do His good will, He abides with us still,

And with all who will trust and obey.

“But we never can prove the delights of His love

Until all on the altar we lay;

For the favor He shows, for the joy He bestows,

Are for them who will trust and obey.” 

Let us pray.

 

 

ENDNOTES

[1] Pink, Arthur W. The Gospel of John (Faithful Classic). iBooks Version: p. 1524.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Calvin, John. Calvin’s Commentaries. Accessed online at Bible Hub: http://biblehub.com/commentaries/calvin/john/15.htm. Read some of his comments on John 15.

Carson, D. A. The Gospel according to John (Pillar New Testament Commentary). Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1991: p. 510-524.

Lenski, R. C. H. The Interpretation of St. John’s Gospel 11-21 (Commentary on the New Testament series). Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2008, 1942: p. 1031-1032. Accessed online at Google Books. Read a brief portion as part of my study of John 15:3.

Morris, Leon. The Gospel According to John (New International Commentary on the New Testament). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971: comments on John 15:1-16.

Pink, Arthur W. The Gospel of John (Faithful Classic). Prisbrary Publishing. iBooks Version: p. 1502-1570.

Ryle, J. C. The Gospel of John (Faithful Classic). Prisbrary Publishing. iBooks Version: p. 495-513.

Witherington, III, Ben. John’s Wisdom: A Commentary on the Fourth Gospel. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995: p. 254-260.