THE HUSBANDMAN
And My Father is the Husbandman—John 15.1
“A vine must have a husbandman to plant and watch over it, to receive and rejoice in its fruit. Jesus says: “My Father is the husbandman.” He was “the vine of God’s planting.” All He was and did, He owed to the Father; in all He only sought the Father’s will and glory. He had become man to show us what a creature ought to be to its Creator. He took our place, and the spirit of His life before the Father was ever what He seeks to make ours: “Of him, and through him, and to him are all things.” He became the true Vine, that we might be true branches. Both in regard to Christ and ourselves the words teach us the two lessons of absolute dependence and perfect confidence.
My Father is the Husbandman.—Christ ever lived in the spirit of what He once said: “The Son can do nothing of himself.” As dependent as a vine is on a husbandman for the place where it is to grow, for its fencing in and watering and pruning. Christ felt Himself entirely dependent on the Father every day for the wisdom and the strength to do the Father’s will. As He said in the previous chapter (14:10): “The words that I say unto you, I speak not from Myself; but the Father abiding in Me doeth his works.” This absolute dependence had as its blessed counterpart the most blessed confidence that He had nothing to fear: the Father could not disappoint Him. With such a Husbandman as His Father, He could enter death and the grave. He could trust God to raise Him up. All that Christ is and has, He has, not in Himself, but from the Father.” Andrew Murray - The True Vine, Day 2
And My Father is the Husbandman—John 15.1
“A vine must have a husbandman to plant and watch over it, to receive and rejoice in its fruit. Jesus says: “My Father is the husbandman.” He was “the vine of God’s planting.” All He was and did, He owed to the Father; in all He only sought the Father’s will and glory. He had become man to show us what a creature ought to be to its Creator. He took our place, and the spirit of His life before the Father was ever what He seeks to make ours: “Of him, and through him, and to him are all things.” He became the true Vine, that we might be true branches. Both in regard to Christ and ourselves the words teach us the two lessons of absolute dependence and perfect confidence.
My Father is the Husbandman.—Christ ever lived in the spirit of what He once said: “The Son can do nothing of himself.” As dependent as a vine is on a husbandman for the place where it is to grow, for its fencing in and watering and pruning. Christ felt Himself entirely dependent on the Father every day for the wisdom and the strength to do the Father’s will. As He said in the previous chapter (14:10): “The words that I say unto you, I speak not from Myself; but the Father abiding in Me doeth his works.” This absolute dependence had as its blessed counterpart the most blessed confidence that He had nothing to fear: the Father could not disappoint Him. With such a Husbandman as His Father, He could enter death and the grave. He could trust God to raise Him up. All that Christ is and has, He has, not in Himself, but from the Father.” Andrew Murray - The True Vine, Day 2
Murray goes on the discuss the second lesson of absolute dependence, which is that we are to live as Christ lived, as He drew His life from the Father we are to draw our lives from Him, as He did “nothing of Himself” so we are to do nothing of ourselves. We are not to go to God for the things that we cannot do on our own - we are to go to God for everything, we are to live in Christ in everything, As the branch is to the vine, so are we to Christ. The branch cannot survive if separated from the vine, we cannot survive if we are separated from Jesus Christ, the True Vine.
We are not to lean on our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5), not just when we encounter things that are beyond our understanding, but in all phases and aspects of life we are to trust in God and seek His wisdom and knowledge. When someone says, “God expects us to do what we can do and only go to Him when we need Him,” that person lacks a basic understanding of the life of the Christian, for the Life of a Christian is Jesus Christ - He has no desire that we should live apart from Him or do anything apart from Him. We are not to say to God, “I’ve got this but I need your help with that,” we are to abide in Him every moment and seek to see as He sees, act as He acts, think as He thinks (who can understand this? See 1 Corinthians Chapter 2), live as He lives.
When we think that we can act by ourselves and understand by ourselves we fail to see the devastating effects of sin in our lives, the damage that was done to us all when Adam and Eve fell from their relationship with God. We all live with impaired understanding, and with impaired capacity to understand and clearly see what is around us. Even though the mind of Christ is being nurtured and matured (we hope!) in us as individuals and as a people, this is a work in progress, and as Paul writes, “Now we see through a glass darkly…” Our vision, our understanding, our knowledge, is impaired - we dare not go it alone - we need Christ and we need each other.
We can trust our kind heavenly Father to care for us in Jesus Christ. We can trust the Trinity to teach us to live by the life of the Vine. We can rest in the care and protection and nurture of our Father. Our union with Jesus Christ is a reality, are we learning to live in that reality?
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