A vine is planted solely for the sake of its fruit. There are many sorts of vines, each with its different sort of fruit. When a husbandman plants a vine or a vineyard, he selects that special sort of which he desires to have the fruit. The fruit will be the manifestation of his purpose. When God planted the Heavenly Vine, it was that its fruit might bring life and strength to dying men. The very life of God, which man had lost by the fall, was to be brought back to him by Christ from heaven; Christ was to be to men the True Tree of Life. In Him, the True, the Heavenly Vine, in His Word and work, in His life and death, the life of God was brought within reach of men; all who should eat of the fruit should live for ever. More wonderful still, Christ’s disciples should not only eat and live, but in their turn again become fruit-bearing branches. The Divine life entering into them should not only dwell in them, but so assert its quickening power that it should show itself in the fruit they bear for their fellow-men. As truly as the Heavenly Vine, all its branches receive the life of God.
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