Shasta
Well-known member
Nothing about the Vine that relates to the body of Christ. This is why the confusion. That verse actually says you can do NOTHING. Nothing means NOTHING...
The verse says we cannot bear fruit EXCEPT we abide in Him. IF we do then we do bear fruit. That negates what you said about it meaning that you cannot do anything.
This speaks of God sharing His life with us THROUGH the Son. How do you think Paul could say "Christ was his life?" He had heard, memorized and understood the words of Jesus and unlike you he was not hung up on the terminology like vine and branches.
Christ could not enter into union with us until after the Resurrection. What He said in John 15 was an invitation to believe in something He would shortly accomplish. After the Resurrection Jesus became, as Paul said, "a life-giving spirit" This is essentially the function of a Vine - to give life to the branches.
When Jesus completed the redemptive work and encountered the disciples in His resurrected form he immediately delivered the promise of the new covenant by breathing on them and giving them the Holy Spirit (of life). We have no life at all without the Holy Spirit. Through Him we are able to be connected to Christ who is now in heavenly places.
When the Spirit filled the Gentiles it was a sign that they too were included in the covenant, for the prophecy of the New Covenant was that God would give them His Spirit as well as that He would write His law on their hearts.
It grieves me that all of you have rejected the words of Jesus by relegating them to another people and another time. Your previous statement that Luke was a nice history book falls appallingly short of the abundance of life-giving truth that is contained in the Gospels. This is BTW what all the ECF believed from the First Century on. They also did not accept either MAD nor OSAS.
Jesus said "His words would never pass away" and for MAD they do not. They are right there recorded in old history books, preserved like a museum relic in a glass case, anachronistic precepts belonging to an obsolete message. I bet you do not even believe the new birth is for modern times either, do you?