The disciples left the upper room, and it would seem that, while on the move, Jesus continued to teach. 

The Vine and Branch (1-11)

As they walked, Jesus used the last of His seven “I AM” statements here to describe Himself. He told His disciples that He was the true Vine and His Father the Vinedresser. Israel had been God's choice to be His vine (Psalm 80:8; Isaiah 5:1-7; Jeremiah 2:2; 6:9; Ezekiel 15; 17:5-10; 19:10-14; Hosea 10:1; 14:8). He longed for fruit, but they never produced lasting fruit. Jesus told His disciples as they were on the move that He would become Israel; He would do for the Father what the Father had hoped to do through Israel (1).

The Father desires fruit. Jesus mentioned that eight times in this teaching. The progression is obvious, which has been pointed out by many a preacher: fruit, more fruit, much fruit (2, 5, 8). Jesus was looking for the fruit of allegiant faith, and that fruit had a name: obedience.  

In Jesus’ metaphor, the branches were in need of pruning. Every branch not bearing the genuine marks of allegiance, or the fruit of obedience, was trimmed or cleaned away from the Vine. The goal of pruning was so more fruit could be produced (2).

Jesus then told them where cleanness or pruning came from: His word. When Jesus said the branches needed pruning, He was saying they needed cleaning. The cleaning thought for the pruning word is lost in our English translations. Everything not allegiant to Christ must be cleaned—pruned from the Vine—if the Vine is to be an ever-increasing fruit-producer. Jesus told the disciples that by His word, He had already made them clean and separate in allegiant faith to God (3). Jesus then told them how to get the most fruit from their lives: “abide,” live in, make home in the Vine. No one can bear fruit apart from remaining in the Vine and being allegiant, at all times, to the Vine who is Jesus (4).

Jesus then made a watershed statement. “I AM the true Vine.” He was God's chosen. He was and is the Israel of God. Jewish people and Gentiles alike all become a part of God's covenant and chosen people, Israel, not by joining a nation or religion but by abiding in allegiant love in Him, in Christ. Those who do “abide” make their home in allegiant love and faith and will bear much obedience-fruit. Those not abiding in allegiant faith are those apart from Jesus, able to do nothing out of obedience to Jesus (5).

Here comes the verse on judgment: those who do not abide in allegiant faith will be thrown away, dried up, gathered together, and thrown on a fire to be burned up. Jesus was likely referring to those who attached to Him much like Judas did, faking an allegiance. They were, in a sense, living an allegiance only to themselves but pretending an allegiance to God, much like the nation of Israel in those days and like those who observed Judaism. They only pretended an allegiance to God, while their true allegiance was to position, culture, tradition, and their own lust.  

As such, they eventually became burned up and burned out. No doubt, tough language to imagine. Some would prefer the life of allegiance to self and the withering death-results than to life in allegiance to Christ (6).

Jesus then defined the source of fruitfulness. Those of allegiant faith were obedient to the Father's words and became more alive to God's love than their own selfish wants. From those words burning in their hearts, they developed godly longings and then prayed aligned with God's heart, receiving what they asked for. This was the very heart of fruitfulness (7). In all of this, the Father was glorified and His presence seen on the earth. His loving and gracious will was accomplished on Earth in time, as the prayers of those abiding in Him were unleashed into the atmosphere (8).

The disciples were to consider even more. As they watched the Father reveal His love and will to Jesus, they were to know Jesus was loving them the same way, and they were to remain in His love. To remain in His love was to remain allegiant to Him, keeping His commands, just like Jesus had kept His Father's commands. These commands of the Father were not capricious nor selfish; they were commands to spread and smother His world in God's eternal love and life (9-10).

Jesus' purpose in telling them the Vine metaphor was to create joy. Even though Israel was failing to receive Him, He was becoming Israel and would bring Israel, along with the Gentiles, to God, to abide and live in God and He in them. This was all to be a great source of joy and comfort to balance His and their impending crisis (11).

Jesus’ Commandment (12-17)

Jesus then made it clear the commandment from which all other obedience flowed. The commandment their allegiance was sworn to uphold was to “love one another.” Love was to be done in a brand new way, as Jesus had said earlier. This love was to be expressed the way Jesus had demonstrated it (12). This love, the new, never-seen-before love, was the power to treat “another” as a “friend” and then to lay down his life for that friend (13).

Jesus was and is God, and yet, as God, He made the disciples His friends. They were to do the same—make friends of those they did not know so well, who were not like them, and then lay down their lives for “one another” as their own special friends. Two acts of love here are: 

• making a friend of someone perceived as inferior

• laying down one's life for that friend

God's love requires both acts (14).

Although the disciples were servants, Jesus' love would not allow Him to treat them like servants. He treated them as friends, giving to them everything His Father had given to Him. 

Whenever I had my friends over to my home as a child, they were treated by my parents as their own children. I was not treated better, given better food, corrected less, or favored with more protection or affection. When friends came over, they were treated like they were part of our family. 

Love makes a friend out of someone we thought inferior and then love says, “I am going to lay my life down for you as my most treasured friend.” No love like this had ever been experienced on the face of the earth before (15).

Jesus then made it clear that He did the choosing. No one was following Him or even knew Him because they made their choice to do so. For them to choose, God had to choose to reveal Himself first. All choices are possible because of a choice that was already made. The fruit of obedience was the bringing to Earth of God's will; their fruit would remain and not go away. 

The loving, gracious relationships and all the wonder flowing from those relationships would endure for all time. The world built on love would be a world no one could destroy, not even an execution or persecution.

Jesus was teaching all these things so they would get the whole point to His life. God's world was built on an allegiant love with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, expressed in allegiant love to one another. Whatever was built and existed in that world would endure forever (16-17).

Hatred of the World (18-25)

Jesus was hated because He destroyed the power structure of human leadership, manipulation, exploitation, and abuse. The leadership of Jesus given for His followers to emulate was not exercised to make a person more powerful and able to amass wealth and control but to express allegiant faith and love. The world hated Jesus’ teaching on how the world worked, as well as those who actually followed His teaching. The world system Jesus was talking about was the system of Judaism, and by extension, the system of the Romans and Greeks. Their system was built on the idea, “If something makes you feel good, you should have a right to it. If something looks good and is good to look at, you should have a right to have it and to look that good. Your personal destiny is your right, and you should chase it as the fountain of life” (1 John 2:16).

Jesus told those listening that disciples, allegiant followers of Jesus, were not of this kind of system because they were geared to operate from the heart of God's love. The world hated those who operated from the heart of God's love because they would not fit into their system. The world would no longer be able to get them to buy what they were selling, do what they were doing, and approve of the worldly lusts and cultural ambitions of the day. When the world would exploit for profit, the followers of Jesus would be problematic as they wouldn’t heartily agree but would instead be saddened and carry a burden for the exploited. Those allegiant to Christ had been chosen out of the world and its system (18-19).

Jesus then reminded them of a principle. The servant was never above the master. If they persecuted the master, the servant would also be mistreated. Those who listened to Jesus, however, would also listen to His messengers (20).

All persecution stems from one source: those who do not know the Father. No matter how much people might protest, “I know God, I know God,” the evidence of how they feel toward God is in how they treat His Son Jesus and those allegiant to Him (21).

Before Jesus came and did what He did, all could have claimed ignorance, not knowing what God was really like. They didn't understand how loving He really was. 

Now that Jesus has come, any who hear of Him and know what He did will not be without guilt in rejecting Him, and with Him, the Father. 

Even if the story of Jesus seems beyond belief, everyone who has ever heard of Him and His story should at least be able to say, “If there really were a man like that, then no doubt that man would have been the Son of God. If anyone ever did act like Jesus and said what Jesus said, no doubt that person is unlike anyone who has ever lived.” Even more, they would say, “If that were a true story, then this is an undeniable truth: no one ever loved the Father like Jesus.” 

An honest appraisal of Jesus makes Him beyond what any writer or person could ever have concocted with paper and pen. Any honest person could come to that assessment with minimal evaluation.

Jesus’ point was that no one could have an excuse for the rejection of His life; it was unlike any life ever lived. 

The sad truth was that they hated Jesus, they hated His Father, and they hated Him without a cause. Jesus' words and works are beyond discounting as some human myth, legend, or grandstanding. Jesus is unlike any other because God is unlike any other (22-24).

The law of God stated that they would hate Jesus without a rational cause, just as they hated David (Psalm 35:19; 69:4; 109:3). Men and women hate God because they hate giving up a life of lust for a life of allegiant love (25).

The Holy Spirit Bears Witness (26-27)

With all of this opposition, Jesus reminded the disciples that He was going to send the “Helper,” the Holy Spirit. He would ever be leading them into truth, ever bearing witness as to what Jesus was doing (26). 

Because the Holy Spirit would be revealing what Jesus was doing, just like the Holy Spirit had revealed to Jesus what the Father was doing, they would be able to bear witness to the Father's love (27). From the beginning, they had been watching Jesus do what the Father was doing. Opposition was not going to derail or deter the Holy Spirit's work. No persecution or execution was going to hinder the love of God covering the entire planet—not just sappy human love, but the kind of love that redefines the very essence of life.