When God brought Israel out of Egypt and planted them in the land of Palestine it was with the desire that they should bring forth fruit for His pleasure. Jehovah had done everything that was possible to make Israel fruitful, even as He said, “What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?” Israel’s case proved conclusively that the natural man, even under the most favourable circumstances, cannot produce anything that gives pleasure to God.
Man in innocency had grievously failed, just as man under law has done, and even when the Son of God came to men, bringing with Him the richest grace of God, he showed himself to be just the same, utterly incapable of benefiting from the perfection of God’s attention. In spite of what man has proved himself to be, whether in innocency, under law, or in the presence of the Son of God on earth, God has not given up the thought of having fruit for His pleasure from men, but it is not from man under law, or after the first order derived from Adam. God must Himself bring in an entirely new order of man, those who take character from Christ, those who are born of God, and under His care they will bring forth the fruit that God desires.
When on earth, after exposing the evil and hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees, the Lord Jesus said, “Every plant, which my heavenly Father has not planted, shall be rooted up” (Matt. 15:13). The scribes and Pharisees were the sons of those of whom Jehovah spoke in Isaiah 5, for there was no fruit from them for God in spite of all their religious pretension. Such would be rooted up, but God had plants that He had planted that would serve His purpose. Human instruments might be used in God’s vineyard, but the word was God’s even as the Apostle Paul shows in 1 Corinthians 3:6, where he writes “I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.”
God produces the plants, and makes everything available for their growth, and fruit bearing, yea, for all that is necessary in the way of care and feeding for the production of what will give Him pleasure. Although the work is divine, there is also the need for exercise, both in the servants of God and in those for whom God’s servants care. The subject of fruit bearing is brought before us in different Scriptures, and it is well for us to learn what has been written for our admonition and prosperity in divine things.
The Vine and the Branches
In John 15, the Lord Jesus said, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman” (verse 1). If there was no fruit for God from Israel, and if Israel had “turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine” to the Lord (Jer. 2:21), there was fruit that brought infinite pleasure to God in His Son as the true vine in this world. The fruit for God was not only through the Lord, but in His disciples, for He said, “I am the vine, ye are the branches” (John 15:5). Under the care of the Father, and as having the life of the Son of God, the disciples of the Lord gave pleasure to Him and to His Father.
Although the simile of the vine and the branches referred to the Lord of earth, and to His disciples, there is still the application of the truth to Christ’s disciples now that He has gone to heaven. It is still true that like the disciples on earth the saints today need the care of the Father, His discipline also, so that we may bring forth “more fruit.” We also need the exhortation, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me” (verse 4). As abiding in the Son of God we draw, through dependence, upon the resources of grace and nourishment that belong to Him.
Christ’s word made His disciples clean (verse 3), and we too are clean as having received His word into our souls, and this is a necessary part of the Father’s care that we should be kept clean, purged of everything that would hinder the production of fruit for Himself. Even the youngest saint of God can produce for Him. There will be the evidence of life in the bud, the fragrance of life in the blossom, and the mature expression of the life of Christ in the fruit that is borne for the delight of the heart of God.
The Father desires fruit, and purges the branches to have more fruit, but the Lord added, “Herein is my Father glorified, that disciples of the Son of God follow His steps, and their concern is to be for His Father’s glory, and to manifest His features in all the details of their lives. How delightful it must be for the Father to see the same precious features of the life of His Son coming out in His own, the same lovely traits that were seen in perfection in Jesus as He passed through this world.
If there is to be much fruit then there must be growth in the things of God. A young plant, or a small branch, can bring forth fruit, but the purging of the Father, and abiding in the Son, gives the conditions that encourage growth, yea the growth that is brought about by the spiritual nourishment drawn from the Son in whom we abide. With growth there will be more fruit, and as we deepen in the knowledge of God, through constantly abiding in the Son of God, there will be the spiritual increase that enables us to bring forth much fruit.
The chastening of the Father, so necessary for us while here, is brought before us in Hebrews 12, and in verse 11 we read, “Now no chastening for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.” Here the fruit borne is the righteousness that is a feature of the divine life, our doing that which is right, and therefore pleasing, in the sight of God. We also learn here that this peaceable fruit results from our exercise in relation to the chastening of the Father. The Father does not wish us either to faint under His chastening, or to despise it, but to get the greatest gain from it for ourselves, and for Him.
The Truth of the Gospel
Although the Apostle Paul was the minister of the Gospel for the Gentiles, he was not the instrument used of God for the blessing of the saints at Colosse (Col. 2:1). The truth of the Gospel had come to them, and the assembly had been formed, and Epaphras had evidently been one of, if not the, chief instruments used of the Lord for their blessing (Col. 1:4–7). Paul had heard of their “faith in Christ Jesus,” and of their love for all the saints, and this for the hope laid up for them in heaven. These three great features, faith, hope and love, that mark the true Christian instructed in the truth of God, were in evidence in this assembly because of the gospel that had secured them for the Lord Jesus.
As Paul reflects on the Gospel that had given the Colossian saints this blessed hope, he writes of it as not only having reached Colosse, but “as in all the world” (1:6). Here is the scope of the Gospel; it is for all men everywhere, even as Paul also says in verse 23, “which was preached to every creature which is under heaven.” Nothing less than the blessing of every man was before Paul, as he writes concerning Christ, the hope of glory, “Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus” (verse 28).
How blessed that the Apostle could write of this glorious Gospel, preached in all the world, that it “brings forth fruit, as it does also in you, since the day ye heard of it, and knew the grace of God in truth.” The fruit of the Gospel is seen in those who have accepted the glad tidings brought by the preaching of the word of God. This fruit for God was not in Colosse only, but wherever the Gospel had been preached. The fruit consists in the persons who have accepted the word, but also in the faith, hope and love that marks those who believe, manifesting that their faith is a living faith that brings out in the lives of the believers that which is pleasing to God.
The word “growing” or “increasing” is found in many translations after the word fruit in verse 6, and this can be readily understood, for the word of God not only produces fruit in those who believer, but they, as well as gifted servants of the Lord, are used by the Lord for the spread of the testimony of the Gospel. From the coming of the Holy Spirit how great has been the spread of the Gospel; it has indeed been growing, and shall grow until the church is taken to heaven at the coming of the Lord.
It may be that lands where once the Gospel testimony spread have prohibited the preaching, but this does not hinder God carrying out His work. God in His sovereignty has sent out His testimony to His Son, and He will continue this great work in spite of all that man may do. We see the fruit of the work that has come from the growth of the gospel testimony, and fruit will continue to be borne in those who, day by day, are being brought into the truth of the Gospel through God’s wondrous grace.
Paul’s Prayer for the Saints
In his prayer for the saints at Colosse, Paul desired that they “might be filled with the knowledge of” God’s will “in all wisdom and spiritual understanding” (Col. 1:9). Having the knowledge of God’s will before them, and having the spiritual state brought by communion with God, the saints would be able to “walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing” (verse 10). What a great privilege God has given to the Christian in enabling him to walk through this world, where once the Son of God walked, in a way that is worthy of Him. This is the will of God for us, but there must be the proper state of soul for it. So many Christians walk as if they belonged to this world, but a walk worthy of the Lord is to imitate Him who was separate from the world, and who said, “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
A walk worthy of the Lord will greatly please Him, and it will tend towards the fulfilling of the next desire of the Apostle, “being fruitful in every good work.” Men will benefit from the good work of the Christian. The saints of God that are known to us will be encouraged, and the hand will be held out in blessing to the poor sinner also; but wherever there is fruit-bearing in the saint of God there will be pleasure for the Father. This same thing is seen from another angle in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good words, which God before ordained that we should walk in them.” It is God’s object in forming His own in new creation, and it is secured through our exercises before Him, as being filled with the knowledge of His will.
The Apostle then adds in his prayer, “and increasing (or growing) in the knowledge of God.” The full knowledge of God has come to us by the Holy Spirit. He has given us the knowledge of God the Father as revealed in the Son in this world, and He has brought to us the purpose of God in Christ seated at God’s right hand in heaven. We have seen God revealed in His nature of love, and in His counsels of grace, and as we deepen in what has been revealed to us there will be growth, spiritual growth that will enable us to apprehend more of the thoughts of God, and to enter into His great love.
It is the knowledge of God by which we grow, and it is into a deeper knowledge of God that we enter. Spiritual increase can only be produced by occupation with spiritual things. All divine knowledge is found in the Son of God, and as we are occupied with Him the Holy Spirit works in us what has engaged us of Christ, and “grow up into Him in all things, which is the Head, even Christ” (Eph. 4:15).
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