"I am the true vine..." - John 15:5

I remember back to when I was 18, this verse and others from John 15 were the first I had memorized.  Jesus is stating that He is the true vine, I am sure Jesus must have recognized that there would come many to challenge His claim back when He was on alive on earth and far off into the future. 

There are many ways to interpret this verse, but one that has stuck with me all these years is this:  Jesus is the true vine which means that he is not a mixed hybrid, like so many vintners and horticulturists have crossbred varieties of grapes throughout the centuries.  Jesus is of pure stock, unadulterated and unchanged from His origins, and can be traced back to the beginning of creation.  

So, Jesus being the true vine speaks of a pure origin.  And as long as we are the branches connected to the “true origins” of the vine, we bear the fruit that was intended for us before the fall of man in the Garden of Eden.  That is where sin had corrupted the outcome of the fruit by changing the meaning of “true origin” as being something achieved by human effort and not by God’s original design.

That has always been Satan's deception, by changing the meaning of what God had created to something less than perfect, less than the original design.
  
We are connected to Jesus, the true vine of pure origin, and we bear the fruit which will remain.

John 15:5

Be Blessed;
Stephen Barnett