Christ as the true vine, with His believers as the branches, is the organism of the Triune God. As the branches of the true vine, we are the multiplication of Christ, the duplication of Christ, the spreading of Christ, and the enlargement of Christ. This multiplication, duplication, spreading, and enlargement—the true vine with its branches—is the organism of the Triune God.
Christ as the true vine is an organism full of life, like the tree of life (Gen. 2:9). The true vine is not an organization without life, like the tower of Babel (Gen. 11:4, 9). The tree of life is an organism, and the tower of Babel is an organization. In contrast to an organization that has no life or organs, the vine tree is an organism that has life with many organs, organic systems, and organic elements growing in it.
Just as our human body, as an organism, functions to contain us, express us, and take action for us, Christ as the organism of the Triune God functions to contain the Triune God and express the Triune God. Furthermore, this organism is the means by which and through which the Triune God can act and move. In particular, Christ as the vine tree is the organism of the Triune God with the divine life for the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity. Christ as the true vine dispenses the very Triune God into all the fruit.
In John 15 God the Father is revealed as the husbandman who is related to a husbandry, a plantation. This is indicated by the Lord’s words in verse 1: “My Father is the husbandman.” A husbandman is the source, the originator, the founder, and the planter of a husbandry. As such, he engages in an enterprise. The universe is the enterprise of the Father. The Father has a divine plan, an eternal purpose, and He wants to fulfill the intention behind His purpose. This is what is meant by the Father’s being the husbandman. He is the husbandman of the vineyard who plans to carry out a certain purpose. He is the source, the founder, and the first one to accomplish certain things according to His mind and purpose.
It is the Father’s pleasure that all that He is and has become the riches of Christ as the vine. All that the Father is, all that the Father has, all the riches of the Father’s divine life, and all the fullness of the Godhead are in the vine, which is the embodiment of them all. The Father as the husbandman is the source, the author, the planner, the planter, the life, the substance, the soil, the water, the air, the sunshine, and everything to the vine. Therefore, Christ the Son as the vine is the center of God’s economy and the embodiment of all the riches of the Father. The Father, by cultivating the Son, works Himself with all of His riches into this vine, and eventually the vine expresses the Father through its branches in a corporate way. This is the Father’s economy in the universe.
In the Old Testament the children of Israel were a vine in the sight of God (Psa. 80:8; cf. Isa. 5:2; Jer. 2:21; Ezek. 19:10; 15:2). But Israel failed God as the vine because they did not give Him the opportunity to express Himself through them. Although God tried to express Himself through them, they failed Him. Eventually, the Lord Jesus came as the true vine that can fully express God. This true vine is the embodiment of God and the full manifestation of God. What God is and what God has are embodied in this true vine and are fully expressed through this true vine.
In the universe the Father is a husbandman, a farmer. Farming is God’s economy! Just as a farmer’s economy is farming, growing things, so God’s economy is growing a vine tree, a vine with many branches. Christ is this vine; Christ is God’s economy. This vine, including the branches, is God’s economy. This means that His economy includes us, for we are branches of this vine. The Father is the husbandman, the farmer who cultivates the soil so that the vine may spread.
In John 15:2-8 we see that the branches in the vine are for the bearing of fruit to express the riches of the Father’s life in the divine dispensing. The believers in Christ are His many branches grafted into Him, the true vine in the universe, to bear much fruit for His enlargement in His spreading, that they might express the Triune God as His organism. The vine and the branches are an organism to glorify the Father. With the vine we have the glorification of the Father through the expression of the riches of the divine life in fruit-bearing. In fruit-bearing the Father’s life is expressed; hence, in fruit-bearing He is glorified. This is the reason the Lord Jesus said, “In this is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit” (v. 8).
In John 15:8 the word glorify means to have the intent, content, the inner life, and the inner riches released from within and expressed. The vine and the branches are an organism to glorify the Father, to have the intent, the content, the inner life, and the inner riches released and expressed from within. As an organism to glorify the Father, the vine and the branches express the riches of the divine life. When the vine tree bears clusters of grapes, the riches of the divine life are expressed. This expression is the glorification of the Father because the Father is the divine life.
The Father is the source and the substance of the vine tree. Apart from the fruit, the essence, substance, and life of the vine tree are concealed, hidden, and confined. However, the riches of the inner life of the vine are expressed in the clusters of fruit. To express the inner life in this way is to release the divine substance from within the vine. When the life of the vine is expressed through the branches in its propagation and multiplication, the Father is glorified, because what the Father is in the riches of His life is expressed in the propagation and multiplication of the vine. This is the glorification of the Father.
Our fruit-bearing is the glorification, the expression, of the Triune God from within. Today the Triune God is within us as our life and nature, and the expression of the life and nature of the Triune God from within us is glory. Therefore, when the divine life with its nature is expressed through us in fruit-bearing, the Father is glorified. Day by day we need to live a life that bears fruit, and in this way we glorify the Father. The more we express the divine life in fruit-bearing, the more the Father is glorified.
Fruit-bearing is also the overflow of the riches of the inner life. Bearing fruit is a matter of the overflow of our inner life. We need continuously to enjoy Christ as everything to us. Then we shall have an abundance of inner life. Out of this abundance of inner life there will be a flow that will reach others, penetrating into their lives. This flow will bear much fruit. This kind of fruit-bearing is the manifestation of the inner life. The inner life of the vine is the riches of all that the Father is and has. This is to be manifested by the fruit-bearing of the vine. Hence, the vine’s fruit-bearing is to express the Father in the Son.