The vine is very good for propagating life and for multiplying life. To propagate life means to spread life widely, and to multiply life means to reproduce life. With every kind of vegetable life we see the matters of propagation and multiplication. One grain of wheat is sown into the earth and grows into thirty, sixty, or a hundred other grains. This is both the propagation and the multiplication of life. If we consider deeply the matter of the Lord’s likening Himself to a vine, we shall realize that of all the plants, flowers, grasses, and trees, the vine is the best plant to show the propagation and multiplication of life. A vine is not noted for its blossoms or its materials; it is noted for its manifestation of the riches of life. Once a vine is full of ripened fruit, you can easily discern the riches of life. So the vine produces life. The Lord is not life for people to appreciate as blossoms; neither is He life to be used as some kind of material. Rather, the Lord is life to bring forth life and to produce life.
The propagation and multiplication of life are to express life for the glorification of the Father. 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.
As we have pointed out, the vine tree is good for neither blossoms nor materials. A vine has no flowers for us to appreciate. I have heard of people going to see the beautiful cherry blossoms in Washington, D.C., but I have never heard of them going to see the blossoms of a vine. A vine is not noted for its blossoms. As a child, I was raised near a vineyard. Every year I saw the grapevines there, but I could hardly see any blossoms. The blossoms of a grapevine are very tiny and not at all colorful.
Neither is the vine tree good for materials (Ezek. 15:2-3). No furniture is made of wood from a vine tree. Neither is the wood of a vine tree good for making columns, beams, posts, or mantels. You will never see a building that has been constructed with the wood from a vine tree. The vine tree is good only for bearing fruit. It is not good for blossoms or materials.
It is the same with the church. If you come to the church with the intention of seeing cherry blossoms, you will not see any. Likewise, if you come to the church to select material that is good for building furniture and worldly organizations, you will find only something that is good for bearing fruit. We were reborn to bear fruit.
We all have been ruined. We have been ruined for blossoms and we have been ruined for materials. We are good for nothing on this earth. If you are still good for something, it means that you are still worldly. We are not good for education, business, or politics. We are not even good for religion or for being a pastor. Forty-five years ago I was completely ruined. Now I am a useless person who is good for nothing. As far as human society and religious organizations are concerned, I am a waste. How about you? Praise the Lord that we are all a waste—a waste because of Jesus and a waste for Jesus. We all have been ruined by Him. Are you still able to be a good professor? The only kind of professor you should be is a wasted professor. Can you still be a good businessman or farmer? You must be a wasted businessman or farmer. We have been ruined and are good for nothing except fruit-bearing, for expressing the Father in the Son. In the church you will not see blossoms or materials. You will see only small men who are good for nothing except for bearing fruit.
The husbandman is God the Father. 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. As we have already pointed out, whatever God the Father is, has, and can do has all been embodied in the vine tree. 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 eyes of God (Psa. 80:8; cf. Isa. 5:2; Jer. 2:21; Ezek. 19:10; 15:2). But Israel failed God as the vine, for they did not give God the opportunity to express Himself through them. Although God tried to express Himself through them, they failed Him. Finally, in the New Testament the real Israel came. The Lord Jesus as the true Israel is the true vine which can fully express God. This true vine is the very embodiment of God and the full manifestation of God. What God is and what God has are embodied in this true vine and fully manifested through this true vine.