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The Fruit of the Vine

e-book


A vine is planted solely for the sake of its fruit. There are many sorts of

vines, each with its different sort of fruit. When a husbandman plants a vine

or a vineyard, he selects that special sort of which he desires to have the

fruit. The fruit will be the manifestation of his purpose. When God planted the

Heavenly Vine, it was that its fruit might bring life and strength to dying

men. The very life of God, which man had lost by the fall, was to be brought

back to him by Christ from heaven; Christ was to be to men the True Tree of

Life. In Him, the True, the Heavenly Vine, in His Word and work, in His life

and death, the life of God was brought within reach of men; all who should eat

of the fruit should live for ever.

More wonderful still, Christ’s disciples should not only eat and live,

but in their turn again become fruit-bearing branches. The Divine life entering

into them should not only dwell in them, but so assert its quickening power

that it should show itself in the fruit they bear for their fellow-men. As

truly as the Heavenly Vine, all its branches receive the life of God.