The True Vine, Part 6
Clean
John 15v3
1st November 2014
Jesus said:
John 15v1-3
"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.
He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so
that it will be even more fruitful.
You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.
The fifth question we addressed to ourselves, based on John chapter 15 is "Do I really believe that I am already clean because I've believed the Gospel?"
Jesus taught us many things. He taught us about how God wants us to live, about the need to repent of our wrong actions, words and thoughts, and about our need of God's forgiveness for the times we got it wrong. And He repeatedly told us about the necessity of His death and resurrection:
Matthew 16v21
From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things
at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third
day be raised to life.
Luke 13v33
...I must keep going today and tomorrow and the next day - for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!
Mark 9v31b
He said to them, "The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after
three days he will rise."
Mark 10v32-34
They were on their way up to Jerusalem, with Jesus leading the way, and the disciples were astonished, while
those who followed were afraid. Again he took the Twelve aside and told them what was going to happen to him.
"We are going up to Jerusalem," he said, "and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and teachers
of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles,
who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise."
John 10v11
"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep."
And particularly:
Matthew 20v28 and Mark 10v45
"the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
The disciples didn't understand at first but, on the night of the Last Supper, they came to realise that Jesus was, indeed, going to die, as He and the prophets before Him had predicted. After the Resurrection, with the benefit of hindsight, the church came to fully grasp Jesus's message, and the purpose of His death. He was our ransom, paying the price for our freedom with His own blood:
Romans 3v21-25a
But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets
testify.
This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference,
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.
1 Corinthians 6v11b
you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the
Spirit of our God.
The eleven disciples were clean because they accepted Jesus's call to repentance and believed His message that His death frees us from guilt. We're justified by faith (Romans 3v28, Galatians 2v16, 3v24). And we need to believe it, too, if we're to be saved, made clean through the message of Jesus. We can't become Christians without faith in the effectiveness of Jesus's atoning sacrifice on the cross.
We know doctrinally that we're washed clean - that our sins have been forgiven. But many Christians, in my experience, find it difficult to believe about themselves what they're confident of for every other Christian. We look at our brothers and sisters in Christ, and readily accept that they're completely forgiven, washed clean by the blood of Jesus Christ the Lamb of God. But we don't have the same confidence about ourselves.
We know ourselves. We know what we've done, what we've said to the others, what we really think, what we really want. We know we're sinners. And the knowledge of our own sin makes it difficult for us to believe that we're completely forgiven. But if we weren't sinners, we wouldn't need to be forgiven.
We're in the same situation as everybody else. I once suggested to a group of Christians that each one of them thought they were the biggest sinner in the room. The number of nodding heads showed me that most of them did. It's because we don't see each other's sin as clearly as our own that we feel like we're almost uniquely sinful. Of course, we're no such thing.
Our acute awareness of our own darkness is, in fact, one evidence that we're truly saved. God has made our consciences far more sensitive than they used to be. Every careless, hurtful word we utter, every dirty little deed, that we used to be able to ignore or explain away, now pains us, and we apologise, at least to God, for what we once didn't even notice - or care - that we were doing.
But Fanny Crosby was right. In her song, "To God be the glory", she wrote:
"the vilest offender who truly believes
that moment from Jesus a pardon receives"
Paul was acutely aware of his sinful past as a persecutor of the church, and he wrote:
1 Timothy 1v15-16
Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners
� of whom I am the worst.
But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his
unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life.
The blood of Jesus Christ is powerful enough to wash the worst of sinners clean. Even you. Even Paul. Even me. Sometimes the old songs really are the best. These are the words of Lewis F. Jones:
Would you be free from the burden of sin?
There's power in the blood, power in the blood;
Would you o'er evil a victory win?
There's wonderful power in the blood.
There is power, power, wonder working power
In the blood o the Lamb;
There is power, power, wonder working power
In the precious blood of the Lamb.
Would you be free from your passion and pride?
There's power in the blood, power in the blood;
Come for a cleansing to Calvary's tide;
There's wonderful power in the blood.
There is power, power, wonder working power
In the blood of the Lamb;
There is power, power, wonder working power
In the precious blood of the Lamb.
Would you be whiter, much whiter than snow?
There's power in the blood, power in the blood;
Sin stains are lost in its life giving flow.
There's wonderful power in the blood.
There is power, power, wonder working power
In the blood of the Lamb;
There is power, power, wonder working power
In the precious blood of the Lamb.
Would you do service for Jesus your King?
There's power in the blood, power in the blood;
Would you live daily His praises to sing?
There's wonderful power in the blood.
There is power, power, wonder working power
In the blood of the Lamb;
There is power, power, wonder working power
In the precious blood of the Lamb.