I Am The Vine Ye Are The Branches.
These are the words of Christ to us since His first disciples. This is a new title different from than the prophets. That we associate with the New Testament that replaced the Old Covenant. That a covenant is a contract from God to His stewards, servant’s and slaves. But a Will and Testament is the edict given for the dispersion of a man’s goods upon his physical death, so that the heirs can receive their inheritance as a result of that death. So for us, the cross is history, to mean His Story. And our access to our inheritance is. Which is? Eternal life. And when does “Eternal Life start for us? As soon as we enter into contract by faith. That “One must first believe that He is, and that He rewards those who seek Him.” Many refer to this as being born again and borne by the spirit.
Now scripture defines faith saying “Faith is the substance of things we have hoped for, the evidence that there are things unseen. For by (believing) this the elders obtained favor with God.” And furthermore, we are told that “flesh and bone does not inherit the Kingdom. But that the re-spirited mind of faith does. And because Christs death already happened, the inheritance is distributed to each one in their order of existence. We call this, being born again.” To mean that you don’t have to physically die yourself, or for Him to die again or come again, or for your physical death to happen to use the new you imaged like Him. You just have to “recon yourself to be dead with Christ, to be raised and walk in newness of life” as a new perspective”. So that you can use your inheritance and grow in it by degree as you are able. That “to the degree ye have attained so walk ye in it.”
Just as Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Death and instantly died to the Spirit. So too we can eat of The Tree of life, also known as the Cross, and our cross-over point into Eternity through the spirit into eternity, all as simply and precise as Adam and Eve died with one bite from that tree that gendered death. All humanity lies between these two choices, of which since they are spiritual, for this is a spiritual lesson, this is as clear as we can get to help you understand that you must be born again, to mean a change in Spirit for this is an invisible work as with any faith. And you can do that right now between you and God by eating from the tree of life, the cross of Christ, who is also “The Word of God”. That by ingesting Word, as He said “take and eat all of Me”. So yo can take in the very building blocks being words, that came out of the mouth of God when He said “let there be light!” and other assorted tangible things as well, as He spoke into existence every other value in the bi-polar creation. To mean that this is a spiritual fruit we can ingest to become what God has given us and why we are instructed to “work out our own salvation”. In this one way we are re-made in the spirit of our minds to be like God. We shall all have to answer for how we have used the gift, which is? Our ability to choose the Creator, Redeemer God for Eternal life to become more like Him by clothing our minds with His Word, or remain imprisoned to the spirit that genders death which is governed by fears. That is it! The Tree of Eternal Life, or The Tree of Death and dying that we learn of in word form in the Garden of Eden.
So then for Christ to say “I am the vine? That is rather precarious given that a vine in modern thinking is a shoot of the branch! So more correctly put for our understanding would be, “I am the Branch you are the vine” and that we would bear fruit of that tree we call “fruit of the Spirit”, for a new way of thinking. Even as He said “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, then you shall ask what you want and it shall be done for you.” Just make sure it is not the old you trying to prop up the old you. For that is like walking backwards to where you had come out of. “Old things pass away, behold all things become new and all things are in Christ”. Amen!
It is for this reason that Isaiah described Christ as “The Man called The Branch”. That Christ is not only the branch, but He is the stump and the roots referring to His Eternal-ness. And just as in the Garden of Eden there was a “Tree of Life” and another tree. Those were displayed in parable form for us to understand invisible things. That Christ “only spoke in parables and without a parable spake He not to the people” pertaining to their carnal nature. And in the garden of Eden was a snapshot of an Eternal reality but with physical adaptations for instruction purposes only. That is why in the wilderness the Israelites (meaning the 12 tribes) were called children some 1200 times because their physical things were meant only to simulate the invisible as toys for tots and why they were called children because they just could not put their toys away to enjoy the new reality of life in the Spirit those lessons were meant to teach them about. Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem. How I would’ve gathered you as a Mother Hen gathers Her chicks but ye are noth willing? Yes, it was because they like the old way better. And what came next? They were expired. To expire means to breath out and become dead. All the law and the prophets were till Christ. Since then the gospel is preached and all are entering.” Not all as in everyone, but from all tribes and nations to become equal. “26 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is no longer the distinctions of Jews Greeks. There is neither slave nor free. There is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you in Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
(Keep in mind here that it was Abram, not Abr-ah-am who gendered the twelve tribes that ended with the Jews to conclude what is correctly called the OLD covenant.)…
Now as far as the lessons from the wilderness wandering that were physical, like all visuals given, they were given as teaching tools called parables for you to give invisible spiritual values in place of the carnal replicates and pictures to develop your understanding of the realm of the Spirit. That those who are the Children of God, understand these as more real than the ground you stand on “for we walk by faith and not by sight.” And “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence that there are things that are unseen. By believing these,the Elders gained favor with God”. And those who don’t? Well they need to be “born again” and borne from above” and “borne of the Holy Spirit” to do so. Why? Because all of scripture must be spiritually discerned, assimilated and appropriated. “As a man thinks he is in his heart, so that he is”?
This is how we can make the correlation between the “Tree of Life” and a “Man called The Branch”, who in truth is the stump that we ALL get grafted into who is Christ. As He said “I am the Branch and you are the vines” that bare fruit. And “for without Me you can do nothing!
So then Christ is “The Tree of Life.” and we are His members and branches, and vines that produce this kind of “fruit of the Spirit, yes another invisible aspect of faith. So when He said at the first “communion” meaning to have in common. And He is common for us. And the first communion He said “Here, take and eat! Eat all of Me! That there was nothing to be held over for another saving another day or another coming as many suppose for “today is the day of salvation” from the wreckage of the fall in Eden, so that you can “work our your own salvation” to consume Christ who said “those who do not eat of My flesh and drink of My blood, will have no part in Me.” Was said for you to be serious about your purpose as sojourners and pilgrims on earth because “All the earth and all its works shall be burned for the Eternal to remain”, for you to be found having made this transition, by faith. That Faith is the substance that our hope is in being the evidence in the things that are (carnally) unseen.
And as for this promise from The Book of The Revelation?
And the Paradise of God is His Holy Spirit. That is how we are all instructed to “Come and eat”
And for those still waiting for another coming Jesus to have this fulfilled? We just quoted “Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand.” that one would be an addition and a spiritual crime. Go back and read, second coming is NOT a phrase found once in Scripture! Check-Mate!”
To mean that the Book Of “The Revelation Of Jesus Christ” is just as fulfilled and expired as the whole Old Covenant. And even as the book of The Acts of the Apostles, opened up with “3 To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and, speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God:
So then another Jesus wouldn’t be a second Jesus because “he shewed himself alive after his passion by many (meaning many more than one infallible proofs,” could and likely did mean He was seen by thousands. even as we do here. For even now! The Kingdom of God in Christ is at hand” in the same way today as it was back then, but maybe for only a little while longer. But like with Noahs Ark, when the doors closed the destruction started. To mean if you are waiting for something else? When judgment starts it will be to late. Today is the day to enter the Covenant of God who is the Christ. Amen!