separation from Him. All He had said about His spiritual presence with
them had fallen short: they could not as yet understand it. They were
possessed with the dread of losing Him whose future was their future,
and with the success of whose plans all their hopes were bound up. The
prospect of losing Him was too dreadful; and though He had assured them
He would still be with them, there was an appearance of mystery and
unreality about that presence which prevented them from trusting it.
They knew they could effect nothing if He left them: their work was
done, their hopes blighted.

As Jesus, then, rises, and as they all fondly cluster round Him, and as
He recognises once more how much He is to these men, there occurs to His
mind an allegory which may help the disciples to understand better the
connection they have with Him, and how it is still to be maintained. It
has been supposed that this allegory was suggested to Him by some vine
trailing round the doorway or by some other visible object, but such
outward suggestion is needless. Recognising their fears and difficulties
and dependence on Him as they hung upon Him for the last time, what more
natural than that He should meet their dependence and remove their fears
of real separation by saying, "I am the Vine, ye the branches"? What
more natural, when He wished to set vividly before them the importance
of the work He was bequeathing to them, and to stimulate them faithfully
to carry on what He had begun, than to say, "I am the Vine, ye the
fruit-bearing branches: abide in Me, and I in you"?

Doubtless our Lord's introduction of the word "true" or "real"--"I am
the true Vine"--implies a comparison with other vines, but not
necessarily with any vines then outwardly visible. Much more likely is
it that as He saw the dependence of His disciples upon Him, He saw new
meaning in the old and familiar idea that Israel was the vine planted by
God. He saw that in Himself[17] and His disciples all that had been
suggested by this figure was in reality accomplished. God's intention in
creating man was fulfilled. It was secured by the life of Christ and by
the attachment of men to Him that the purpose of God in creation would
bear fruit. That which amply satisfied God was now in actual existence
in the person and attractiveness of Christ. Seizing upon the figure of
the vine as fully expressing this, Christ fixes it for ever in the mind
of His disciples as the symbol of His connectio