Abiding in Christ means that as a believer you continue to trust in him and stay ever close to him. It is an intimate dependence upon Christ as one’s savior and Lord. This abiding is marked by feasting faith, dependent Word saturated prayer, obedient love and abounding joy. Today we are going to look at the mark of feasting faith.
The intimacy of abiding in Christ and Christ abiding in you as one who trusts in him is pictured in this image of a grapevine and the branch. The branch is connected to the vine. If this connection is a vital, real and healthy one then the branch will suck sap from the vine and that life flowing sap will give power to the branch to bear many clusters of grapes.
Yet this is not a wild vine with its many branches. Wild unattended vines are not as productive or even productive at all in comparison with tended vines. When you see a grape vine filled with branches that are bearing clusters of grapes you can be sure that they are well attended. The vine dresser has been at work. He cuts away every non-producing branch. Those branches take up space and are not drawing sap in the right way from the vine to produce fruit. Whereas all those branches that bear fruit the vine dressers prunes. He cuts them too but not completely off from the vine. He cuts them so that more of that life-flowing sap from the vine will produce more fruit.
Jesus teaches that he is the true vine. He is the true source of life. He also teaches that God the Father tends to the vine and branches. The Father is the vine dresser. He is sovereignly working overseeing the relations or links between the vine and its many branches. There are only two kinds of links between the branches and the vines. There may be a formal link but not a vital one. The branch is connected in some way to the vine: formal profession of faith etc. Yet if there is no fruit there is no real union and the Father will cut that branch off. The other link is a real, vital link. There is true saving faith – a real possession of Christ. This branch will be drawing life from the vine and there will be fruit. The lesson here is that fruit is evidence that the link between the branch and the vine is vital and real. Where there is no fruit there is no real link, no saving faith.
Faith as one key aspect of what it means to abide in Christ is implied throughout this text. The bond or link between the vine and the branch is the believer’s union with the Lord Jesus Christ and this union is a faith/grace union. Yet it is stated clearly in John 6:56. “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.” If you are to abide in Christ and Christ to abide in you then you must have a feasting faith in Christ. The backdrop here is Jesus’ teaching that he is the bread of heaven. He is speaking figuratively of his saving work: his obedient life and death secure life for sinners. To feed on his flesh and to drink his blood is by faith to appropriate Him and the benefits of his saving work into your life. Now you do this when you initially repent of your sins and believe the promise of the Gospel, which is all who believe on Christ, will be saved. When you do then you start to take in eternal life and such life changes you. Yet this initial faith-response to Christ that brings his life into your soul will become a feasting faith that keeps you ever near him, ever depending upon him, ever reveling in him, ever intimate with him – hence abiding in him. Feasting faith is abiding faith. One of the evidences that your faith in Christ is real and saving is that it is more than a bare profession but rather it is a feasting faith that keeps intimate communion with the Lord Jesus Christ and there will be fruit in your life.
True faith in Christ continues to feed on his flesh and continues to drink his blood. True saving faith in Christ feasts on Christ all the time. This means that those who have come to saving faith in Jesus Christ continue to look in faith to Christ and in so doing continue feeding and drinking from him. Just like you don’t live on the first meal you ate after you were born neither do you rely on your initial faith-response to the Gospel. Faith doesn’t rely on its initial response and receptivity to Christ, faith continues to feast on Christ. You go to him daily, regularly – you draw into your heart the nourishment of the Gospel. It is not only good news to the ears it is good food for the soul. There will be no abiding in Christ nor Christ abiding in you unless you are continually feasting on him with relish and finding that he indeed satisfies your hunger and slakes your thirst. It is this that keeps us in vital and virtual dependence and relationship with Christ.
Faith feeds on Christ and drinks from Christ. All these Gospel realities become the food and drink of the soul that settles your heart, gives you strength, stabilizes your desires and tastes really, really, really good to your soul. There is growing contentment and peace. Here is food that not only tastes infinitely good but is also infinitely good for you. As you feast on Christ from him the nourishing sap of the vine courses into your life (the branch) and there is a living vital connection and you grow and produce fruit. The branch is feeding from the vine. Feasting faith in Christ is how we feed our souls from the true life that he gives. So let us make sure that we are indeed abiding in Christ by exercising a feasting faith!
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