That Ye Bear Much Fruit

Jesus asked the question of His disciples, “When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8). Obviously, Jesus will find faith as far as those saved by faith in His blood (Romans 3:25), but will He find the saved faithful to Him? Will we as the church be faithfully bearing fruit. Sadly, the farther we advance into these last days, the less we will find believers remaining loyal to their Lord and Savior – THIS IS PROPHESIED!

In John 15:1-7 the will of “the husbandman,” God the Father, is that each branch in the vine be healthy and prosperous in fruit bearing! God the Son, Jesus Christ, is “the true vine.” When a person is born again, they sprout out of the Vine and draw their spiritual life from it. The husbandman prunes and purges the branches so they can produce to their maximum potential.

Many thoughts can go into the pruning of fruit trees in our gardens. For example, when pruning a branch, a gardener never cuts the branch completely from the vine, else it is not pruning. Equally, as believers, we will never be cut off the Vine. Rather, we are pruned back leaving enough branch that we can produce once again for the husbandman. This is a blessed hope for us. No matter how much we may have blown it, we are never removed from Jesus Christ – there is always potential to get right and produce for Almighty God.

In these verse, there is a progression seen in our fruit bearing:

1. “beareth fruit” (15:2)
2. “more fruit” (15:2b)
3. “much fruit” (15:5)

A fruit tree does not produce an abundance of fruit for the first few years, if at all. The natural process of a fruit tree may not reach its potential until after years of pruning and maturity. As believers, God does not expect a newborn babe in Christ to be at their full potential the moment they are saved, and actually not for some years to come. In our Christian maturity we work our way from “beareth fruit” through bearing “more fruit” to bearing “much fruit.”

Then, John 15:8 goes on to tell us exactly which of these phases glorifies God – when we reach our full potential and we “bear much fruit.”