LANGUAGE OF JOHN 15 IN EARLY BIBLES. Parable of the Vineyard Please note the attachment of vineyard grafting as practiced today where grapes are grown all over the world. The lesson to learn is that not everybody is capable of grafting a branch onto the vine-tree. Indeed it is such an expert’s job that there is a trade of grafter who is paid by the graft, not the hour. The operation is delicate and the right preparation and aftercare is of the utmost importance if the graft is to be a success. So the reader needs to understand that only the Heavenly Father can make a successful graft into Christ the Vine. That is by the operation of the Spirit through the engrafted Word. Many an evangelist will vainly attempt the current method of bibliomancy without reference to either the Father or the Spirit’s timing, let alone whether the sinner is repentant and ready to abase himself in total submission. The current evangelical persuasion is not only amiss, but abhorrent to any true Protestant dissenter. John 10 describes others who will try their own methods, but to no avail for they will fail every time. With this in mind we must remember that we were taken from the wild vine which normally would not be suitable for grafting onto the cultivated grapevine. Yet God the Father took us, prepared us, cut the tree at Calvary with spear, whip, nail and thorn. Then by miraculous grace He grafted us into the cut where the sap bled (the fount of precious blood that flowed from the tree). (see video clips attached ) RoyKladaric•52videos youtube/watch?v=qRitu20KipM The King James Bible in the Parable of the Vineyard. The style of the early 1611 AD English language here is using analogy in a different way from today. It intermingles and mixes the metaphors with the actual meaning, so that VINE and the pronouns for Christ are used alternately without warning. Today the story would be told separately from the analogy. To mix the analogy and the story is confusing even to a native English speaker. Thus the Middle English literary style of the early Bible is now classed as ancient and an anachronism. The Verbs and Pronouns. 1. He takes was written as he taketh in Middle English text. 2. Thee, thou, thine, and ye are exchanged for some pronouns 3. st , th and eth are added to some verbs, 4. Some verbs have the negative placed after them instead of before them. Example: Beareth not means ‘not bearing’. In the 16th and 17th century English was in transition from Middle English to Modern English. The Bible was written in the classical style of literature. The scholarly authors were called the literati. The seventy Hebrew scholars translated the Hebrew Old Testament into the Greek Septuagint (LXX) for Alexander the Great of the Ptolemy Greek Empire two centuries before Christ. 1800 years later the British King James 1st tried to do the same thing and appointed 70 scholars from the Church of England to produce a better Middle English version (1611 AD) using 1. The first English New Testament, William Tyndale’s 2. The Greek version of the Latin Vulgate Bible by Stephanus 3. Stephanus’ Latin and Greek versions of the Vulgate Latin Bible, 4. The Hebrew Old Testament (scribed as late as 40 AD from pre-Masoretic Hebrew scrolls); 5. Greek Septuagint Old Testament (200 BC) that Jesus quoted 6. Several other English Bibles published by Church of England British monarchs since Tyndale such as The Great Bible and The Bishops Bible et al. 7. The Swiss Geneva Bible which preceded the King James (KJV or Authorised). The Geneva Bible published about 60 years earlier was very popular in the UK and colonial America during the 17th century even though publication stopped in 1646. Printed in the same century as the Reformation it had John Calvin’s notes printed with the text. This was the Bible known by Shakespeare and the Pilgrim Fathers sailing to the New World in the SS Mayflower. John 15.1. I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. NOTE. The Lord distinguishes here between he wild vine (gourd) and the native vine. As in the Parable of the Good Shepherd in John 10, he indicated there would be impostors who would impersonate both the Vine and the branches. These are deceivers gone out into the world. This was the crux of the parable affixed to the Parable of the Sower. The impostor planted the wrong seed which produced a fruitless plant almost identical in appearance to the good wheat planted earlier. The pastor cannot be the gardening husbandman, for that is the peculiar role of the Father, although most clergymen think it is their role. Jesus described the pastor’s role as a porter who opens the entrance to the fold, as only a porter in the Parable of the Good Shepherd. Yet the power of the pulpit makes many oblivious to what Jesus taught. (See Ezekiel 13 and 34) All power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Pruning is essential each year for the vineyard. It is not an option, but an imperative. When the vinedresser-gardener-husbandman prunes the vine he also severs unhealthy non bearing branches. Interestingly, it takes several years for a new vine to first bear fruit and the professional vine grower must exercise patience in waiting for the first fruits of the harvest in the appearance of grapes. “You are clean through the Word, I have spoken unto you.” The eleven in their unregenerate state failed to remember or understand what Jesus was talking about. John makes this very clear on several occasions. They would however, after their conversion, just before Christ’s ascension, remember those words which would be their delight and even their sustenance in the cleansing operation of the Spirit. Yea, it is the Spirit’s role to bring all things to their remembrance, not the preacher as so many seem to believe today. The child of God, who is a branch of the Vine always has his Father ready to prune it “That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,” Ephesians 5:26 BRANCHES NOT GRAFTED BY GOD REJECTED Every branch in me that beareth not (does not produce) fruit he taketh (takes) away: and every branch that beareth (produces) fruit, he purgeth it, (prunes it off) that it may bring forth more fruit (keeps producing grapes). Every vine branch which shows no grapes, after several years of waiting is noticeable. With other new grafts already showing grapes, the barren branches will be cut away as rejected by the tree. Before harvest this will be done if they have not already fallen to the ground. They will then be collected and burned in a fire. ANALOGY. Grapes contain spirit if they are fermented. Branches with grapes have spirit within them. All true Christians have fruits of the Spirit, but not all fruits at one time. Barren branches have no spirit. Unconverted disciples have not the Spirit within them even though they seem to be part of the tree. NOTE ON THE VINEYARD. The vineyard lesson is analogous to both God’s children joined to Christ, and the unborn disciples who are mere attempted grafts of strangers instead of the Father. They cannot bring forth fruits of repentance and faith, though they may be indoctrinated with the knowledge of holy things then filled with false security and false hopes. But the harvest will come sooner or later and most certainly after death. Every believer who shows no Spirit after several years of waiting by the Father is noticeable. This is obvious when other new believers are already showing signs of the Spirit. At harvest time at the end of the world these will be cut away and collected by the angels from North, South, East and West for the fire of the last judgment and Gehenna. While the unborn disciple serves the Lord there are for them like the eleven disciples several benefits described by Jesus:- 1. Temporary, conditional, temporal glory, 2. Temporary, conditional, temporal power of the Name in ministry, 3. Temporary, conditional, temporal endorsement of his name as servant of Christ. By the pure fact of birth all are universally entered in the Book of Life. Upon death the name is blotted out of the book. But this is not the Lamb’s Book of Life, in which only adopted sons are written. 4. Temporary, conditional, temporal, intermittent joy. This is not the joy unspeakable and full of glory that the sons and daughters of God enjoy after the new birth. John 15.11 and Matthew 13.20 speak of this joy possessed after becoming a disciple of Christ, while still unborn. If the conditions are met this temporary joy will remain. Once the conditions are breached and broken the joy and all the other benefits of first grace will leave, and in most cases never return because they have spurned the taste of holy things of the Spirit’s enlightening and overtures to repentance. (2 Peter 2; Hebrews 6; Hebrews 10; John 15) Though the sinner, or goat is awakened at Christ’s call to follow and God had been drawing and coaxing him towards the point of repentance and faith (like the early twelve) he had not reached that point and everything changes when one turns aside, like Judas, and then loses all the blessings of first grace. As a servant, and not a son, he is not yet under the atoning blood Jesus shed. Thus he may get seven times worse than prior to enlightenment. (See Hebrews 6. 4; Ch 10; 2 Peter 2.) 21-22.). Jesus spoke of both states in the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13.20). The unborn disciple first receives the seed of the Word on stony ground springing up quickly with joy and then later he becomes offended, and because he has no root in himself (unregenerate) he withers away. Paul describes two sorts of repentance (2 Corinthians 7.9-10) and it is not always easy to identify which is which one is human and the other is of saving-grace. (Acts 5.31; 11.18) The New Testament speaks of repentance being given by God (2 Timothy 2.25; Romans 2.4.) But there is a penitential sorrow which only gets as far as self centred remorse. The conditions for unborn disciples of Christ who have followed him at his call are manifestly apparent to the close reader of the Synoptic Gospels, but particularly the Gospel of John in the eleven chapters 11 - 21. Such conditions are not configured by the writer of this article, but they are drawn from a sensible understanding of the unconverted twelve men in Jesus’ three and a half years. They are also built upon Jesus comments elsewhere in the Synoptics on miracle workers and healers condemned at the final judgment as those whom Jesus never knew. Some examples of conditional, impermanent, temporal grace are Adam, Eve, Cain, Aaron, Jethro, Nadab, Abihu, Balaam, King Saul, Solomon and Judas Iscariot. Some examples of those with permanent grace were Abel, Seth, Enoch, Noah, Abram, Moses, Joshua, Caleb, David, Elijah and Elisha and John the Baptist. They demonstrated another spirit, which was the Holy Spirit within them. The apostle speaks of them as the spirits of just men made perfect when Jesus descended into Sheol to preach and minister to them the perfect sacrifice, sanctifying them forever. THE CONDITIONS BINDING UPON THE UNCONVERTED DISCIPLE. 1. He must confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh as the Son sent by the Father that the world may know it. 2. He must confess that God loves other servants that use His name. If they are not against me they are for me indicated Jesus. Vilifying other servants, whether sons or unborn friends, will demonstrate that the unborn disciple has another spirit, said Jesus. This precludes sectarianism. 3. He must not presume by his successfully exercising the healing power of the Saviour’s name that he is an accepted member of the Vine. Jesus said there will be many at the judgment whom he never knew, despite their having performed miracles in His name. 4. Judas Iscariot tasted, yet he failed to remain faithful, and betrayed his Master. When he died his name was blotted out from the Book of Life and never entered into the Lamb’s Book of Life. 5. He was distracted by his own critical spirit and the root of bitterness losing the Spirit’s presence with him which was replaced, by an evil spirit as with King Saul in the Old Testament. WILL THE GRAFT BE ACCEPTED? The tendril of the tree that fails to sip the sap of life flowing from the vine stem will not remain attached. It will dry, be bleached, wither and drop off thereafter. The pastor should not be anxious or heartbroken over the believer falling away. He has merely revealed his true state and his inability to stay attached. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth (stays attached) in me, and I in him… (John 15.5). A new branch is very difficult to graft successfully onto the grape tree. As much as anyone tries there is a particular skill belonging only to the specialist grafter for success to be accomplished. For the new believer only the heavenly specialist: the Father, can successfully graft in a new branch. If a man abide not in me (does not stay properly attached to the tree), he is cast forth (it falls away dropping to the ground) as a branch, and is withered (is dried out by the sun); and men gather them (collect dead ones), and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. (John 15.6) Most pastors today face a congregation of wild vine disciples who have heard the call to follow, but have not become sons or daughters of God. As such it is only a matter of time before those tendrils fall away or are severed by God the Father, who is the Gardener. 1. Contrary to popular teaching of the evangelical Discipleship Movement, fallen branches are not backsliding Christians and the worst thing is that some meddling preacher tries to reassure them of irrevocable salvation and eternal security from their original decision. 2. There is no such thing as a withered son or daughter of God becoming a reprobate. Hebrews makes this quite clear after describing those who once tasted of the things of God by enlightenment. (2 Peter 2; Hebrews 6; Hebrews 10; John 15). John in his first epistle proclaims that the true child of God, cannot sin for his seed remaineth in him. (The Greek word for sin means habitual, wilful sin.) John Bunyan declared the same truth in Pilgrim’s Progress. The new member of the Vine, (and failed grafts are not members), may suffer from adverse climate, drought, and many testings, but with the expert Husbandman his Heavenly Father tending and supporting the branch it will survive and so will its fruit make a spirited nectar. The falling away of the ten apostles into shameful hiding, denial and disbelief had a good ending because someone did not hound them. It was the very time to leave them alone in the hands of the Spirit to convict and convert. Then later, full of conviction, weighed down by remorse, Jesus met them at the end of their tether and by saving-grace turned their remorse into repentance.(2 Corinthians 7). NOTE. Luke’s 24th chapter contracts the forty days into one. He records the following on the Sunday that Christ arose, being the first day of the week, Sunday, following the 7th day, or the Sabbath, Saturday. Luke’s contraction of the six weeks after the resurrection into one day needs to be reconciled with John’s account. John, in his Gospel has the conversion of the ten on week one and Thomas on week three of Jesus’ appearances before He ascended to his Father. However, from the evidence gathered in the Synoptic Gospels it seems that the enlightenment and conversion of the eleven may well have occurred much later than the first week and more likely towards the end of the sixth week closer to the ascension as described by Luke. APPEARANCES 1. The appearance on the Emmaus Road to Cleophas and a companion 2. The appearance to some Emmaus disciples that night over supper endowing grace to understand the Scriptures by healing their spiritual blindness through enlightenment 3. The appearance to the eleven in Jerusalem where they were hiding to awaken and enlighten them with understanding of the Scriptures also 4. His accompanying them to Bethany on Mt. Olives, where he ascended to heaven after telling them:- To preach the message of repentance and remission of sins in all nations To preach His suffering and passion on Calvary and the merits of his atonement To preach His rising from the dead on the third day (as it began to dawn towards the fourth) To remember that they were (not priests but) witnesses of those things he showed them just like the two from the Emmaus Road and the brethren at Emmaus village. To wait ten days in prayer for the baptism of the Holy Ghost on the Day of Pentecost. BETHANY WAS A KEY PLACE FOR JESUS. Bethany seems to be the place where Jesus had his social relaxation. He knew Mary, Martha, Lazarus, Simon the Leper, and Mary Magdalene. Both the anointing of his feet by spikenard and the separate anointing of his head occurred in Bethany at Lazarus’ and Simon’s home respectively. From here he rode into Jerusalem (Bethphage nearby) and it was the place from which he ascended. Bethany was on the side of the Mt. of Olives within a mile from Jerusalem. THE RESURRECTION. Jesus had predicted he would be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth even as Jonah was in the heart of the whale (Catechelot whales swallowed two men in the 19th C.) for three days and three nights. The Jewish day lasts from sunrise to sunrise the next day and so on. Incongruously their night also runs from sunset to sunrise. On the week of the Passover there were two Sabbaths. Jesus was crucified on Thursday and the High Day in the Feast of Unleavened Bread was the next day, being a Friday. This Sabbath was followed by the normal Sabbath on Saturday. From Thursday to the end of the Jewish Sabbath until sunrise (Sunday) were three days and three nights. Christ was not killed on a Friday. 1. Every branch in me that beareth not (does not produce) fruit he taketh (takes) away: 2. and every branch that beareth (produces) fruit, he purgeth it, (prunes it short ) that it may bring forth more fruit (to produce more grapes). 3. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; 4. He that abideth (stays attached) in me, and I in him, 5. the same bringeth (brings) forth much fruit. 6. If a man abide not in me (does not stay properly attached to the tree), he is cast forth (he falls away dropping to the ground) 7. as a branch, and is withered (is dried out by the sun); 8. and men gather them (collect dead ones), and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. The Grafting Process (Stage 2) Field Preparation Vineyard staff, and not the grafting crew, are responsible for much of the pre-grafting vine and field preparations. Make sure you have adequate staff on hand to stay well ahead of the grafter’s pace, as these professionals are normally paid by the graft. There is typically one grafter per row, working one row at a time until the row is completed. Trunk Cutting On grafting day, the vineyard staff is responsible for cutting off vine trunks ahead of the grafting crew. Determine the desired height of the head on the new vine before cutting. Since field grafting provides an opportunity to change training systems, such decisions may affect where the trunks are cut. If a new head height of 28″ is desired, then cut the trunk just below that height (approximately 24″). This cut should be made at a clean, unblemished surface area of the trunk. Try to be as accurate in cutting height as possible, yet efficient. If vine trunks are approx. 1½” to 2″ in caliper, it is possible to use large loppers for the cut. Any trunk larger than 2″ may require a chainsaw; handsaws are slow and inefficient. Make sure you have enough tools for the vineyard staff to stay ahead of the grafters. The vineyard crew should clear away and dispose of any brush that might hinder the grafters’ progress. Basal Trunk Incisions Make two small diagonal incisions about 1/4″ deep, just into the cambium, one each on either side of the trunk near the base, to allow the vine to “bleed”. This must be done before the graft is made, since there is a likelihood that the pressure from sap flow will push the graft out. A fine-toothed hand pruning saw is adequate for making these simple cuts. Scion Preparation Scion Preparation The first task for the grafting crew is to prepare enough scion wood for the day. Consult with the grafting crew to determine the number of vines to be grafted each day. The canes from storage are cut into 2-bud lengths using hand shears, and must be kept moist. Grafters Toolbox The grafting crew often uses a modified wooden carpenters toolbox to carry their supplies. One side holds the prepared scion and the other holds two sharp, high quality grafting knives, grafting tape, and hand shears. The scion is pre-soaked in water and covered with a moist towel. (Note the large-sized caliper scion and wet towel on the box handle.) The Grafting Cuts Grafting Cuts: Face Cut Face Cuts A face cut is made at the top side of the trunk aligned along the grapevine row. This cut is repeated on the other side of the trunk. It is preferable to have the two face cuts parallel to the vine row so that the fragile new shoots growing from the graft are close to the supporting trellis wires. The face cuts may not always be made exactly parallel to the row, but could be somewhat offset, depending on the quality of the trunk surfaces available. The best surface area is always chosen for the cut. Diagonal Incisions For each face cut, two parallel incisions are made downward into the trunk at approximately a 30o angle. The first incision starts approximately 1/4″ from the bottom of the face cut, and the second is placed midway up the face cut. Diagonal Incisions The second diagonal incision is made midway up the first face cut. Second Face Cut and Diagonal Incisions Repeat the steps above, making a second series of face and diagonal incisions on the trunk opposite the first set. Scion Preparation in the Field Scion preparation employs three different cuts that are intended to match the face cut incisions made on the trunk: youtube/watch?v=qRitu20KipM Roy Kladaric•52 videos
Posted on: Mon, 17 Jun 2013 21:39:36 +0000
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