“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower.
He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.
You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you.
Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.
I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.
Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.
If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.
“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.
If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.
I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
You are my friends if you do what I command you.
I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.
You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.
I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.
“If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you.
If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world—therefore the world hates you.
Remember the word that I said to you, ‘Servants are not greater than their master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also.
But all this they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me.
If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.
“Whoever hates me hates my Father also.
If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father.
It is to fulfill the word that is written in their law, ‘They hated me without a cause.’
“But when the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father—he will testify on my behalf.
You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.
He says that both he and the Father have been hated by the ignorant Jews, and this without cause and for no good reason. Now he profitably introduces the Spirit, adding to the Word the fullness of the holy Trinity and showing that the Spirit was dishonored with him so that the spectators of the miracles, who had raged so completely against the Son, may also be shown guilty of disparaging the power of the highest essence of all, which is beyond nature. They did this by rejecting Christ, even though he performed amazing miracles to give them proof, and by what they did. They blasphemed against him, which is shocking even to contemplate. And yet, one might say, O senseless Jew, Christ performed miracles for you [607] that exceeded the glory of Moses and the glory of every saint. The Lord's statement "If I had not done among them the works that no one else did" 222. conveys such a meaning to us. You crown the servant and minister of lesser things (I mean Moses) with such illustrious honors, but you do not blush to reject in your ignorance the worker of incomparably superior and far greater deeds, even though he brought the ancient oracles of Moses' prophecy to fulfillment and enclosed the shadow with the truth. Therefore, our Lord Jesus Christ necessarily made mention of the Spirit along with himself and the Father. And he also shows that what we said earlier was true, that is, that if any hate the Son they surely also hate the Father from whom he came.
How or in what way, consider further. Look-look—he calls the "Spirit of truth" (that is, of himself) the
"Paraclete," and he says that he "proceeds from the Father." Just as the Spirit belongs to the Son by nature, being in him and proceeding through him, so also the Spirit belongs to the Father. The attributes of their substance surely cannot be divided, because the Spirit is common to both.
Let none who are accustomed to godlessness lead us with ignorant language to the mistaken notion that the Son fulfills a servant's task when he delivers the Spirit to creation from the Father. (Some in their ignorance are not afraid to say this.) Instead we should believe that he sends the Spirit to sanctify his holy disciples because the Spirit belongs to him, just as the Spirit certainly belongs to God the Father. Indeed, if they think that they are somehow thinking and speaking shrewdly when they introduce the Son to us as a minister and servant in this passage, [608] surely it follows that we should say to them, "You blind fools!"223 Do you not perceive that you are going back and taking away the glory of the Only Begotten when you string together miserable arguments from your ignorance? If the Son supplies the Spirit from the Father, and he is therefore classified as a servant, how could it not be necessary to confess that the Spirit is altogether foreign to his essence, perhaps greater and far superior to him, if matters stand as you in your ignorance suppose? After all, if the Son does not proceed from the Father, that is, from his essence, as you maintain, how could the Spirit not be understood to be superior to the Son? Then what will we say when we hear him say about the Spirit, "He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you."224
In addition to what we have already said, we must proceed to the following. If you think that the Son carries out a ministerial service when he supplies to us what is foreign to himself, that is, the Spirit who comes from God the Father and is holy by nature, then the Son is not holy by nature but by participation just like we are. According to the ignorance of the godless, the Son is declared to be foreign to the essence of the Father, from which the Spirit, who is supplied by him, proceeds. It will therefore be possible that he might someday fall away from the holiness that is in him, since the Spirit does not belong to the Son, but the Son has an adopted sanctification just like creatures. If something is acquired as an addition, surely it can be removed with the permission of the one who gave it. Who would not flee from such dogmas? I think our explanation is more fitting.
The truth is dear to us, as are the dogmas that flow from the truth. We will not follow those people, but [609] we will follow in the footsteps of the faith of the holy fathers and say that the Paraclete, that is, the Holy Spirit, belongs to the Son and is not introduced from the outside or acquired by him as by those who are capable of receiving holiness. They came into being from nonexistence, but the Spirit is of the same substance as him, just as he is of course of the same substance as the Father. In this way the meaning of the church's dogmas will not veer off into polytheistic mythology on us, but the holy Trinity will be united in one divine nature. In this passage, then, he shows the unity of substance (I mean between his substance and that of God the Father). He says that the Paraclete is "the Spirit of truth," and then he declares that he "proceeds from the Father," thus clearly and unambiguously rebuking the enemy of Christ for being completely at enmity with God. Whoever decides to rage against the Son would reasonably be understood to have sinned against the one from whom he came.
He says, "When the Paraclete comes, the Spirit of truth (that is, of me) who proceeds from the Father, he will testify on my behalf." How will he testify? When he works miracles in you and through you, he will be a faithful and true witness of my God-befitting authority and of the greatness of my power. The one who works in you is my Spirit. And just as he is mine, so also he belongs to God the Father. Therefore, we must understand that those who work miracles through the one good Spirit to confirm our faith are insulted too, since they are in the role of Christ, in whom dwelt not only a part of the ineffable divine nature, according to Paul, but "the whole fullness" thereof "bodily." 225
When the Spirit testifies, he says that you too will testify along with him. You have been eyewitnesses and spectators of what I have done among my own, since you were always with me as disciples. 1610]
