Page 77 - Fundamentals Ebook Final

can do without Him; but nothing that is called “fruit”. I need to
abide in Him to have fruit.

I want to give three illustrations to show the idea of the origin of our
life. Colossians 2:6&7, “As you therefore have received Christ
Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now
being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were
instructed, and overflowing with gratitude.” The Lord Jesus is
called our soil. We are rooted in Him. What soil is to a plant, Jesus
is to us. The plant draws from the soil and produces.

Another illustration is Isaiah 37:31, “And the surviving remnant of
the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit
upward.” If you bear fruit upward, you bear root downward.

In the first illustration Jesus is like soil. John 15:4&5, “Abide in
Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it
abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am
the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him,
he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing.” The
soil is the source of the vine. The vine is the source of the grape.

Romans 7:2-4, “For the married woman is bound by law to her
husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released
from the law concerning the husband. So then if, while her husband
is living, she is joined to another man, she shall be called an
adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that
she is not an adulteress, though she is joined to another man.
Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law
through the body of Christ, that you might be joined to another, to
Him who was raised from the dead, that we might bear fruit for
God.” God says that we are married to the One who rose from the
dead to bring fruit unto God. In each case the soil, the vine and the
marriage, the fruit comes from God.