“All the ethical admonition, comfort, and power that radiate from this farewell have no other purpose than that the church on earth should understand itself as belonging to him in heaven and that it should abide in him as he abides in its members. In this the church, together with Jesus—in accordance with an ancient depiction of the people of God—appears as the vine and the branches in which he, responding to the church’s faith and prayer, its life under his word, its affliction, and its calling in the world, will prove himself to be the Living One.” (Herman Ridderbos, The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary, p. 483).
In the process of preparing for a study on John 15 I came across this.
