Jesus as the True Vine Means He is the True Israel

Why would Jesus call himself a vine? And not just a vine but a true vine? How does this self-designation echo Jeremiah 2, and why does it mean that the Messiah is the true Israel? What Greek wordplay, unseeable in most English translations, is used to connect “pruning” with “cleansing”-a connection that takes us back to Jesus washing the disciples’ feet? Chad Bird covers all these questions in this week’s video on John 15:1-8, in the series “Reading the Gospels Through Hebrew Eyes.”