That Ye Bear Much Fruit

After Jacob recited the allegory of the tame and wild olive trees, he prophesied that in general its symbolic predictions would indeed come to pass: “As I said unto you that I would prophesy, behold, this is my prophecy—that the things which this prophet Zenos spake, concerning the house of Israel, in the which he likened them unto a tame olive tree, must surely come to pass.” I have typically read the allegory trying to understand it in this sense; i.e. looking to understand the various groups of people the trees represent and how the different symbolic parts have been fulfilled or will be fulfilled in our day. For example, we see allusions to the Nephites and the Lamanites as well as the current gathering of Israel in our day. But Jacob also applied the allegory to his individual listeners with this important question: “For behold, after ye have been nourished by the good word of God all the day long, will ye bring forth evil fruit, that ye must be hewn down and cast into the fire?” (Jacob 6:1,7) While the allegory speaks of the House of Israel and the world at large in a grand vision of past and future events, we can also see it as an invitation for us to personally bear fruit in our own lives. While we learn about how the trees went through various stages of good and bad fruit, we can evaluate the kind of spiritual fruit we are bringing forth in our own lives. We should come away from the allegory also asking ourselves if we too will bring forth evil fruit or if the great nourishment that the Lord has given us personally through His word will take root in our hearts and lead us to become the people the Savior expects of us.     

               In the personal sense of the allegory, then, the invitation for us as individuals is the same as what the Savior gave to His apostles at the Last Supper. He said, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned” (John 15:4-6). Just as the allegory shows how the Lord of the vineyard personally took responsibility for helping the trees to bring forth fruit—"I have nourished it, and I have digged about it, and I have pruned it, and I have dunged it; and I have stretched forth mine hand almost all the day long”—these words in John affirm that we bring forth spiritual fruit only through abiding in the Savior (Jacob 5:47). Without Him, we are indeed nothing and cannot bear the lasting fruit that will bring us back to the Father. The Savior affirmed, “Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples” (John 15:8). Thus the Father’s glory is that we bear fruit individually, that we become true disciples of the Savior. Perhaps these verses from Paul helps us understand what that fruit looks like in each of us: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance” (Galatians 5:22-23). We bear gospel fruit in ourselves as we grow in such attributes as love, longsuffering, faith, meekness, temperance; when we increase our personal goodness to be like the Savior, the Father is glorified and we get closer to the joy and peace that He has. His ultimate aim, His work and glory, is to “lay up fruit” in each of us that leads us to the immortality and eternal life He seeks for all His children (Moses 1:39, Jacob 5:13).