What does it actually mean to abide in Christ?

Meno is not a devotional term. It is the word you would use for lodging in a house or remaining in a town. John uses it constantly: the Spirit remained on Jesus in John 1:32, the disciples stayed with Him in John 1:39, the word remains in believers in 1 John 2:14. Nothing about it suggests an intense experience. It suggests not leaving.

That is a relief for anyone who has read this chapter as a call to a feeling they cannot summon. Jesus is not asking for a state of mind. He is asking for continuance in a relationship that He established.

First, His words stay in you, verse 7. That is intake and memory: Scripture read, retained, obeyed. Verse 3 has already said they are clean through the word He spoke, so the word is not merely instruction, it is the instrument by which He works on them.

Second, His commandments are kept, verse 10. Abiding is not passive. It has a behavioural test, and Jesus offers His own obedience to the Father as the model, which rules out the idea that obedience earns the relationship. He kept His Father's commandments as a Son, not as an employee.

Third, His love is the place you remain, verses 9 and 10. Continue you in my love. That is where the branch is: not in its own resolve, but in a love that was given before any fruit appeared.

It is not fruit-making. Verse 5 says without me you can do nothing, and verse 4 says the branch cannot bear fruit of itself. The branch's work is connection; the fruit is the vine's work through it.

It is not anxiety about whether you are abiding hard enough. The command has a promise attached in both directions: abide in me, and I in you. His remaining is not conditioned on your intensity, and verse 16 says He chose the disciples rather than the reverse.

Vine cultivation in Israel is described throughout Scripture: planting, hedging, digging out stones, building a tower and a winepress in Isaiah 5:1 to 2, and pruning in Leviticus 25:3 to 4 where vines are pruned in ordinary years and left alone in the sabbath year. So vinedressing, with its cutting back, was familiar work to everyone listening.

Israel itself is called God's vine or vineyard in Psalm 80:8 to 16, Isaiah 5:1 to 7, Jeremiah 2:21 and Hosea 10:1, and in each case the complaint is the same: the vine was planted well and yielded wild or worthless grapes. Jesus is speaking into that history when He says I am the true vine.