Relative Value
The Mercedes-Benz 300SL “Gullwing” was a revelation when it debuted in 1954. With a 240-horsepower inline-six, it was born to win races. Its top-hinged doors were outrageous, yet totally necessary due to the design of its tubular spaceframe. It was, and is, a remarkable car.
Then, Mercedes-Benz built the 300SL roadster. It shared most of its structure, body, and components with the coupe. It, too, was as capable as it was gorgeous.
Sensing a need for a less expensive car that shared the stunning looks of the 300SL roadster, Mercedes-Benz built the 190SL. Besides its fully independent double-wishbone front suspension, it shared almost nothing with the 300SL Roadster. Even though they look similar, their values today are an order of magnitude apart; one hangs around the $100,000 range, while the other reached $1,000,000 a decade ago and isn’t going down in value anytime soon. The 190SL just doesn’t have enough of that race car pixie dust to be eminently valuable. Clearly, the value lies in the source material.
This was the urgent message that Jesus wanted to share with his disciples in John 15. The cross loomed in his very near future, and The Twelve would soon be starting the early church throughout the region. Faithful adherence to Jesus’ message and self-sacrificial love needed to be the foundation of their early ministry. So he painted this word picture: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me… I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:1-5)
Nothing? Really? Is Jesus being hyperbolic here? If someone feeds the poor, fixes the government, and solves our climate crisis, but does so for their own glory and not God’s, are their works worth nothing? From a worldly perspective, no. But we don’t have a worldly perspective, do we?
The kind of fruit-bearing described here and elsewhere in the Bible concerns matters far above surface-level goodness like ending world hunger for the sake of ending world hunger. Bearing fruit as a Christ-follower is more like facing people who are unloved and uninterested in loving you, and demonstrating a self-sacrificial love for them and feeding them. So, it’s similar to a good deed done apart from God, but it is also completely different.
Here’s why: Doing good things doesn’t equate goodness. Rather, goodness is given. Consider how the 300SL’s value lies in its source material. In the same way, Jesus is the source material, the goodness given to us. He is the goodness and love in our hearts that empowers us to do good things and have love in our hearts for people. He is the “word made flesh,” and by his word, we are saved. Again: “You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.” We are clean, pruned, and saved, by the word that was spoken to us – by Jesus himself. He is grace incarnate.
This unity to one another and nearness to the source would be Jesus’ chief petitions in his prayer in John 17. That oneness is how we can understand our relationship with Christ. We are one unit with him, which is how we bear fruit, together. We harness that goodness when we work together. Otherwise, we’re just doing good things, alone, perhaps for our own individual glory, alone. There isn’t much value in that.
On its own merit, the 190SL is an absolutely gorgeous car. Is 104-horsepower single overhead-cam inline-four is plenty for vintage top-down driving, and its brilliant engineering is evident in every piece of the interior. And although six figures is no chump change for a used car, it has no merit when it’s judged on the basis of a race-derived roadster.
