The Body and the head are definitely one and the body is dead without being in union with the body. Another great picture of union is the Vine.

THE PICTURE OF THE VINE IN A VINEYARD

John 15ff

Jhn 15:1

I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.

“I am the true vine: This was a familiar symbol. God repeatedly used a vine as a symbol of His people in the Hebrew Scriptures (one example is Psalm 80:8-9). Yet it was often used in a negative sense (as in Isaiah 5:1-2, 7 and Jeremiah 2:21). Just in the previous week Jesus publicly taught about Israel being like a vineyard in the Parable of the Vineyard (Matthew 21:33-44).” David Guzak

This teaching was given to His disciples on the night He was to be betrayed and arrested. These were His words to keep them in Christ even after He was leaving His earthly ministry.

HE was encouraging them to stay in Him connected to the Vine.

In Psalm 80 Asaph compared Israel to a Vine taken out of Egypt and planted in Canaan. A vine represents Israel as Gods people. But after they rejected the Vineyard masters son they no longer were connected to the Vine and no longer Gods people. They who rejected Jesus cut them selves off the source of life. The Vine was Jesus.

Psa 80:15

And the vineyard which thy right hand hath planted, and the branch that thou madest strong for thyself.

Psa 80:16

It is burned with fire, it is cut down: they perish at the rebuke of thy countenance.

This prophecy was fulfilled in 70AD when the temple and Jerusalem was burned.

Israel is not a race or not a place. It means a people who love God and are united to God throught the Vine who is Jesus, the Son of the Vineyard master.

Here again in Isaiah you can see the prophecy that came to reality after Israel rejected the Vine.

Isa 5:1

Now will I sing to my wellbeloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My wellbeloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill:

After all Israel as the vineyard belonged to the Vineyard owners Son. Who was the real vine.  HE was Gods beloved and all those who stay in Christ are part of the Vine also and so are part of the Vineyard. The true Israel of God.

Isa 5:2

And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.

Isa 5:3-4

And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?

God has done his part preparing for His son and Israel but they cut themselves off from God and all Gods preparation and work produced nothing but strange and sour grapes.

Isa 5:5

And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down:

This literally happened when Titus sent his siege around Jerusalem and the wall came down.

Isa 5:6-7

And I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.

The vineyard of the Lord is Israel. But Israel remains God’s vineyard as long as they stayed connected to the Vine, Jesus Christ.

Rom 11:1

I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.

God would never caste any one away. But people cast God away every day. How?

Rom 11:17

And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree;

Here the picture of the vineyard and the grape vine is replaced by an Olive plant. The Fig, the olive and the Grape were always pictures God use to explain his relation with His people. It was Israel until they rejected His Son and cut themselves off. They should have took part and shared fully with the source of all fatness of the plant, the root was Jesus.

Yet the gentiles and all races were meant to be part of this vineyard Israel and God made a Vine that any one could join by faith.

Rom 11:20

Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear:

It was pride and unbelief that caused the Pharisees to cry “Crucify Him!” and so Gentiles too should be humble and believe to be part of this Vine.

This Vineyard of God is the Kingdom of God that Jesus came to proclaim to Israel