John 15:1-16
1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.
2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
3 Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.
4 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.
5 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.
6 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.
7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
8 Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.
9 As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.
10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.
11 These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.
12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.
13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
14 Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.
15 Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.
16 Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.
The Grace New Testament Commentary - John 15:1-16
15:1 In the OT the nation Israel is referred to metaphorically as a vine (Ps 80:8; Ezek 15:1-8). The nation was intended to be like a productive vine that bears much fruit. Instead, it was like an unproductive, fruitless vine. In this "I am" statement - the seventh and last one in John's Gospel - Jesus identifies Himself as "the true vine, and [His] Father [as] the vinedresser." Though Israel did not live up to its name as the vine, Jesus did.
15:2 Some theologians do not believe that there is such a thing as an unproductive believer. They are forced to argue that "every branch in Me that does not bear fruit" refers to unbelievers. Yet it is difficult to imagine how an unbeliever could rightly be called a "branch in" Jesus. The issue with unbelievers is unbelief, not lack of fruitfulness. Such an interpretation is untenable. Jesus is warning believers (see v 3, "you are already clean") against being unfruitful and unproductive. Unbelievers are not in Christ, and they are not branches from which He expects fruit. The word translated "He takes away" (airei) can also be translated "He lifts up."
If the former translation is correct, it suggests that unfruitful believers are taken home (v 6). The latter translation suggests that God disciplines unfruitful believers in an effort to spur them on to fruit-bearing. In viticulture, low-lying branches that are unproductive are propped up (or lifted up) on wooden stands in order to facilitate productivity.
The latter translation is probably correct for three reasons. First, the two halves of v 2 are antithetical. Verse 2b concerns increasing the productivity of productive branches. This suggests that v 2a concerns stimulating productivity of unproductive ones. Second, not until v 6 is the removal of unproductive branches clearly discussed. The distance seems to suggest that removal is normally not instantaneous. Third, there is a play on words in this verse which suggests that the goal of the intervention in each type of branch is to heighten productivity. "He prunes" is the same Greek verb as "He lifts up" except that a prefix is added (kathairei vs. airei).
The pruning of a productive branch refers to what God does in the life of a fruitful believer "that it may bear more fruit." God's discipline is not merely directed to unfaithful believers. God disciplines faithful believers as well (cf. Heb 12:3-11; Jas 1:2-12).
15:3 Another wordplay is found in the expression "you are already clean." The word clean (katharoi) is very similar in form and sound to the verb translated "He prunes" (kathairei) in the previous verse. Those whom God clips are clean. The reason the disciples were "already clean" was "because of the word [Jesus had] spoken to" them. They had believed His promise that all who believe in Him have everlasting life and shall never perish (John 2:11; 3:16; 11:25-27).
15:4-5 "Abide in Me" is a command (an imperative, meinate), not a promise. There is no guarantee in Scripture that believers, those who are positionally "clean" (v 3), will abide in Christ (cf. Rom 12:1-2 and 1 John 2:28-4:19). The word abide (menō) has the basic meanings of remain, live, or dwell, either literally, or as in this case figuratively. Here it is used to refer to living in the sphere of the true vine, Jesus. To abide in Christ is to abide in His words, to remember and live by what He has said (cf. John 5:38; 8:31; 15:7). Jesus promises that He will abide ("and I [will abide] in you") in the believer who abides in Him. If a believer ceases to remain in fellowship with Christ, he "cannot bear fruit," for branches can bear fruit only when they are united to the vine.
"For without Me you can do nothing" must be understood in light of v 4. It does not mean that nonabiding believers are incapable of doing anything at all. The understood subject is doing things that please God. When a believer lives in the sphere of the flesh, he can do nothing that pleases God. However, believers have the Holy Spirit within them. When they live in light of their born-again status, they produce good fruit that pleases the Lord Jesus.
15:6 Three major interpretations are given on what it means to be "cast out as a branch... and burned." First, some wrongly think Jesus is saying that nonabiding believers lose their salvation and spend eternity in hell. This contradicts John 3:16; 5:24; 10:27-29; and 11:26. Second, others wrongly think Jesus is saying that nonabiding believers prove that they are not true believers, but merely professing believers who will spend eternity in hell. Yet Jesus is talking about born-again people who are positionally clean (v 3), not unbelievers. Third, believers who remain in an unfruitful state over time will experience God's temporal judgment, possibly culminating in premature death. The third view alone upholds eternal security, fits the particulars of the passage, and is consistent with the rest of Scripture.
Being "cast out as a branch... and burned" refers to a common practice of viticulture in which unproductive branches are cut off and burned. Its application to unproductive believers is easily seen: God disciplines those believers who persist in disobedience. Fire is a common metaphor in Scripture for temporal judgment (cf. Lev 10:2: 1 Cor 3:10-15; Heb 6:7-8; 10:27; Jude 1:23). Since the Lord did not use the verb to be burned up, but rather the less intense verb to be burned, He is holding open the possibility that the unproductive believer may respond to the burning and return to fruitfulness. The grace of God is not a license to sin. Believers who play with sin will experience fiery judgment that may well culminate in death.
15:7-8 These verses expand on John 14:13. To "abide in [Christ], and [to have His] words abide in you" is a condition to answered prayer: "you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you." Glorification of the Father is spoken of both in John 14:13 and John 15:8. The former verse links it to answered prayer, the latter to fruit-bearing. When believers obey God and bear fruit - indeed "much fruit" - God the Father is glorified. Fruit-bearing seems to be linked to prayer in these verses - especially when they are compared with John 14:13. Certainly, one thing all abiding believers should pray for is that they "bear much fruit" and thereby bring glory to God's name, demonstrating that they are Jesus' disciples. Since Jesus glorified the Father, so do all who follow Him.
At the heart of abiding in Christ is the one word love. God is love (1 John 4:8) and Jesus was soon to manifest that love to the ultimate degree in His sacrificial substitutionary death on the cross. Believers who love like that become Jesus' friends (just as Abraham loved and was called a friend of God).
15:9-10 "As the Father loved" Jesus, so He also loved the disciples. In order for the disciples to continue to experience his love ("abide in My love") after He leaves, they must "keep [His] commandments." Jesus is their model since He "kept [His] Father's commandments" to this point, and presently He "abide[s] in His love." To abide in Jesus' love means to remain in the sphere of His love. The obedient believer pleases Him and is especially loved by Him. The disobedient believer displeases Him (cf. Eph 4:30) and is not the object of His love in an experiential sense (cf. Jude 1:20-21).
15:11 The Lord now tells the Eleven why He said this: "These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full." To have fullness of joy a believer must obey Christ and be loving (cf. v 12). Joy is a fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22). Joy is not an automatic result of the atonement. It is contingent on ongoing obedience. The life Jesus gives is one of great potential.
15:12-13 Jesus' commands can be summed up in the one word, love (cf. Gal 5:14). Believers are to "love one another" in a giving, sacrificial sense, not just when it is convenient. Jesus modeled this love in the past, "as I have loved you," and would again model it in His impending substitutionary death: "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends." See comments on Jas 2:14-17 and 1 John 3:16-18.
15:14 Having just spoken of laying down one's life for his friends, Jesus now brings that message home: "You are My friends if you do whatever I command you." Friendship with God is not something all believers possess. Obedience is a condition of friendship. Abraham was called "the friend of God" because he obeyed Him (Jas 2:21-24). God appeared to Moses "as a man speaks to his friend" (Exod 33:11) because he too was living a life that pleased Him. James warned, "...friendship with the world is enmity with God... Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God" (Jas 4:4).
15:15 Only on His last night with them before His death does Jesus call His disciples "friends." Before this He had called them "servants" (cf. John 13:13, 16). Servants (lit., slaves) of that day did not normally have a close relationship with their masters. They would simply do their master's bidding without an understanding of how that fit in with the master's plans. Friendship with Jesus is being privy to His plans: "I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you." Maturity in the Christian comes from understanding and believing God's Word and thereby having the mind of Christ (cf. 1 Cor 2:14-16).
15:16 The Lord Jesus chose the Eleven to be His apostles and friends with the result that they "should go and bear fruit." The work they would do would have enduring value: "your fruit [shall] remain." This refers to their missionary endeavors as they evangelize and disciple people (cf. Matt 28:18-20; Acts 1:8). All believers are ambassadors for Christ (2 Cor 5:20) and can and should bear fruit for Him as they share their faith.
Charles Bing - Grace, Salvation, and Discipleship - Branches That Do Not Bear Fruit, John 15:1-8
(Salvation) Interpretation: Those described as branches without fruit are not believers and are cast into hell.
(Discipleship) Interpretation: Believers who do not bear fruit are not useful to the Savior.
The decisive interpretive question here is whether John's reference to the fruitless branches cast into the fire relates to believers or unbelievers. If the fruitless branches refer to unbelievers, then they are cast into hell because their faith was superficial, and they did not bear fruit, or have the good works true faith would have produced.
The (Salvation) argument is based on several assumptions. First, "abide" means believe. Second, the taking away in verse 2 refers to unbelievers taken away to the judgment of hell fire, which is supposedly described in verse 6. Third, "fruit" refers to visible and measurable good works. Inevitably, in this view, works determine whether one is saved or not.
As we would expect, knowing whether Jesus is addressing believers or unbelievers is crucial to a correct interpretation. Some might argue that Jesus is addressing both in such a way that "If the shoe fits, wear it." It is universally recognized that chapters 13-17 of John form a distinct unit usually called The Upper Room Discourse because Jesus is isolated with his disciples in an upstairs room to observe the Passover supper. But the only unbeliever, Judas Iscariot, departs immediately after the supper (John 13:30), leaving only the believing disciples. In light of His own imminent absence, Jesus is encouraging His disciples to keep His commandment to love and to bear the fruit of love.
Jesus speaks to them as saved - He calls them branches in the true vine (v. 2), and He pronounces them "already clean" (v. 3). These terms speak of their union with Christ and their justification or forgiveness and cleansing from sin. These strong assurances preclude the idea that they were spurious believers.
As we saw in John 8:31, abide is not a synonym for believe. Jesus shows no reluctance to use the word believe in relation to His offer of eternal life, so why doesn't He use it here if He is speaking of salvation? And besides, why would He tell His saved disciples that they need to believe in Him if that's what abide means? We should note that Jesus and His word also abide in them (vv. 4, 5, 7), and Jesus abides in His Father's love (v. 10). It is clear that abide cannot mean believe, but means to adhere to, dwell with, continue in a close relation with. It is a condition for answered prayer (v. 7), and as a condition ("if" vv. 6, 7) shows the possibility that a believer may not comply.
How, then, do we understand the fate of the fruitless branches that the Divine Vinedresser "takes away" in verse 2? This cannot refer to losing salvation and being thrown into hell fire because Jesus says these branches are "in Me." The latter part of the verse hints at a different meaning for "takes away." It pictures the tender care of the Vinedresser who prunes fruitful branches to make them more fruitful. How does He make the fruitless branches more fruitful? The Vinedresser does not take away, but "lifts up" these branches. This is a better translation of the Greek word (airō) and is used that way in other places in John (5:8-12; 8:59; 10:18; 11:41). It pictures the common viticultural practice of lifting vines off the ground to keep them from damage and to expose them to more sunlight. As verse 2 states, once fruit is seen, the branch can be pruned to encourage more fruit. This presents a seamless picture of God encouraging fruitfulness in His people (vv. 1-3) if they cooperate by abiding (vv. 4-8).
But what about the fire in verse 6? There is no need to assume this is hell fire, as so many quickly conclude. Jesus is not threatening His disciples with hell. Fire is used often in the Bible to represent God's discipline, anger, or jealousy toward His own people. It is also used in references to the judgment that faces all Christians, the Judgment Seat of Christ, where unworthy works are burned up (1 Cor. 3:12-15: 2 Cor. 5:10). In this passage, the fire is figurative as are the vine and the branches. The burning of useless branches was a common agricultural practice. Fruitless branches that do not bear fruit even after being lifted off the ground have no practical purpose, so they are burned or disposed of. This compares to the burning of useless works at the Judgment Seat of Christ in 1 Corinthians 3:15.
Of course, if bearing fruit is a measure of salvation, then we have problems, such as what exactly fits the description of fruit, are fruit always visible or measurable, and how much is needed? The biggest problem is the intrusion of works into the gospel of grace, especially in John, which purposes to show that believing is the only condition for salvation. The only interpretation that fits this passage and the clear teachings of Scripture is a (Discipleship) interpretation. In (Discipleship), bearing fruit is an important way to be useful and to glorify God.
Believers who are slack in their walk with God and not producing fruit do not need to fear hell, but they should fear being useless in God's service and should fear facing Jesus Christ on that Day of Judgment when they will have to account for how they lived their lives. On the other hand, believers who abide with Christ in an intimate relationship will bear fruit, have prayers answered, show themselves to be disciples, and glorify God (vv. 7-10).