2. C. H. Spurgeon, Expository Encyclopedia (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1977), 4:337.
Jesus Illustrates His Gospel
Spiritual pruning is the necessary process whereby the Father removes everything that limits our fruitfulness. He cuts out sins and other distractions that sap our spiritual strength.
The pruning knife He uses so skillfully is the Word of God. Note verse 3: "You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you." The word translated "clean" is the same Greek word He uses in verse 2 to describe the pruning process. God's Word prunes the sin out of our lives. Charles Spurgeon said, "The Word is often the knife with which the great Husbandman prunes the vine; and, brothers and sisters, if we were more willing to feel the edge of the Word, and to let it cut away even something that may be very dear to us, we should not need so much pruning by affliction."2
Sometimes the pruning process is painful. We might even see other branches we think need pruning more than we do. But the Vinedresser always knows what He is doing. He only wants us to bear much fruit.
And He prunes us only because He loves us. Using a different metaphor, Hebrews 12:6 – 7 says, "Those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives. It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?" Likewise, the Vinedresser gives the closest scrutiny to the branches he cares most about. He spends no time dressing the fruitless branches or pruning small shoots off them, because those branches are fit only to be taken away and burned.
The Judas Branches
The fruitless branches are only superficially attached to the vine. To the external eye there is a connection. There is even leafy growth and other tokens of life. But something is missing. They are not adequately tied into the vine's vascular system. They are incapable of bearing fruit. They are fit only to be cut off and destroyed.
Every gardener understands this principle. Fruitless branches are detrimental to the vine. They take sap away from the fruit-bearing branches. Wasted sap means less fruit. Even after careful pruning these branches will remain barren. There is no way to make them bear fruit. Moreover, after you cut them off they are still worthless; they cannot even be used for fuel. So they are thrown into heaps and burned like garbage. John 15:2 says they are "taken away." The vinedresser doesn't recycle or rehabilitate them; he removes them and destroys them.
2. C. H. Spurgeon, Expository Encyclopedia (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1977), 4:337.
The Vine and the Branches
Spiritually, the equivalent of a fruitless branch is a phony Chris tian — someone who professes faith in Christ but does not really know Him. These are branches that only appear to be connected to the True Vine. Their relationship to Him is entirely superficial. They do not have His life flowing through them, so they cannot bear spiritual fruit by any means. These are the branches Jesus threatens with removal. We might call them Judas branches.
In fact, the classic example of a fruitless branch is Judas. Only a short time before Jesus spoke the words in John 15, Judas had walked out into the night, a doomed branch, cut off from the Vine.
Jesus, of course, had never been fooled by Judas's duplicity. He knew Judas's heart, and He never counted Judas as a true disciple. Earlier that same evening, the Lord had girded Himself with a towel and humbly knelt before the Twelve to wash their feet. Afterward, He said this: "You are clean, but not all of you" (John 13:10). The apostle John adds this commentary: "He knew the one who was betraying Him; for this reason He said, 'Not all of you are clean' " (v. 11). Judas was not clean; he had never undergone "the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit" (Titus 3:5). Although Judas appeared to the other disciples as if he were truly one of them, Jesus knew better. Judas was a fruitless branch fit only to be removed from the Vine and burned.
It was not that Judas had salvation then lost it. Our Lord said of the true sheep: "I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of My hand" (John 10:28). True believers are secure in Him: "All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out" (6:37). Branches that abide in the True Vine will never be removed.
But wait. In John 15:2 our Lord says, "Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away" (emphasis added). Doesn't that suggest that these barren branches are true believers? No, that pushes the symbolism too far. Other passages in Scripture use this same imagery of parasitic, unfruitful branches. Romans 11:17 – 24, for example, represents Israel as an olive tree from which God has removed branches. Those branches were cut off because of unbelief (Rom. 11:20). In Romans 9:6 Paul wrote, "They are not all Israel who are descended from Israel." A person can be in the family tree but not a true Israelite. Likewise, one can be a branch on the True Vine without really abiding in Christ.
Throughout Scripture we read warnings to those who associate themselves with Jesus but whose faith is a facade. Such people appear to be in Christ but do not truly abide in Him. The Vinedresser will remove them from the Vine. This cutting off is precisely the process the apostle John was describing in 1 John 2:19: "They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had
Jesus Illustrates His Gospel
been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, in order that it might be shown that they all are not of us."
And so the fruitless branches represent counterfeit disciples — people who were never truly saved. They do not abide in Christ, the True Vine; they are not truly united with Him by faith. They are Judas branches. They can bear no genuine fruit. In the end the Father removes them to preserve the life and fruitfulness of the other branches.
The imagery of burning suggests that these fruitless branches are doomed to hell. Like Judas, they are hopeless apostates. They may be eminent church members. They may have acquired much spiritual knowledge. They may be teachers of doctrine, even scholars. They may have gone through all the rituals. But they are not genuine believers, and God will remove them.
Tragically, multitudes fit this category. Paul wrote, "Many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction" (Phil. 3:18 – 19, emphasis added). These are the branches that will be cut off and burned.
Do not misunderstand or miss Jesus' stark warning in this passage. Far from painting a scenario that can be used to defend the carnal-Chris tian fallacy, our Lord was teaching His disciples a truth that would help them to understand Judas's treachery. Judas's faith was a sham. His commitment to Jesus was superficial. He was a fruitless branch. "It would have been good for that man if he had not been born" (Mark 14:21).
John 15:1 – 8 is a sobering passage, reminding us that it is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God (cf. Heb. 10:31). Barren branches have nothing to look forward to except awful, fiery judgment. Yet the corresponding truth is equally blessed. Fruitful branches, those actually abiding in the True Vine, are in the hands of a loving and gracious Vinedresser. As He carefully prunes and tends us, there may be some pain in the cutting. But we can be certain that He is doing it for our own good so that we will bear much fruit for His glory.
Part 4
Jesus Explains
Gospel
His
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