[As to] every branch in me not bearing fruit, he takes it away; and [as to] every one bearing fruit, he purges it that it may bring forth more fruit.
The Lord calls Himself the true vine and His Father the vinedresser. One test sorts the branches: fruit. He removes one kind and cuts the other back. Why does the same hand that removes also wound what it loves?
Commentators point to one key that unlocks the passage. Vines grow on earth, so the union in view here is an earthly one.
"Every branch in Me that bears fruit," He says. This shows that the branch must be in Him, the true Vine, if it is to bear fruit. This sentence gives us the key to the passage. The union spoken of here is an earthly union, for vines do not grow in heaven… So our union with Christ as members of His body is not what is meant here. That union cannot be broken, and it does not depend on us at all.
If every branch had real life, this removal would make no sense. Writers answer that the vine includes everyone who claims Christ's name, real or not.
True blessing and fruitfulness for God no longer depended on being children of Abraham by birth, able to call Jacob their father. It all depended on a living connection with Christ. He was the true vine here on earth… So the question of profession comes up, and with it the question of fruitfulness. A vine might have branches on it that bore no fruit. A person might claim to be Christ's disciple without the claim being real. As the vinedresser removes the barren branches of a vine, so the Father, shown here as the vinedresser, takes away those whose discipleship is not real.
Missing this difference costs more than clarity.
There is an immense difference between salvation and fruit-bearing, between being a branch of the vine and a member of Christ's body. If you miss this difference, you lose the teaching of John 15. Worse still, you put at risk the peace of conscience that belongs to those who rest on Christ and His work. When I think of salvation, I think of grace; but when fruit-bearing is before my mind, I think of responsibility.
Commentators differ on who is taken away.
There is the sad possibility that some branches, though having a living link with the vine, may bring forth no fruit. Such the Father takes away. These branches are very different from the withered branches of verse 6. Here it is the Father who takes away; there it is men who throw them out and burn them.
The vinedresser is not chasing activity in general. He is watching for something specific.
The Father is seeking fruit from those who are branches in the True Vine. It is a privilege given and jealously watched over by the Father. The fruit He seeks and values is the reproduction of the virtues of His Son. Therefore as a true vinedresser He removes what does not bear fruit and prunes and helps on what does, to increase yet more the fruit He delights to see.
Trials often come just when a believer starts to bear fruit. This verse explains the timing.
Many of the Lord's dear children are dismayed when they find themselves in trial… They overlook the blessed truth revealed to us here: pruning always follows fruit bearing. Bear even a little fruit, and you may be sure the vinedresser will not spare the pruning knife. Once, walking round an orchard, I saw a tree that had not been pruned. I asked the gardener why he had neglected it when all the others showed the marks of his care. He replied, "That tree is half dead. I have no hope of it bearing more fruit, so I do not think it worth the trouble of pruning." Another day I saw a tree cut back so hard that to my eyes it looked almost ruined. Again I asked the gardener, "Why was this?" "Ah Sir," he replied, "that is my finest tree. I look for more fruit from that tree in autumn than from any other in the garden."
The cutting has a target, and how we take it decides what it produces in us.
The Father chastens and disciplines us to remove everything that keeps the character of Christ from showing. It may indeed be painful, for "no discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it" (Heb. 12:11). If we take His dealings to heart before the Father, hardship will not sour us or make us bitter. It will soften us instead, so that the character of Christ is seen in us and we bear fruit.
Pruning does not only remove what is wicked. It removes what is merely spare.
A vineyard, above all, shows the need of pruning… To get the fruit that is wanted, a vine needs the knife used on it without sparing… The lesson is the need of concentration: turning all our energy into what has profit in it, and spending none on what is merely harmless. This is not legalism or strict self-denial. As we may learn from the connection here, it is what makes for happiness as well as fruitfulness.
- Vine — the picture is earthly, and it covers everyone who takes Christ's name. Being a member of His body is a separate truth, and that link cannot be cut.
- Fruitless — fruit is what shows the claim is real. The Father removes the branch that has none.
- Fruit — what He looks for is the character of His Son showing up in His people.
- Knife — pruning follows fruit. Trial is a sign of value, not of rejection. The tree left alone is the hopeless one.
- More fruit — the knife cuts away what hinders Christ's likeness and what is merely spare. It puts all our energy into what bears.
Ye are already clean by reason of the word which I have spoken to you.
The words come right after Jesus speaks of a Father who prunes fruit-bearing branches. The first thing He says to the men listening is that the pruning has already done its work in them. What does it mean to be "clean" by a spoken word, when the cross had not yet happened and the Spirit had not yet come?
Jesus does not tell the disciples to become clean. He tells them what His word has already done in them. One commentator names three places where that word did its work:
They had received His word, and knew that He came from God, though they knew the Father only in part, if at all. Yet Christ's word had worked in their souls. It had cleansed their ways. It had judged their worldly thoughts. It had exposed their sinful desires. The effect was real in their consciences… They were clean already, even before the Holy Spirit was given as power from on high.
One word links this verse to the one before it. The word has already done to these men what the Father does to fruitful branches in verse 2. Judas has gone, so this time no one in the room is an exception. The commentator below starts from an older translation, which read "Now you are clean."
"Now you are clean" is "already you are clean." The "you are not all clean" in chapter 13 refers to Judas. Here there is no exception, because Judas had gone out… He says, "Every branch in Me that bears fruit, He prunes." And in verse 3, "Now you are already pruned." It is the same word. They were clean in the sense of "pruned," only the pruning continues. It is like the man who has been bathed and needs only to wash his feet. This is the first of those washings.
This verse is not about paying for guilt. Two different needs, two different remedies — and both came from the pierced side of Christ.
The Lord came by water, speaking His Father's word, and could say to His disciples, "Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you." This word of the Lord produced moral cleansing. But something more was needed to remove their guilt, and to cleanse the stain their guilt had produced. That something more was the shedding and sprinkling of blood… John witnessed the blood and water that flowed from the side of Christ, and has put it on record.
Notice the timing. When Jesus called them clean, the cross was still ahead and Christian baptism did not yet exist. So no ceremony made them clean.
When God's word enters the soul by faith, it deals with the conscience in a purifying way. It awakens a sense of sin, and produces repentance toward God… So the Lord told the disciples, "Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you." The atoning work was not yet done. Christian baptism was not commanded or even possible. It was God's word that worked in His grace.
Being clean is not the end of the story. The same word keeps working, and it is aiming at a life that matches His own mind.
The point here is the cleansing that keeps going on right now. The Lord Jesus has you in hand. He wants to teach you. He wants to bring you up in His ways, ways that agree with His own mind and will. There are things about you that do not please Him — in your words, in your thoughts, in your ways and friendships. They are not according to His mind, and He wants to cleanse you from them. And how will He do it? He does it by His word.
If the eleven were already clean, why would the Father still cut anything away? The answer turns on who holds the knife, and why.
The Father Himself does this pruning or cleansing. So we should not see such dealing as discipline for something done wrong, where a person suffers the fruit of his own ways. It is the Father's dealing to get more fruit. The eleven were already clean by the word that Christ had spoken to them. Yet the Father would still cleanse them, to remove anything that might keep them from bearing more fruit.
- Already. Not pending, but settled. Christ's word had done its work in them before the cross, before the Spirit was given, and without any ceremony.
- Pruned. "Clean" is the same word as "prunes" in verse 2. The eleven showed what the Father does to fruitful branches.
- Water. The word cleanses morally; the blood answers guilt. Both flowed from Christ's side, and we need both.
- Ongoing. The first washing is not repeated; the daily one goes on. The word keeps dealing with our words, thoughts, ways and friendships.
- Fruit. The Father's aim in every cut is never punishment but more fruit from a branch already clean.