WHAT HAPPENS TO FRUITLESS CHRISTIANS?

The analogy of the vine and the branches in John 15 is all about fruit bearing. We bear fruit through our communion with Jesus just as the branches bear fruit through their connection to the vine. When we fail to remain in communion with Jesus, we become fruitless because apart from Jesus we can do nothing (John 15:5). Fruitless branches are cast away not because of a lack of life but because of a lack of fruit (John 15:6).

The analogy is an extended figure of speech and figurative language should not be taken literally. Jesus is not a literal vine and God, the Father, is not a literal gardener.  We are not literal branches. The throwing away is not a literal throwing away and the fire is not a literal fire.

The fruitless believer is thrown away "like a branch" (ως το κλημα) so what happens to fruitless branches is an illustration of what happens to fruitless Christians.  We are judged for our uselessness and set aside as worthless to the master gardener if we become fruitless Christians.  There are 5 verbs that illustrate God's progressive judgment of fruitless Christians.

1) Fruitless Christians are discarded or thrown aside (εβληθη εξω). God stops using us in His work. We become useless and hinder His purpose to bear fruit.  He sets us aside when we fail to stay in communion with Him. 2) Fruitless Christians are dried up (εξηρανθη). The word was used to describe the withering of trees and plants or the drying up of a river (BAGD, p. 548).  It is a passive verb. When we are set aside by the gardener (passive voice), the discarding causes us to begin to wither spiritually. We lose our vitality. We become brittle and bitter, and we break easy. Jesus said that if salt loses its potency it is good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled (Mt. 5:13). Fruitless Christians may even be removed from life on earth (1 John 5:16).

The next 3 verbs all have plural subjects. "They gather them and they cast them into the fire and they are burned." The first 2 verbs are present active indicatives and the 3rd is a passive, yet all 3 can be translated as idiomatically passive. All the discussions explaining the identity of "they" in this verse are 'fruitless' discussions!  The construction is a Semitic idiom for an impersonal subject (Moulton, Grammar, 2:447-448). A third person plural subject was used with an active voice as a substitute for an impersonal passive in the Hebrew style of writing so the identity of the subject is simply impersonal.

I think these 3 verbs all refer to what God does with fruitless Christians at the Judgment Seat of Christ.  1) Fruitless Christians are gathered together at the judgment of Christians. 2) Fruitless Christians are tested by fire. The fire is a figure of speech for God's holy evaluation of our lives. The fire reveals the worthlessness of our fruitlessness (1 Cor. 3:13). 3) Fruitless Christians are left with nothing because they did not abide in Him and through that abiding produce fruit that possessed eternal value. The sum total of their lives is burned up (καιεται). This is precisely the imagery for the judgment of Christians that Paul uses (1 Cor. 3:13-15). The fruitless Christian suffers loss, but he is saved "as through fire" (1 Cor. 3:15).

O Lord, keep me walking and talking with you so that I do not become fruitless in my life!

THE CONDITION FOR BEARING FRUIT

Jesus identifies two conditions - which are really one condition - necessary for fruit bearing in John 15:4. "Abide in Me, and I in you." Abiding is necessary for producing fruit. The branch is not capable of producing fruit by itself (αφ εαυτου) "unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me."

Some form of the verb "abide" (μενω) is used 11 times in this chapter. The word means to remain, stay or continue (BAGD, p. 503), and it can have the sense of dwell or live together. For example, the word is used of Mary who stayed or lived with her sister, Elizabeth, for 3 months (Luke 1:56).

Jesus states the first condition as a command, "Abide in Me." It is an aorist active command (μεινατε) indicating action that is undefined in terms of duration. However, the two following uses of abide in this verse are in the present tense indicating that the abiding is to be an ongoing abiding as opposed to an event. We must continue to remain in Christ in order to produce fruit because the power that produces the fruit flows from the vine, Jesus Christ.

The command that we remain in Christ implies that we are already in union with Christ otherwise how could we remain? Since it is a command for us to take action, it also implies that we can stop remaining in Christ.  These 2 implications, taken together, show us that the verse is talking about our communion with Jesus not our union with Jesus. We are never commanded to be in union with Christ, but we are commanded to stay in communion with Christ. The source of life is being in Him. The source of fruitfulness is remaining in Him.

Jesus states the second condition as an addition to the first, "And I in you" (καγω εν υμιν). There are 3 ways to understand the clause (Morris, John, p. 670).  1) Jesus is commanding Himself to remain in them, but this makes little sense.  2) The second command is a continuation of the first one. "Remain in Me and make sure I remain in you." 3) The second condition is actually a promise predicated on the first condition. "Remain in Me and I promise to remain in you." This makes the best sense of the verse (Meyer, John, p. 430). We can only take care of our part in the relationship.  We cannot make Jesus remain in us. He promises to remain in us on the condition that we remain in Him so the two conditions are really one condition. The result of this mutual living together is fruit bearing.

The vine does not block its life flow into the branches, but the branches might block the life flow from the vine.  Jesus does not disconnect from us. We disconnect from Him, and the result is fruitlessness. Personal, persistent and continuous intimacy with Jesus produces fruitfulness because He promises that His life will flow into us as we remain connected to Him. Our continuous communion with Jesus unleashes the power of His spiritual life flowing into us to produce fruit.

THE GARDENER'S JOB

There are two levels of fruitlessness in the analogy of the vine and the branches (John 15:2). There are "no fruit" branches and "some fruit" branches, but both are still branches (Christians). God, the Father, is the gardener. He intends that all branches will bear "much fruit" so He cultivates the branches in order to make them fruitful.  What does the gardener do to make us fruitful Christians?

LEVEL ONE, NO FRUIT CHRISTIANS: "Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away." The verb translated "takes away" (αιρει) has three possible meanings (BAGD, p. 24). The first meaning is to lift up or pick up. The verb is used of picking up stones to stone Jesus (John 8:59). The second lexical meaning is to lift up and carry.  The man Jesus healed by the pool of Bethesda lifted up and carried his pallet (John 5:8,10,11,12). The third meaning is to take away or remove with the sense of killing someone.  The crowds screamed about Jesus to Pilate, "Away with this man" (Luke 23:18). So which interpretation would be correct in John 15:2?

Many translations understand the verb in the sense of take away, remove or cut off.  This interpretation would be a judgmental action, and verse 6 is used to bolster the argument that this is an act of judgment by God. Some even view it as the "sin unto death" where God removes a person from this life (1 John 5:16). I think it is better to understand the verb in the sense of lift up. This fits better with the sequence of "no fruit" and "some fruit" in this verse. It also conforms to the normal process of gardening. The branches of the vine grow heavy and trail across the ground. If left on the ground they not only become fruitless but eventually rot. The gardener's first job is to lift up the branches so that they can become fruitful.  God does this in our lives whenever we become fruitless because we are mired in the dirt of life. God's first action with fruitless Christians is not to condemn us but to assist us. He lifts us up from the dirtiness of the life into which we have fallen.

LEVEL TWO, SOME FRUIT CHRISTIANS: "Every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit." The verb translated "prune" (καθαιρει) originally meant to clean, sweep or cleanse (NIDNTT, 3:102). The noun form was used as a technical term in agriculture for the use of chemicals to get rid of parasites or fungus. The gardener cleanses the branch of impurities and cuts away the extra woody growths that will hinder the production of fruit. The gardener's goal is to help he branch produce more fruit.

God, the spiritual gardener, takes both of these actions in our lives as needed.  When we become mired in the dirt of life and stop producing fruit, God lifts us up so we can grow spiritually. When we are struggling to produce fruit because parasites are affecting our lives or distractions are impeding our growth, the gardener cleanses us with the insecticide of grace and cuts away the distractions in our lives.  He will not let us continue as we are but will work to clean us up and prune us down.  We may not like the process, but the product is God's luscious fruit.