Abiding Produces Fruit; John 15:4-6
"Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit" refers to every believer who is in fellowship with the Lord but is not yet bearing fruit. There are two categories here: "He takes away" – the verb EIRO [e)irw] means to lift up. The tender shoots on the vine that come out and don't have any strength in themselves are propped up with stones. The branches are lifted up until it has strength on its own to survive. So category #1 in this verse is talking about the immature believer. This is not a carnal believer in the sense of an older believer who is in rebellion, this is a young immature believer who is in that stage between spiritual infancy and spiritual adulthood and has not grown enough to produce fruit. God comes along and props up the baby believer to get them to that point where they can produce fruit. Then there is another category in the second half of the verse: "every branch that bears fruit [the mature believer], he prunes it, that it might bear more fruit." The word for pruning here is the word related to cleansing: KATHAIRO [kaqairw]. It can be seen that there is a bit of the preposition KATA plus AIRO. John carefully chooses his words. There is a relationship here between this verb and another verb, KATHARIZO [kaqarizw] which means to cleanse or to purify. But they are different. The pruning process is a matter of purification. It is to produce more fruit in the life of the believer and this is momentum testing in the spiritual life or pruning testing. When the believer reaches spiritual adulthood he is beginning to produce fruit and God is going to come in with testing in his life with certain types of adversity that are tailor made to the personality, to the strength and weaknesses of the sin nature, to his background and everything he is. He is going to bring these tests into that believer's life so that he is forced to make decisions related to priority. The problem with the plant is that it just grows a lot of stems and leaves and therefore its energy is diverted in all kinds of directions other than the fruit production. What needs to be done is prune these leaves and stems off so that all of the energy of the plant is forced into fruit production. So once the believer reaches spiritual adulthood God brings this momentum/pruning testing to bear so that he is forced to decide that although there are a lot of good things in life that he likes to do he is not going to do any more, because they distract from doctrine and fruit production. So the whole process is designed to speed up and intensify growth.
We have seen that MENO [menw] emphasizes relationship, not just judicial position. We enter at salvation into a relationship with the Lord based on our day to day experience. This is our temporal reality and is called being filled with the Holy Spirit. We become sons of light with our adoption into the family of God, so we are positionally in the light. But as a result of our faith alone in Christ alone we are filled with the Spirit, which we can lose, and we are to walk by means of the Holy Spirit—also called "walking in the light in Ephesians 5—and which in this passage is called "abiding in Me." All of these terms are synonymous. What happens in terms of our Christian growth is that we often sin, and outside the sphere of light is darkness. Darkness is tantamount to sin nature control; we are in carnality. The instant we sin we are out of the light. Positionally we are still in the light but practically we are out of the light and we are walking in darkness. The only way to recover is through the use of 1 John 1:9. When we admit or acknowledge our sins to God we are instantly forgiven, we recover the filling of the Holy Spirit and we are restored to fellowship with Jesus Christ, so that we are once again abiding in Christ.
KATHAIRO means to make clean. It is different from KATHARIZO which means to cleanse or to purify. What Jesus is saying here is, "I am going to make you clean." It is a process. KATHAIRO is different from KATHARIZO in that KATHARIZO is what happens with 1 John 1:9 and the believer is cleansed and purified instantaneously and back in fellowship. But KATHAIRO indicates a process: "I am making you clean." It is what is called progressive sanctification. At the instant that we are identified with Christ in terms of the baptism of the Holy Spirit we are positionally sanctified—we are the sons of God, we are sanctified, we have had imputed to us the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. But our progress in the Christian life is dependent upon our time in fellowship, and the more we are in fellowship the more there is spiritual growth. That is the process, so it is called progressive sanctification, the process from spiritual infancy toward spiritual maturity. The spiritual growth area is called "walking" or "abiding in me." It is our continuous fellowship with Jesus Christ. This is the arena of forward momentum. We are not saved to sit around in diapers!
John 15:3 NASB "You are already clean." Here Jesus chooses a word for "clean" that is KATHAROS [kaqaroj], the noun. The word can refer to salvation cleansing or it can refer to the cleansing that takes place in the spiritual life. So we have to remember our context. Jesus is having an on-going discussion with the disciples, going back to the initial foot-washing episode in chapter 13 where Jesus made the comment that "You are all clean, but not all of you." That was a reference to Judas Iscariot not being saved. When He made the statement, "You are all clean," that was identical to the statement He makes in John 15:3. He is using "clean" to refer to salvation. So He is not talking about KATHAIRO, as in the previous verse. "… because of the word which I have spoken to you." What is the word that Jesus spoke to them? The gospel. Now He moves from salvation doctrine to spiritual life doctrine. They are already saved; now the issue changes. The issue now is "Abide in me." He is talking about what is necessary to experience spiritual growth.
John 15:4 NASB "Abide in Me, and I in you." This has to do with relational fellowship between the believer and his Lord; "As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me." The point is, no matter how much activity you are engaged in, no matter how moral your life might be, no matter what religious activity you might participate in, it is not fruit unless you are in fellowship with Jesus Christ. Unless you are abiding in Him all you are doing is producing wood, hay, and straw.
John goes back to the analogy. John 15:5 NASB "He bears much fruit." This is the mature believer; "for apart from Me you can do nothing." It is one or the other. Either the believer is walking under the control of the sin nature or he is filled with the Holy Spirit. Unless he is in fellowship with Christ he cannot produce anything of eternal value.
The warning. John 15:6 NASB "If [3rd class condition: either you will or you won't] anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch, and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned." Many read this and jump to the conclusion that this is talking about the fires of hell. Just because the Scripture mentions fire does not mean that it is talking about eternal judgment in the lake of fire. 1 Corinthians 3:9-12 very clearly speaks of fire and the subject is the judgment seat of Christ where every believer is evaluated according to his spiritual production while on the earth. There the fire will test the quality of each believer's works. It is not the lake of fire, eternal condemnation. So verse 6 here is talking about divine discipline on the believer, not loss of salvation.
John 15:7 NASB "If [maybe you will and maybe you will not. It is up to volition] you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you." Personal relationship, listening to the Word of God, obeying His commandments. You have a relationship with doctrine, you are submissive to doctrine, applying it in your life. Not just anybody can get their prayers answered. This is standard in every dispensation. The Psalmist said, "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me." We have to fit God's protocol for prayer. We have to be in fellowship and we have to be growing, advancing in spiritual life. This is abiding, remaining, walking in fellowship with the Lord. Then we have the prayer promise of this verse. But it is not anything you wish, because if you are abiding with Him your thinking is being transformed by His Word, so that you know what to pray for that will be in His will. 1 John 5:14—"according to His will."
John 15:8 NASB "By this [the prayer that is the result of letting doctrine abide in your life, the process of spiritual growth] is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit." Glorification of God comes through spiritual maturity, through fruit production. That is the goal in the spiritual life. The purpose for our salvation is to glorify God to the maximum, and that doesn't happen until spiritual maturity because fruit bearing doesn't happen until spiritual adulthood. "… and so prove to be My disciples." The word "prove" comes from the verb GINOMAI [ginomai] which means to become. So we see from this passage that the word "disciple" has many different shades of meaning. Here He is talking about becoming disciples. The word basically means to be a learner or a student. There were many disciples that didn't follow Jesus. They were believers but they didn't follow Him. He is talking about the essence of true discipleship as spiritual maturity. So here He is using the word in the sense of a true follower who goes all the way with His teaching. It doesn't always mean that but He is using it that way here. Disciple is not a synonym for believer. A disciple is one who is committed to spiritual growth and spiritual maturity.
John 15:9 NASB "Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love." It is relational here, not positional. Now we come back to the theme of love. How did all of this get started? Jesus gives a new commandment in John 13:34, 35—"that you love one another, even as I have loved you." Jesus uses the word "love" 27 times in the upper room discourse. This is the major emphasis in this entire discourse. The emphasis is on what it means to love one another and what it means to love Jesus Christ. In this verse the love is relational, not positional. It is the experience of love.