In this short series I want to show why every believer in Christ should thank God for his work in pruning, chastening, humbling, and trying him or her. I doubt that many Christians thank God for such things when they are telling the Lord what things they are thankful to him for. I doubt many say "thank you Lord for whipping me" or "thank you Lord for that great trial." First, we will speak of the good that comes from the pruning work of the Lord on the fruitful branches that are in him the true Vine.
Pruning the Branches of the Vine
"1 I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3 You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. 5 “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. 7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. 8 By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples." (John 15: 1-9 nkjv)
The first thing I want to call the reader's attention to is the fact that every Christian is one who "abides" in Christ Jesus and one in whom Christ abides. If a professing Christian does not abide in Christ he shows that he is not a true Christian, being a branch that does not abide in the vine, a branch that had been grafted into the vine but which did not form a vital connection with the vine. After all, not all grafts are successful in forming a life connection with the vine. Had there been a vital connection with the vine so that the life-giving sap entered into the graft, there would have been fruit. The fact that a branch bore no fruit and withered and died shows that though the graft was stuck into the vine it did not form a life connection with the vine.
The unfruitful Christian is doomed to be thrown into the fire and burned. His attachment to Christ was shallow, a vital union with Christ the Vine not having been established.
The next thing I want the reader to notice is that a person who is abiding in Christ has the "words" of Christ abiding in him or her, as Jesus said. As we will see, it is the abiding presence of Christ and his words in a believer that makes him fruitful.
Gardeners understand the concept of pruning vines and trees. They understand why it is necessary for the health of the plant and for greater fruitfulness. Dead foliage must be removed. Too much plant growth can block out sunlight from parts of the vine or tree. So, how is the work of the Father, the vinedresser, performed? We know what it is designed to do, i.e, to increase fruit and make the fruit better. But, not all Bible teachers agree on how this pruning is done in the life of the true believer.
Some say that God sent afflictions and trials are the ways God prunes true believers. Though I agree that these do work for the good of believers (and I will have more to say on that in the next chapters), yet I do not think this is the pruning instrument Christ has in mind in the text. The Bible speaks of pruninghooks, which is a pruning knife, a cutting instrument. So, what pruning knife does the Father use? And, what is it that he is cutting off?
We know that the unfruitful branches are "cast out" or "cut off" from the vine, but what is cut away from the fruitful branches? The fruitful branches are not cut off from the vine, but some unhealthy growth on those branches are cut off, or lopped. In the text this lopping off, this pruning, is a "cleansing." In both pruning and cleaning something is removed or separated from the thing being pruned or cleansed. When we bathe we remove the dirt and grime, the filth. The same thing occurs in circumcision. Something is cut away, i.e. a man's foreskin. The same thing also occurs in harvesting grain, in separating grain, such as separating wheat from tares, or chaff. The same idea is also seen in shaping quarried stone into a perfect ashlar stone fit for the temple of the Lord. The stone mason, or sculptor, must chip away at the rough ashlar in order to produce the finished product.
Thayer in his Greek lexicon says this about the Greek word for "clean" (katharos) in the above text: "...in a similitude, like a vine cleansed by pruning and so fitted to bear fruit, John 15:3." In the above text about pruning, Christ says "you are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you." By being cleaned by the word Christ means "now are you fit to bear fruit." Jesus is saying: "now you are cleansed, purged, pruned, by the word I have spoken to you."
Bible teachers know that a large part of teaching truth is to rid students of their false ideas, to un-teach them. Often this must be done before students can see the truth. They must be dispossessed of their errors before they can possess the truth. Dr. Albert Barnes in his excellent commentary on our text wrote:
"Now ye are clean - Still keeping up the figure καθαροί katharoi. It does not mean that they were perfect, but that they had been under a process of purifying by his instructions all the time he had been with them. He had removed their erroneous notions of the Messiah; he had gradually reclaimed them from their fond and foolish views respecting earthly honors; he had taught them to be willing to forsake all things; and he had so trained and disciplined them that immediately after his death they would be ready to go and bear fruit among all nations to the honor of his name."
There is a cause and effect relationship between knowing truth and bearing fruit. Believing religious errors will decrease the quality and quantity of fruit. Jesus connected "fruit" with what activities, or works, that people do when he said of false prophets "you will know them by their fruits."
"15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? 17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them." (Matt. 7: 15-20 kjv)
If a tree or branch is not bearing good fruit, then it reveals that it is not good. Every good tree or branch will bear good fruit. If a professing Christian is not bearing good fruit, then he shows thereby that he is not a true believer, but a hypocrite. Jude agrees, writing:
"These are spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried about by the winds; late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots; raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame; wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever." (Jude 1: 12-13 nkjv)
The people Jude is describing are wicked and spiritually dead even though they profess otherwise. Jude says they will spend eternity in darkness and that they are "twice dead," hardly a description of a true believer. When he says they are "clouds without water" he means they are pretenders to true salvation. He also says such people are "without fruit," meaning without good fruit, for they do produce, as Jesus said, "bad fruit," because they are bad trees.
Believing truth or right doctrine, healthy doctrine, will produce right behavior. So Jesus taught when he said: "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." (John 7: 17 kjv) A believer who is "doing" God's will, via his works, shows that he knows "the doctrine" of God.
Now let me give some examples where a false belief causes a believer to either produce less fruit or bad fruit. First, I think of the errors of the "Primitive" Hardshell Baptists. They believe that it is wrong to preach the gospel to those who are not saved. In several posts of the past I have cited from the minutes of the Forked Deer Association of Primitive Baptists for the year 1905 when they declared non-fellowship for any who believed that the "commission was given to the church and not to the apostles or ministry," or "that it is the duty of the ministry to admonish the alien sinner to repent and believe the gospel."
Obviously, it was not those who believed that the commission was binding on all Christians until the end of the age and that alien sinners should be admonished to repent and believe the gospel who held to serious errors, but it was the Hardshells who denied such truths. Further, such a false belief caused the Hardshells to not support the spread of the gospel to all everywhere and to not obey the Lord in that matter. Their false doctrine kept them from bearing good fruit.
Another one of their errors is in denying that a believer must persevere in his allegiance to Christ and his word to be finally saved. They teach a serious error when they say that a professing Christian can live a unrepentant life of sin and yet still be saved, or that he can depart from the faith and remain so and still be saved. When they tell their members such things, they are aiding and abetting those members in their failure to not persevere.
I am thankful that God has been pruning me for the past fifty five years or so and that the way he has done this is to show me my errors and bring me into greater truth. That has affected what I do and how I do it. When he delivered me from Hardshell and Hyper Calvinistic errors, he pruned me so that I have been bringing forth more and better fruit. So, I thank God for pruning me and pray he will continue to do so.
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