Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away [ airei (G142 )]; and every branch that beareth fruit he purgeth it [ kathairei (G2508 )], that it may bring forth more fruit. There is a verbal play upon the two Greek words for "taketh away" and "purgeth" х airein (G142) ... kathairein (G2508)], which it is impossible to convey in English. But it explains why so uncommon a word as "purgeth," with reference to a fruit tree, was chosen-the one word no doubt suggesting the other. The sense of both is obvious enough, and the truths conveyed by the whole verse are deeply important. Two classes of Christians are here set forth-both of them in Christ, as truly as the branch is in the vine; but while the one class bear fruit the other bear none. The natural husbandry will sufficiently explain the cause of this difference. A graft may be mechanically attached to a fruit tree, and yet take no vital hold of it, and have no vital connection with it.
In that case, receiving none of the juices of the tree-no vegetable sap from the stem-it can bear no fruit. Such merely mechanical attachment to the True Vine is that of all who believe in the truths of Christianity, and are in visible membership with the Church of Christ, but, having no living faith in Jesus nor desire for His salvation, open not their souls to the spiritual life of which He is the Source, take no vital held of Him, and have no living union to Him. All such are incapable of fruit-bearing. They have an external, mechanical connection with Christ, as members of His Church visible; and in that sense they are, not in name only but in reality, branches "in the true Vine." Mixing, as these sometimes do, with living Christians in their most sacred services and spiritual exercises, where Jesus Himself is, according to His promise, they my come into such close contact with Him as those did who "pressed upon Him" in the days of His flesh, when the woman with the issue of blood touched the hem of His garment.
But just as the branch that opens not its pores to let in the vital juices of the vine to which it may be most firmly attached has no more vegetable life, and is no more capable of bearing fruit, than if it were in the fire; so such merely external Christians have no more spiritual life, and are no more capable of spiritual fruitfulness, than if they had never heard of Christ, or were already separated from Him. The reverse of this class are those "in Christ that bear fruit." Their union to Christ is a vital, not a mechanical one; they are one spiritual life with Him: only in Him it is a Fontal life; in them a derived life, even as the life of the branch is that of the vine with which it is vitally one. Of them Christ can say, "Because I live, ye shall live also:" of Him do they say, "Of His fullness have all we received, and grace for grace." Such are the two classes of Christians of which Jesus here speaks.
Observe now the procedure of the great Husbandman toward each. Every fruitless branch He "taketh away." Compare what is said of the barren fig tree, "Cut it down" (see the notes at Luke 13:1-9, Remark 5 at the close of that section). The thing here intended is not the same as "casting it into the fire" (John 15:6): that is a subsequent process. It is 'the severance of that tie which bound them to Christ' here; so that they shall no longer be fruitless branches in the true Vine, no longer unclothed guests at the marriage-feast. That condition of things shall not last always. "The ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous." (Psalms 1:5). But "every branch that beareth fruit" - in virtue of such living connection with Christ and reception of spiritual life from Him as a fruitful branch has from the natural vine - "He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit." Here also the processes of the natural husbandry may help us.
Without the pruning knife a tree is apt to go all to wood, as the phrase is. This takes place when the sap of the tree goes exclusively to the formation and growth of fresh branches, and none of it to the production of fruit. To prevent this, the tree is pruned; that is to say, all superfluous shoots are lopped off, which would have drown away, to no useful purpose, the sap of the tree, and thus the whole vegetable juices and strength of the tree go toward their proper use-the nourishment of the healthy branches and the production of fruit. But what, it may be asked, is that rankness and luxuriance in living Christians which requires the pruning knife of the great Husbandman? The words of another parable will sufficiently answer that question: "The cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful" (see the notes at Mark 4:19). True, that is said of such hearers of the word as "bring no fruit to perfection" at all. But the very same causes operate to the hindrance of fruitfulness in the living branches of the true Vine, and the great Husbandman has to "purge" them of these, that they may bring forth more fruit; lopping off at one time their worldly prosperity, at another time the olive plants that grow around their table, and at yet another time their own health or peace of mind: a process painful enough, but no less needful and no less beneficial in the spiritual than in the natural husbandry. Not one nor all of these operations, it is true, will of themselves increase the fruitfulness of Christians. But He who afflicteth not willingly, but smites to heal-who purgeth the fruitful branches for no other end than that they may bring forth more fruit-makes these "chastenings afterward to yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness" in larger measures than before.