Chapter 15

2021 - End of 14, Jesus says let's go.  Then we start with the vine.  Does not say, yet, where they are now.

The true vine.  This verse:

2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. [Jhn 15:2 ESV]

MSB note says the taken away branches are apostate Christians who were never really believers.  Their lack of fruit identifies them as not really being part of the vine, and so they are taken away.  But does that mean as we go along, or at the judgement?  The implication to me is that it will happen as we go along, because the vine bears more fruit after they are gone.  That would not be true at the final judgement.

2021-1 - We might also get into a whole thing here about whom Jesus is talking to with this?  Is this applied to all Christians, or just to his audience there in the upper room.  They would have heard it, I believe, as instruction specifically to them.  Only with the coming of the Holy Spirit might they have understood it to be universal.  In a sense, we could also see this as instruction to the church - to the members of the body.  It could even be seen as addressed to the Jews, since there is no talk of grafting.  I do note that the branches that are taken away are burned, not just piled up somewhere as useless.  They are destroyed.  Hmm...this most certainly would not have applied to any of the apostles still present there, because Jesus pronounces them all clean in the next verse.  He's made it clear up to here that the 11 still present are his.  No matter what they do, they will not be burned, so this verse must apply beyond the Upper room! 

vs 3 says the 11 are already clean.  They are saved, before they desert him just a few hours on.  

2021 - 2,  I think these vine verses are about Israel at the time of Christ.  ALL Israel was chosen, so all automatically attached to the vine.  But with the abrogation of the law, the setting aside of their favored no matter what status, changes must be made.  No more hangers on that don't produce, that don't move their allegiance to Jesus as Messiah.  Messiah was always coming, and the Jews had a bit of a pass until his arrival.  But that pass is expired now, and they either follow the Messiah or they have to go.  Removed with prejudice.   That's what this is about.  I think this makes a lot better sense than MacArthur's version.  All this about abiding is about believing in Jesus instead of the Law.  You must "rest" on Jesus and his promises, the words he brought, the things he's taught - it all must come down to him - or you're out.  It is not an either/or proposition depending on what you're most comfortable with.

2022 - Jesus has already said they are clean.  The clean don't need to be washed, except for their feet - where they contact the world all day every day.  He says it again in vs 3.  The word has cleaned them.  All these go here:

48 The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. [Jhn 12:48 ESV]

23 Jesus answered him, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. [Jhn 14:23 ESV]

3 Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. [Jhn 15:3 ESV]

2022 - Surely Jesus has spoken the saving word to them.  He has taught them that a new age is beginning - the church age, the age of the indwelling Holy Spirit, which will communicate with the spirit of all who believe.  So what he is saying about the vine and the branches tells us that if this Spirit is inside us, we will produce.  We must produce.  The branches, even those that do not produce, are originally attached to the vine.  They have to be.  Then, in vs 6:

6 If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. [Jhn 15:6 ESV].  He is "like" a branch.  Jesus seems to be saying that this is metaphor, and to be careful of reading too much into it, being too literal about it.  I think then, that the point is that many will claim to be branches.  Many will associate themselves with the true vine.  But not all will produce.  Some will walk the aisle because all their friends did, or because some preacher shamed them into it, or because they feel the urge to decide...but are too young or too untrained to understand what they are doing.  These are all outward indicators which can be simulated.  You can make yourself look like and act like a branch, but if you are not truly attached, there will be no real fruit.  There will be no Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is what distinguishes pretenders - even sincere pretenders - from the true branches.  Water and nutrients flow from vine to branches via the Holy Spirit.  Once the noncommittal separate from the proximity of the vine - that is, once they stop going to church, stop reading, stop learning - THEN they begin to wither.  It becomes obvious that they are receiving nothing from the vine.  Somehow they were faking it.  But once they are apart from the vine, they wither quickly.  They are gone.  And they were never saved.  They wither, and die, and are gathered up and burned at the end.  This is profoundly frightening.  These can still be saved...but only if by God's grace, he offers them salvation again.  They will be scarred and calloused towards it, having spent so much time exposed to it without being saved.  The odds are very low. 

Yet there are Christians who get off the road for a long time.  Pilgrim's Progress gets several chapters out of it.  And talks about the consequences of getting off the road after you're on it.  How do we tell the difference here?  We must treat all such as needing salvation.  We must treat all such as prospects for conversion, not as prospects for "rehab".  To prevent such things, we must abide.  Perhaps even these who were brought up correctly but not truly saved early, though they think they are, need to stay in church, since the word has made them clean, but they must stay - must abide - to truly become productive.  I don't know though.  This is a lot to read into Jesus talking to the 11.  Yet he does speak this verse to them...if you do not abide, you will be thrown away.  But the wording makes it seem as if he's telling them about others, rather than warning them about their own state.  No...he is applying it all to them also...

2024 - Looking this time at vss 1-11, I get the distinct feeling that these words are directed exclusively at the 11.  He is saying that the Law of Moses no longer applies.  That it is not in obedience to the Law that one rightly serves God, but it is in serving the Son.  Serving a written law, doing this that it says do, not doing what it says not to do....getting the jot and tittle right all day every day does not "bear fruit".  Bearing fruit is a living, dynamic, process, adapting to and changing with conditions.  No branch of the tree can bear fruit unless it is attached to and dependent on the vine itself.  Jesus says that now, from this point on, HE is the ONLY vine to which one can be attached and do the will of God.  And if you are not attached to JESUS, you are not attached at all, and you will dry out, be gathered up, and cast into the fire.  I do not think Jesus is threatening the 11 here.  And to make that clear and certain to them he reminds them in vs 3 that they are clean.  (But if that's what he means, why say clean instead of say "attached" to the vine?). 

2024 - Well...in vs 2 it says "...every branch IN ME that does not bear fruit..."  It uses the Greek preposition en.  The word is there in the Greek, not just implied.  How can a non-bearing branch that is attached (IN Christ) but does not bear fruit be taken away.  That is what it says, there must be an explanation.  The necessity of an explanation pushes JM to come up with this apostate Christian idea and say they were never really saved.  But I see no context at all for reaching so far.  Why would we think Jesus suddenly begins talking about apostates that were never saved?  There's no church yet, there are only Jews, and those who have physically seen Jesus on earth. 

2024 - Look at how vs 4 is worded:  "...neither can YOU unless you abide in ME."  Then he hammers home that he is speaking to them - the 11 - in vs 5 with this very specific language: "I AM THE VINE, YOU ARE THE BRANCHES."  Not "the Jews are the branches", not "the church members are the branches.  He is talking to them.  Judas has been cut off.  He was not really a branch.  We all know that.  Jesus says that if you aren't genuine, you will be cut off and burned.  BUT YOU ARE CLEAN!!!  That is not something he would have said to the world, that is not a generality, that is the 11.  John is the only remaining person on the planet who heard these words spoken, and now, after 50 years, he is sharing them so that they cannot be forgotten. 

2024 - Vs 6 does seem to do some generalizing, in that it says ANYONE, not YOU.  Perhaps here in this verse we get the concept of "false Christians", those who, like Judas, are right there in amongst the faithful, but who have a completely different and entirely selfish agenda for the "good" they are doing.  Jesus seems to say that their false works will fade with time, that they will do less and less, and eventually they will be discarded as to the work that needs doing.  And this is a bit thin.

2024 - And then 7.  Ask anything of the Father in my name, and you will get it.  I think this is about things needed to bear fruit.  Opportunity, protection, health, and so on.  This is ONLY to the 11.  They have been chosen by Jesus.  He has kept all but one.  They are entrusted to spread the message of Jesus to all the world.  Jesus is telling them that because of the purpose for which they are chosen, their resources on earth will be unlimited.  What they do in spreading Jesus' message, in beginning the church and establishing it as a permanent institution in the world, and in converting ultimately millions upon millions to Christianity, glorifies God - the mission of the Son if we remember - and so by glorifying the Son they too glorify the Father.  God sent the Son.  The Son sent the 11.  I think this is the parallel we need to adopt here in order to understand this passage.  We might well need to take this backwards to Chapter 13 also, and to everything from there through 16.  On through vs 11, this way of looking at it works.  See how Jesus repeats the theme that he is doing the will of the Father, and they are to do the will of Christ?  This is about the apostles.  Surely vs 16 corroborates this!

2024 - Now if this is so, and if Cullman is right and this is all written as a rebuttal to the Sect of John the Baptist, then what purpose does John have for including these personal instructions?  Perhaps that John the Baptist was NOT THERE!  It was the 11 who were given sole authority.  It is the 11 who are charged with God's work in the world.  To tie everything back to John and his disciples rather than to Jesus and his disciples is to be a non-abiding branch!  John the Baptist was neither the vine nor the vinedresser.  Those who are following him are going about the wrong work!  THEY are the branches that will be drying out, fading out, disappearing from history.  The 11 are the chosen.  YES!!!  This is the what and the why of these chapters in John's gospel!

2024 - And starting in 18, Jesus tells them how unique they are in the world.

2022 - This one:

8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. [Jhn 15:8 ESV].  Is all this about glorification?  Because that goes back to "I HAVE glorified my name, and I will glorify it again".  Jesus' reason for being here is to glorify his name.  Can we - must we??? - separate salvation from glorification?  Is this what Jed is always going on about?  No...because the withered branches are thrown into the fire.  Doesn't say their works are burned, it says they are burned.  No one saved - even ever so slightly saved - goes to hell.  I believe works are about crowns, works are about abiding - whether we live out what we profess very well or just a little - but works in no way affect salvation.  Works are evidence of faith, but works are not counted as faith.  Without works, faith is in question...

Is this what it says, or is this what I want it to say?  If we truly love Jesus, and so truly love the Father, wouldn't our aim be to glorify Him?  Glorify Them?  If we don't even try to bear fruit, we don't care about fruit, then we don't care about glorifying the Father.  How can we not care about that if we are saved?

This verse:

10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. [Jhn 15:10 ESV]

The way to a closer relationship with God, a true oneness with God, is to keep the commandments of Jesus.  There were two he talked about with the young ruler - Thou shalt love the Lord they God...and then also "Love your neighbor".  Then Jesus gave them a third one, a new one:  Love each other as I have loved you, Jn 13:34.  This is the whole covenant that we now live under.  We keep these three commandments, and we abide in him and he in us.  This is the state of things today.  Keeping commandments is loving Jesus, and God loves those who love His Son.  This is the whole thing distilled down to the essentials.

That  third commandment is repeated here, in vs 12.  I think that means I'm on the right track. 

These vss:

13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. [Jhn 15:13-14 ESV]

I would use this as a proof text for limited atonement. 

2021-1 - Further, it is a good verse for the Lordship of Christ.  We are not his friends just for saying that we are.  The visible demonstration - for ourselves and for others that see us - is that we follow his commands.  Even the ones we don't particularly like.  Even the ones increasingly incompatible with the culture.  Even the ones that are not PC.  We all make mistakes...so no one can judge this on the basis of a single positive or negative observation.  We must look at what characterizes the life of those who claim friendship with Christ.

We might also see this verse as expanding what is being said to all men.  Why else would we need a way to identify friends? 

2021 -2, This verse:

14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. [Jhn 15:14 ESV].  There is nothing here about praying the prayer and getting yourself baptized.  If we do what Jesus says, we are his friends, and he died for his friends.  He saved his friends.  We have built all this confession, sinner's prayer stuff on air.  Doing as he commands at all times with any audience covers it all.  It is a mindset, not a work.  Even praying the prayer is a work.  If you depend on that prayer, you've missed it.  It is about keeping his commandments.

Another "dilemma":

15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.

Why does Paul so often call himself doulos if he is friend instead of servant?  Unless this statement is only to the 11.  And I just don't see John's account as jumping back and forth between intended audiences here, almost from verse to verse.   I think we showed above that the burnt branches indicate that the intended audience is all Christians.  (2021-2...Nope.  Audience is Jews.)  I don't think John is the one who decided that's who he meant these verses for.  Jesus knew the time was at hand.  He knew these would be his last instructions, not only to the apostles, though perhaps especially to them, but to all who would come after.  Maybe it is in the word used for "servant"?  Nope.  Doulos is the word Jesus uses. So why, Paul?

Here is one, kind of "hiding" in the middle of this discourse:

16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. [Jhn 15:15-16 ESV]  A proof text for irresistible grace I think...or maybe unconditional election...or both - or at least for election as opposed to purely free choice.  And if we are chosen, if we are friends, then the Father answers our prayers.

2022 - And if we are chosen, we bear fruit, we abide, we love, we obey his commandments.  We must be chosen, we do not choose.  And on in vs 19b, the world hates us because the world knows that we were chosen, and they were NOT.  It is jealousy, it is recognition of how it really works.  We are friends of God, and they are not, nor can they be, because He must CHOOSE THEM.  No wonder they hate!

Then Jesus tells them that the world is going to hate them for what they do.  This is a key verse:

19 If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. [Jhn 15:19 ESV]

2021-1 - Here is the danger of adapting the means of the world, the music of the world, the philosophy of the world to the church.  If the church is not hated, the church has it wrong.  Or...is this only applicable to individuals?  What about individuals in the church who insist on dogged, or should I say dogmatic, adherence to the letter of the word?  If we are hated in the church for this, what does that say about those who hate us, disdain us, write us off as dinosaurs?

This worries me.  If the world loves you, then you are of the world.  If it hates you, then you are not of the world. The best thing is to be hated by the world.  Yet it is also true that the disciples had people around them all the time that loved them.  Other Christians loved them.  It was the deceivers that hated them, pursued them, and tried to kill them.  It was the established religions and civil governments that oppressed and persecuted.  It wasn't really so much about individuals but entities that hated them.

2021 - 2,  Today, the world's level of hatred toward Christians is rising.  Not every individual Christian gets singled out for hatred, but in general, Christians are more and more ridiculed, persecution is on the increase, churches are being burned, all kinds of religious practice is being outlawed.  The world wants Christian voices silenced, and by force is probably preferred.  This is what is meant here.  It doesn't mean that each of us must go out and get so in someone's face about Christianity that they hate us personally.  That's not what this is. 

This verse is a hard one:

22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. [Jhn 15:22 ESV]

This cannot possibly mean that if Jesus hadn't come, everyone would go to heaven.  He did not come to condemn!  MSB has a note, but I'm going to phrase it in my own words - so may be getting it wrong.  I would say that Jesus incarnation multiplied/amplified the guilt of all those who rejected him.  They heard his very voice, saw with their eyes, and yet decided to kill him instead of worship him.  It is these actions taken specifically against Jesus that is bringing the severest of punishment on them - and on us also.  It was a matter of faith before, and failing at that deserves damnation, but when you are blessed with seeing the Messiah himself, and you reject what your own eyes tell you, then your rebellion is inexcusable.  This can be tied right into the double punishment and to God's way of condemning at a point, and then letting the sin he condemned play out to it's inevitable end, proving that when God pronounced judgement in the first place, the situation was already beyond help.  It was not going to change.  The world in Noah's time would not have turned back to God if he had not destroyed it.  He gave them 120 years to repent after saying they had to be judged.  They ignored it, and got worse.  These condemned who saw Jesus have even less excuse than those of Noah's time.

2024 - Or if he had not come, their following the Law of Moses and believing in God would have been enough.  But once the Messiah came, and they refused to accept him as prophecy fulfilled, THEN they were truly guilty, no only of the violations of the Law, but of violating the principles behind the Law.  Even thinking of adultery or murder is now adultery and murder.  Before Jesus, this was not so.  But Jesus did come, and he did works that left no doubt, and even seeing him physically in the world they still chose to reject him for their own reasons.  This may well be only about those who saw Jesus in that 33 years.  Their faith was sight.  Ours is not.  Surely they are more condemned.

I think all this is brought on home in this verse:

24 If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. [Jhn 15:24 ESV]

Again, the works are the unimpeachable witness to the person of the Messiah.  Despite this witness, they still hate him.  There is no excuse.   We don't see the kind of miracles that Jesus is speaking of here.  But we see plenty of others.

2022 - And this is why those who were present and SAW the miracles are more guilty for rejecting than we are.  Man...that would mean this whole passage is about degrees of hell.  I just have a hard time thinking that is what Jesus means!  Why would he be talking about how much hotter hell is going to be for those of his own time than those of any other time?  Surely this is about the abrogation of the Law.  He has told them himself that the Law was insufficient, and yet they cling to it.  This was revolutionary to the Jews.  Yet the works that he did should have made it clear to them - to that generation and all who would follow - that something better to believe in than the Law had appeared.  Their belief, their worship, their loyalty and dedication should no longer have been to the Law, but to Jesus, as God incarnate on earth.  He is the true vine.  Those who pretend to leaving the Law behind, yet continuing to practice both the Law and Jesus, produce no fruit.  Production comes ONLY through Jesus, and splitting loyalties results in dead branches.  This is about the Jews!  Gentiles are also saved, but this discourse is about the Jews as the Law is abrogated by Christ!

2022 - Surely vs 25 confirms this:

25 But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: 'They hated me without a cause.' [Jhn 15:25 ESV].  "They" can only be a reference to the Jews who have rejected him.  He came to his own, and they would not receive him.  They means the Jews of Jesus time.  And so they are pruned out, and the producing Gentiles come in.

2021-1 - There is the old idea, based on universal atonement, that says Jesus died for all sins but one.  The only sin that any man can commit now that sends him to hell is to reject the completed work of Jesus Christ.  These verses, 22-25, are surely useful for making that case.  However, at this point, I believe atonement was limited, and that this has just been stated by John in 15:13.  Just the same, the rejection of Jesus despite all that he did to prove who he was is the "severest and deadliest" sin. 

I believe I am too worn out to discern anything more in this verse today.  The TCR has a footnote, 2, in verse 22 that just seems to be totally out of place.  The superscript just seems to be in the wrong spot in the text.  I checked the interlinear and doulos does not appear in vs 22.  That didn't make a difficult verse any less difficult.

2021 - 2 - I think this makes the same point that Jesus made when he explained why he began speaking only in parables.  It at least made the condemnation of non-believers a little less than if they completely understood it all.  Parables or not, the miracles were undeniable, and for not believing such obvious signs of the truth, for attributing them to Satan instead in order to NOT see them for the proof they were, brings multiplied, amplified, intensified guilt for sin.  To whom more is given, more is required.  In Jesus' day as in ours.

25 But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: 'They hated me without a cause.' [Jhn 15:25 ESV]  Here are the words being fulfilled in Jesus:

19 Let not those rejoice over me who are wrongfully my foes, and let not those wink the eye who hate me without cause. [Psa 35:19 ESV]

4 More in number than the hairs of my head are those who hate me without cause; mighty are those who would destroy me, those who attack me with lies. What I did not steal must I now restore? [Psa 69:4 ESV]

Their hatred had to be without cause.  There was no injury.  No harm to them from what Jesus said and did.  But they hated him anyway, making their guilt complete.

This verse ends chapter 15:

27 And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning. [Jhn 15:27 ESV]

Sure makes it sound like it is ONLY the 11 that the preceding applies to.  Surely does seem that way...

2021-1 - LOTS of time on 14 and 15.  Next year, read straight through them and spend the time on 16 and 17.  Just reading the rest of this...Already near 4 hours on these first two chapters.

2021-2, DID NOT get 16 properly studied.  So it is up again next time.

2023 - Read 15 yesterday.  I am still nagged by the question of who Jesus is really addressing here?  Is he speaking only to the 11 - because Matthias hasn't been chosen yet - and saying these things for them?  Or is he trying to help them better understand what the results of his coming will be?  Those who rejected him did so without cause, fulfilling many scriptures, as shown above.  Because of this, because of unwarranted rejection, they are guilty before God in a way none have ever been guilty before.  They didn't need faith, because they beheld by sight, and yet they decided to kill him instead.  Now combine this thought with Jesus saying they didn't know him because the Father had not revealed him to them.  So many of the Pharisees that attacked him were told point blank that it was because God was not allowing them to see him.  They were not his sheep, so they could not come, and for not coming they are the guiltiest generation in the history of the world.  They are even guiltier than us, with all our resources to read and study and convince ourselves of the genuineness of Christ, yet we still reject.  But we did not see the works.  (Jn 15.24).  You know, I think this chapter is finally falling into place in my head.  He IS addressing the 11, but he is TEACHING them, he is interpreting current events for them.  For instance, in 15.15, he is telling the 11 that they are now friends.  They are more than servants because he chose them for the role they will now play.  Those words are JUST to the 11.  Vss 18,19 apply obviously to all who follow Christ.  We are hated by the world.  Do, after going back and dealing with the nagging on Chapter 15, I'm moving on to today's reading in Chapter 16.