Abiding in Jesus, Living in Him (7)

 

 

“Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes (καθαίρει) it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean (καθαροί) because of the word which I have spoken to you.” John 15:2 – 3.

 

When we arrive at 15:6 we will come back to the first part of verse 2, about the Father taking away branches.

 

Notice that the Greek word for “prunes” is closely related in Greek to the word for “clean.” The idea of pruning was connected with the idea of cleansing, we see this in the Greek text as John relates the words of Jesus, and this takes us back to John 13:10 – 11, in which Jesus says, “…and you are clean (καθαροί), but not all of you.”

 

We want to think about both pruning and cleansing, for while the two overlap, they are also distinctive, and let us keep in mind that the goal of pruning in our passage is that the branches “may bear more fruit” (15:2). “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples” (15:8).

 

Why is pruning connected to cleansing? Why, in our passage in Greek, can we as easily say that the Father cleans the branch as say that the Father prunes the branch? We actually have this same concept in English.

 

When we encounter a messy or unkempt situation, we can say, “This mess needs to be cleaned up.” Or “This situation needs to be cleaned up.” We can be talking about an untidy room in a house, or a relationship, or an organization in disarray, or a garden that is unattended. We can also look at a tree that has been allowed to languish on its own, with branches and suckers growing every which way, with the branches carrying extraneous shoots, with dead wood here and there, and we can say, “This tree needs to be cleaned up,” by which we mean that it needs pruning.

 

We prune for the health of the tree, for the health of the branch. We prune to maintain the strength of the tree. We prune that the tree, or bush, might flower and that fruit trees might bear healthy fruit. There are also seasons in which to prune; all trees and all bushes should not be pruned at the same time, it is important to know the times and seasons and the characteristics of each living plant.

 

We prune to promote air circulation. We prune so that the branches complement one another. We prune to allow sunlight into the plant. We prune to prevent disease. Some plants require radical pruning on an annual basis, and some do not. Plants that have not been cared for often require radical pruning to bring them back to health, and then they only require a maintenance type of pruning. All pruning is a type of cleansing, caring for the plant, promoting the health of the tree or shrub.

 

We prune because we care about the plant. To the untrained eye that only sees the short term, pruning may look like destruction, but to the master gardener or arborist, pruning is all about the health of the plant – and the arborist and gardener see the future of the plant even as they prune – they see what is to come and they are confident in their pruning.

 

Our passage speaks to us of our relationship with the Father and the Son. We see our relationship with the Son, the Vine, as we abide in Him and He abides in us (15:5). We see our relationship with the Father in His pruning us, shaping us, so that we will bear more fruit.

 

All branches are to give glory to the Vine, they are all to display the Life of the Vine. The fruit which the branches bear is to give glory to the Father, the Vinedresser. In order to Biblically think about our passage, we must be theocentric, God the Trinity must be at the center of our thinking and understanding, this is not primarily about us, we are not the center of the passage anymore than we are the center of the Bible, of the Gospel, or of anything else. Yes, yes, yes, we are the objects of our Father’s great love in Christ as His sons and daughters, and we don’t want to mitigate that glorious reality in which we partake of the Divine Nature – but the Lamb and the Father are ever and always our Great Light and Glory (Rev. 21:23; 22:5).

 

How might we experience the pruning of our Father?

 

The Lord willing, we’ll pick this back up in our next reflection.