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Today’s passage possesses nuances which are often missed because of our religious training inserts a Heaven and Hell binary that isn’t in the allegory. Instead, I’m convinced this metaphor is how Jesus reveals precisely how He becomes our means, reality, and existence (way, truth, life). Allow me to poke around in your thinking:

If branches die when disconnected from the vine, and they are thrown out to be burned, are we really to believe Jesus is cryptically threatening his disciples with the Father’s wrath if they cease to live in Jesus? Historically & textually, we know that the only “Hell” the disciples heard Jesus speak about was Gehenna, their city dump. How exactly does this metaphor illuminate an eternal destination which didn’t exist in their understanding? Consider the passage and you decide if this passage is a threat of Hell, or an explanation of how to stay close to Jesus after he leaves.

“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 does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. ³ Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. ⁴ Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. ⁵ I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. 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.” (John 15:1-6)

Each of these six verses is a self-contained thesis. Which statement resonates most with you? Did you hear a threat or kind instruction? Did you hear an admonition about your responsibility, or a statement that Christ will bear that responsibility? Does the word “if” trip you up? Does it feel contingent? The word also means“when” or “whereas”. Since the text is describing (indicative) not prescribing (imperative) in the present tense (not future), Jesus can’t be threatening us, but explaining how spiritual connection works behind the scenes.

Now add to this the next layers of Jesus’ thesis.

“If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” (V7)

 “…so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.” (v. 16)

If abiding, means subscribing to the Christian religion, then isn’t 1/3 of the world getting “whatever they wish” or “whatever they ask”? This proves surface level assumptions are not enough.

Let’s start from a clean slate. I’ll highlight a few terms to open up this teaching:

1. àlethioñ- (real, genuine, true)
2. georgós- (cultivator, farmer)

God, the Father cultivates the Vine (Jesus Christ). The branches (disciples) belong to and are a part of the vine, and the cultivation works by excision. We don’t grow by addition, but by subtraction.

1. aǐro-(carry off, destroy, execute, withdraw)
2. kathaîro-(prune, trim, make clean)
3. katharoi-(pure, clean)
4. méno-(stay, exist, keep on, wait in, remain)note**-ALWAYS subjunctive, i.e. ongoing present action…thus ontological.

In other words, Jesus is revealing how they can find him, after he dies. He showing “the Way, Truth, & Life.”

A branch that is not connected to the source of life (existence), doesn’t actually exist, isn’t real and is eventually consumed by Reality. We (branches) cannot bear fruit on our own. We are nothing apart from God. We become our real, genuine, and true self, only by finding ourself (our true existence) in Christ, who says to us: “you are already clean.” (v.3)…our feet are washed.

“The existence of God (I AM who I AM) is existing in and as Christ Jesus (I AM the True vine), and our existence only exists as an extension of Christ’s existence in God’s existence. Or as James Finley always says: “The infinite existence of God is lovingly existing itself in and as our existence in our nothingness apart from God.”

The context upholds this admonition, not a threat. Jesus is leaving the disciples and he’s telling them how to remain connected to him. He’s explaining a new spiritual horizon for them because they have not experienced the living, true, life and existence of Christ divorced from his physical existence.

The cautionary message from this metaphor is: when we lose awareness that we exist in Christ and that our very life is a function of Christ living through us (bearing fruit), then the “not remaining” (loss of the present ongoing action of existing in God, i.e. distracted), our true, genuine, or alive self begins to dis-integrate and die (lose it’s reality…become false).

Father “farmer” then collects all false (withered)and disconnected (died) pieces, and prunes back all that is living (real), and consumes it all (cleans-play on words airo & kathairo) unto himself, the all consuming fire of God. The fire transforms all things into the fire itself, or if it can withstand the fire, it is purified by the fire. This isn’t a threat of Dantés inferno, it’s Jesus ensuring that nothing false can ultimately exist, and that which does, exists by consummation & excision.

Fruit bearing is the test for divine connection, and the fruit is the love of God. God loves Jesus and then Jesus loves us, and our fruit is to love others as we have been loved.(v.10). We only truly exist in love, and the evidence of our true existence is our loving others. Nothing real despises another. God loves his enemies and asks us to do the same.

“If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar..(pseudo-falsehood)” (1 John 4:20)

The True (real, authentic, genuine) Vine is what makes us true, real, authentic and genuine. As we rest, chill, relax, dwell, or abide hidden in Christ and found in God, we become the most real version of ourselves, the pseudonyms die and are burned. This is accomplished in spiritual union with God, here and now (ongoing action) rather than as a reward after we die.

This sets up the big question. How do we get “whatever we ask?“ Any contemplative knows this answer. The true self, grafted into the true vine, ultimately desires what Christ desires, and that is God. Only the false self, detached from life, over-desires the temporal things of this world. Thus when the life-flow of the vine reaches the branch, the branch asks only to experience more of the love of God. Only a dead part seeks something other than life and reality. Jesus then bakes this idea out in verses 18-25. Adding “…in Jesus name” to prayers doesn’t make them come true. Prayers become reality in alignment with who Christ is.

I pray this textual exegesis opens these sacred teachings to us…that we can be free from religious overreach, oppression, and threat of compliance, unto the experience of love and life, where God the Father prunes us, and Christ supplies the love and life of God to us. May we all recognize the countless times each day, we “dry up” and “cease to abide” (forget) and may the love and Spirit of God, call us back, pruning us into our true existence in God.

The most immediate way to God is to lop off something false, or to just get real. To abide…sit still.