Words of encouragement

 

JOHN 15:2–3

One of the most difficult tasks in translating the New Testament is rendering into English a play on words in the Greek text. When that play on words branches (pun intended) into metaphors and into the relationship between our salvation and a life of holiness, it moves from “difficult” to “almost impossible.” Then add in John’s use of double meanings and nuances, and many translators go screaming into the night.

I was once asked about the relationship between “prunes” and “clean” in John 15:2–3: “Every branch [κλῆμα] of mine that does not bear fruit he takes away [αἴρει], and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes [καθαίρει], that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean [καθαροί] because of the word that I have spoken to you.”

Several things are going on here. 

First, κλῆμα is not the normal word for “branch,” which is κλάδος. Κλῆμα is more appropriate for the tendrils, the suckers that will never produce fruit and yet absorb life-giving nourishment. So the image is of the vinedresser removing anything that will take nourishment away from the fruit-bearing branches.

Life in the vine (i.e., Jesus) is intended only for those branches that can and will bear fruit. Branches able to bear fruit need to be pruned (καθαίρω) in order to bear more fruit. This verb can be used in a physical sense of pruning, but it can also mean “to clean,” such as when you sweep a floor clean. Jesus is starting to shift from a physical truth to a spiritual truth. He is concerned with the spiritual cleanness and purity as well as the fruitfulness of his followers.

While the pruning process is not painful to an apple tree or a vine, it can be painful to Jesus’ followers. 

Although we are to count all things in the context of joy, the snipping of God’s shears can be painful, whether it means losing a job, or friends, or security, or personal goals. The question is: Is our pruner all-loving and all-knowing? The answer, of course, is “Yes.”

As the disciples listened to Jesus and heard him talking about cutting off dead wood and pruning the new fruit on the vine, I suspect they were looking puzzled. 

(Perhaps most of the Upper Room Discourse puzzled them.) Jesus wants to assure them, now that Judas is gone, that they are not dead wood to be cut off and burned. They are true branches attached to the life-giving vine, Jesus. But that means the vinedresser will be snipping away at them. In fact, they have already been pruned back; they have already been purified by the message of the Messiah (feel the play on words).

These are wonderful words of encouragement to the disciples—despite all the ups and downs they have experienced and the big one that is yet to come (a crucified Messiah), they are firmly attached to the vine and have been prepared by God to bear much fruit. It has hurt, and it is going to hurt, but that does not mean the vinedresser doesn’t know what he is doing. In fact, like the disciplining of a son, the pruning is part of their assurance that God knows exactly what he is doing, and the end of the process is their own spiritual growth and the glory given to God through our fruit.

Author" Mounce, W. D. (2012). Play on Words (John 15:2–3).