John 15:1-6 is one of the best texts refuting eternal security/perseverance of the saints. Of course, there is much more important material in this pericope than a warning that a true believer can lose one’s salvation. David Wenham offered the following commentary on this pericope in his book on Jesus’ parables:
The true vine (John 15:1-8)
The other passage in the gospels which emphasises fruit-bearing and warns of judgment is the famous chapter in John’s gospel about Jesus as the true vine. It begins with one of Jesus’ great ‘I am’ sayings which are so distinctive in John’s gospel: ‘I am the true vine’. Jesus goes on: ‘My Father is the farmer’, and then some verses later, ‘You are the branches’ (v. 5).
Two things are notable about this listing of the cast of the parable. First, Jesus’ identification of himself as the true vine is striking, since the vine was the traditional symbol of Israel as a nation, being used as such in numerous Old Testament passages and also on Jewish coinage, for example on that used during the war of AD 66-70. Second, it is notable that he speaks of his disciples as ‘branches’ of him as the true vine. These two things make sense together, and confirm what we saw when we examined Jesus’ use of the title ‘Son of Man’, namely that Jesus saw himself as the focus and representative of the new Israel and as the one through whom others could be members of the revolutionary people of God. One Old Testament passage that is of particular interest is Psalm 80, since the psalmist speaks of Israel as a vine planted by God (also as his ‘son’; so literally, Ps 80:15), and he prays both for the restoration of the vine and also for ‘the man at your right hand, the son of man you have raised up for yourself’ (Ps 80:8-19). The man in the psalm is undoubtedly the king under whom the people will be restored; so we have in Psalm 80 a remarkable combination of ideas that are important for Jesus: the vine, son of God, king and son of man. It is quite possible that the psalm is the background to Jesus’ teaching in John 15; he sees the psalmist’s prayer being fulfilled in himself—he is the King, ‘Son of Man’ and Son of God in whom the vine of Israel is being restored.
But the focus of John 15 is, as we have said, on fruit-bearing. Jesus speaks of a farmer tending a vine, cutting out non-fruiting branches—branches that would eventually be burnt—and pruning others to make them more fruitful. This was apparently normal practice: the non-fruiting branches would be cut out in the winter, perhaps in February or March, and then side shoots would be pinched out during the summer in order to ensure maximum growth of fruit on the main branches.
Jesus describes such viticulture as an exhortation to the disciples to ‘bear fruit’ and as a warning that the alternative is to be thrown away, to whither and to be burnt. The way to bear fruit is, as the passage stresses, for the branch to continue to remain firmly attached to the vine, or in other words to ‘remain in me’. The expression is a significant one: Jesus is not just the messenger of God who tells people how to enter the revolution and get eternal life; rather he is himself the embodiment of the revolution, and it is by being joined to him and keeping in living contact with him that people participate in the revolution. This makes sense in the light of what we saw about Jesus as king and Son of Man: Jesus is God’s promise Messiah and shepherd, who gathers the people of God together as one flock. It is one of the distinctive things about John’s gospel that he makes it very explicit that eternal life, the life of God’s promised revolution, is to be found in and through Jesus. That is implied in the other gospels and is sometimes explicit, as in Jesus’ great invitation to the weary and burdened to come to him and find rest (Mt 11:28); but it is John who says it most directly and with most emphasis.
But what does it involve in practice to remain in Jesus? The probable answer to that is suggested in a number of tell-tale references in John 15 to the ‘word’ or ‘words’ or ‘commands’ of Jesus. For example, ‘You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you’ (v. 3); ‘If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you’ (v. 7). The way to remain in touch with Jesus and his life and so to bear fruit is to hear and obey the words of Jesus, and in particular his command that sums up everything: ‘Love each other as I have loved you’ (Jn 15:12).
The passage has much in common with other parables we have looked at. Like the parable of the sower it speaks of the creative words of Jesus and of the responsibility to hear and to bear fruit. Like the parable of the wheat and weeds it speaks of Jesus as the initiator of the fruit-producing work—be is the sower of the god seed and the true vine—and of the gathering for fiery judgment of those who fail to bear fruit, i.e. the workers of ‘lawlessnness’ in Matthew’s parable and those not doing Jesus’ commands in John. Like the parable of the good Samaritan and others it speaks of obedience being expressed in love. (David Wenham, The Parables of Jesus: Pictures of Revolution [The Jesus Library; London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1989], 199-201)
