John 15:1-2 tells us, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 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.”

Throughout the ages there have been several ways that this passage - and other like it - have been understood.

There are at least three traditional interpretations to this passage, and one that I believe is the proper way to understand it, which does justice to all of scripture.

1.  For some, these branches are true believers who have lost their salvation because they were cut off from Christ.

2. For others, these burned branches are Christians who will lose rewards but not salvation on the day of judgment (1Co 3:15). But this is probably not true because Jesus was speaking of dead branches.

3. For still others, these burned branches refer to those professing to be Christians who, like Judas Iscariot, are not genuinely saved and therefore are judged. Judas, a disciple of Jesus, seemed like a branch, but he did not truly believe. Therefore, he was cut off; his fate was like that of a dead branch. Given John’s concern to make committed disciples of his readers and Jesus’ goal to bring people into a continuing relationship with himself, this view provides a healthy balance. It keeps the decision of destiny as God’s responsibility while preserving an emphasis on our responsibility to “remain” in the relationship. In any case, the verse is not so much aimed at creating discomfort and doubt as it is in teaching the importance of daily connectedness with Christ.

4. (These three points courtesy of the Life Application study bible)

It is this third point that I want to extrapolate and defend because I believe that what it expresses is what is properly in view in John 15. If we examine the passage closely we see that in v2 it says, “every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away…” (Emphasis added). So clearly there are branches that are in Christ, in some sense, that are removed for the purpose of lacking fruit. But how would the Jew have understood this when hearing our Lord say these things? He or she would have remembered what the Lord said in Jeremiah 2:21, “Yet I planted you a choice vine, wholly of pure seed. How then have you turned degenerate and become a wild vine?” as well as Isaiah 5:1,6 which says “ I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and briers and thorns shall grow up; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.” and still another passage that might come to mind is Psalm 80 which speaks of Israel as a vine brought out of Egypt. The Jews would have understood that Jesus is now calling himself the vine and the true Israel, and that all those who were in covenant with God have been on Christ for the entire history of redemption. This being the case however, not all these who were in covenant with God and on the vine that is Christ were saved. We see elsewhere in the NT, in Hebrews 10:29 that there are those who can be sanctified by the blood of the covenant (Christ’s blood) and yet trample it underfoot and outrage the “Spirit of grace.”

The bible is clear, that there are those who are in covenant with God (attached to the vine) by their inclusion to the covenant by the covenant sign, either circumcision in the OT or by baptism in the NT and that because they do not possess the substance of that covenant - salvation in Christ - they bear no fruit and are broken off and burned as covenant breakers just as Hebrews 10:29 tells us.

So, since this is the case we must be sure that we work out our salvation with “fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12) and ensure that we are drawing nearer to the Lord Jesus everyday as he is our true hope and savior in all things, not just a ticket in to heaven.

Further study:

Hebrews 7:25, Hebrews 11:6, James 4:8