Charles Spurgeon Commentary John 15:5-6

"I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for apart from me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned." — John 15:5-6 (ASV)

I am the vine, ye are the branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

The vine must either bear fruit or be good for nothing; and you, believer, must be vitally united to Christ, and bear fruit in consequence of that union, or else you will be like those fruitless vine-branches, of which our Lord said that men gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.

I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered: and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

The vine is of use for nothing but fruit-bearing; and if it does not bear fruit, it is good for nothing except to be burned. In the social economy of life, a man may be of some use however bad he may be; but a man who is in the nominal Church of Christ, and yet does not bring forth fruit to God, is of no use whatsoever. There is nothing to be done with him but to gather him up with the sere autumn leaves, and the decaying stalks of vegetation, to be burned in the corner outside the wall.

How trying is the smoke that comes from such a burning as that! We pastors sometimes get it into our eyes, and it fills them with bitter tears. I know of nothing that is more grievous to us than this putting out of the unworthy, this casting the fruitless vine branches into the fire that they may be burned.

For without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

And are there sufficient of them for that? It is enough to bring tears to one's eyes to think that there should be enough fruitless, unabiding, merely nominal members of Christ to be worth gathering up for a fire. Oh, this is a sad, sad thing! It is the grief of the Church, it is the sorrow of God's ministers; it ought to call for great self-examination in our own hearts that mere professors—those who apostatize after having made a profession of religion—do not seem to have been thought by the Saviour to be few and far between, but to be so many that men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.