John 15:3Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Thus the word of the Savior cleanses us, although the husbandry done upon us is attributed to God the Father. For He is His living and sharpest Word, “piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb 4:12).

Penetrating to the depths of each soul, and having, as God, the hidden intention in each one open before Him, He subjects our vain undertakings to sharp cutting through the operation of the Spirit. This, in my judgment, we must regard as cleansing. But what is able to profit us in the pursuit of virtue He causes to increase for fruit-bearing, evidently with respect to piety.

Therefore, if the husbandry done upon us is accomplished most perfectly by the Father through the Son, then the excessive and malicious effort of our opponents is vain. How could it be otherwise? They try to prove that the Son is of a different nature from the Father and God, because He Himself is called the vine, while the Father is called the husbandman.

Let them reason again and understand clearly. He presents His disciples as clean not separately and apart, that is, without the Only-begotten and through the action of God the Father in them, but because they gave heed to His word. Therefore, just as the Father is Life-giver through the Son and in the Son, so also, I think, He must rightly be understood as husbandman or caretaker of our souls only through the Son.

But if our enemies think it necessary to cling to the falsehood once uttered, setting forth a doctrine opposed to us, and if, because Christ called Himself the vine, they feel compelled to assign a different nature to the Son, what finally prevents us from taking the same shameless road? By a foolishness equal to theirs, we may force them, even unwillingly, to withdraw from so childish and utterly senseless a notion.

For if, as they think, He is deprived of natural kinship with God the Father precisely because He is called the vine, and is wholly of another essence since vine and husbandman do not share one nature, why should we not oppose them with the same absurd and irrational argument?

We might say: must the care of those who practice husbandry benefit only the branches, and must the art of the husbandman benefit only the clusters hanging from the stems? Or will the nurse of the branches herself, that is, the vine, also need care, since the branches growing from her are joined and naturally united to her?

But this, I suppose, needs no proof. Even the opponent will at once agree with us that if there is no care for the stems, nothing good will come to the branches themselves.

Therefore, since Christ calls Himself the vine, and since the very stem of the vine must undoubtedly need the husbandman’s care, or else every harm will surely befall it, we shall finally have to reason in this way. The Son is like us and needs the Father’s care together with us, lest He Himself be changed into something other than what He is and lose His dignity, that is, His inherent immutability.

For this is where the childish objection of those accustomed to fight against God finally leads. But let this disease of great folly disappear, and let our discourse concerning the holy Apostles come before us.

“Already,” He says, “you are clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.” This is as though He said: the pattern of spiritual cleansing, in the Spirit and through the Spirit, has been perfected by the Father because of My word first in you. Behold, you have cast away the blindness of vain customs and worldly deadness, and are ready for fruit-bearing pleasing to God.

Behold, you have been freed from the useless and vain ritualism of the Jews under the law. My word has cleansed you. For you no longer live according to Moses, or according to the form of the letter of the law. You will not seek sanctification in food and drink, nor in teachings about purifications, nor in bloody sacrifices. Rather, in firm faith you hope to attain perfection, and through every good work you strive to please God.

For in these words He points to spiritual worship. Thus, He says, those who are to be cleansed will be like you. Having only just escaped the snare of the devil and been freed from the traps of idolatry, they will be taught no longer to live according to his laws. Rather, shaking off the uncleanness of ancient habits like useless dust, and thus becoming fit for the fruit-bearing of works of virtue pleasing to God through divine grace, they will be in communion with Me like branches.

Joined to Me by love, they will enrich the heart by the visitations of the Spirit. They will live by drinking the grace of My goodness, and will be nourished unto piety.

And when the Israelites are joined to Me by faith and themselves hang upon Me like branches, then, because of My word, they will receive cleansing into their mind. They will no longer devote themselves to the study of the letter. Nor, as now, will they give their heart to the forms of the shadow. They will bear fruit for God in true worship in the Spirit. “For God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (Jn 4:24).

Thus, at one and the same time, He clearly shows His disciples, as by an example, the future beauty of those who are to undergo cleansing. He also powerfully encourages them to acquire still richer virtue. He shows them that their effort and instruction from the teaching given to them, plainly the evangelical teaching, was not in vain. Through it they were to benefit all the inhabitants of the world, presenting themselves as an example to those who believe in Christ.

For it is written concerning the saints that one should look to the “outcome of their way of life” and imitate their faith (Heb 13:7). And Paul exhorts the servants of God to be imitators of himself (1 Cor 11:1).

For He said the same thing when He washed the disciples’ feet: “He who is washed needs only to wash his feet, for he is wholly clean” (Jn 13:10). Whence does water have so great a power that, touching the body, it washes the soul, unless the word is acting? And it acts not because it is pronounced, but because it is believed. For even in the word itself, the passing sound is one thing, and the abiding effect is another.

In the omitted passage Augustine cites Rom 10:10, Acts 15:9, 1 Pet 3:21, and Rom 10:8.

Christ, our vine and the husbandman with the Father, “loved the Church and gave Himself up for her” (Eph 5:25). But read the Apostle and see what he adds: “that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water through the word” (Eph 5:26). The property of cleansing is in no way ascribed to the flowing and vanishing substance, if it lacks the addition, “through the word.”

The word of faith has such power in the Church of God that, through one who believes, ministers, blesses, and sprinkles, it cleanses even a tiny infant. The infant is not yet able either to believe with the heart unto righteousness or to confess with the mouth unto salvation. All this is accomplished through the word of which the Lord says: “You are already clean through the word which I have preached to you.”

See, He Himself is the One who cleanses the branches, which is the work of the husbandman, not of the vine. He also made the branches His fellow workers. For even if they do not give growth, they nevertheless provide some assistance. Yet they do not do so of themselves, for He said, “without Me you can do nothing” (cf. Jn 15:5).

Hear their own confession: “What is Paul? What is Apollos? They are only servants through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each. I planted, Apollos watered” (1 Cor 3:5-6). That is, they did this insofar as the Lord gave to each of them, not of themselves. But what follows, “but God gave the growth,” He did not do through them, but by Himself. Such a work surpasses human weakness, surpasses angelic greatness, and belongs wholly to the triune Husbandman.

“You are already clean.” Certainly they are clean and must be cleansed. For if they had not been clean, they could not have borne fruit. Yet every one who bears fruit the Husbandman cleanses, that he may bear more fruit. He bears fruit because he has been cleansed. And in order to bear more fruit, let him be cleansed further.

For who in this life is so clean that he does not need continual cleansing? “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous, and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn 1:8-9). Let Him then cleanse the clean, that is, the fruitful branches, so that they may become more fruitful as they become cleaner.

“You are already clean through the word which I have preached to you.” Why did He not say, “You are clean through the Baptism by which you were washed,” but, “You are clean through the word which I have preached to you”? Surely because the word also cleanses in the water. Remove the word, and what is water but water? The word is added to the matter, and a Sacrament comes into being, as though it were a visible word.

For He spoke of this same thing when He washed the disciples’ feet: “He who is washed needs only to wash his feet, for he is wholly clean” (Jn 13:10). Whence comes this so great power of water, that by touching the body it washes the heart, if not from the action of the word? Not because it is pronounced, but because it is believed. For in the word itself the passing sound is one thing, and the abiding power another.

But what does Scripture say? “This is the word of faith which we preach,” says the Apostle. “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (cf. Rom 10:8-10).

Therefore it can be read in the Acts of the Apostles: “cleansing their hearts by faith” (Acts 15:9). And blessed Peter says in his Epistle: “Baptism now saves us, not as a washing away of bodily filth, but as the pledge of a good conscience” (cf. 1 Pet 3:21). This is the word of faith which we preach, through which Baptism itself is undoubtedly sanctified so that it may cleanse.

For Christ, who together with us is the Vine, and together with the Father is the Husbandman, “loved the Church and gave Himself up for her” (Eph 5:25). Read the Apostle and behold what he adds: “that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water, through the word” (Eph 5:26). Thus cleansing could in no way be attributed to the flowing and passing substance unless “through the word” had been added.

This word of faith has such power in the Church of God that it cleanses even an infant through the one who believes, who presents him, pronounces the blessing, and immerses him in the font. The infant himself is not yet able to believe in his heart unto righteousness or to confess with his mouth unto salvation (cf. Rom 10:10). All this is accomplished through the word of which the Lord said: “You are already clean through the word which I have preached to you.”

The Father is the vinedresser, Jesus is the grapevine, and the disciples are the branches. As the fruitful sap spreads from the vine through all the branches, and the branches can bear fruit only by sharing in the productive power flowing into them, so His disciples can receive divine life only from inseparable communion with Him.

This divine life will make them capable of everything that must be done for the Kingdom of God. As a branch broken off from the vine, deprived of its fruitful power, dries up, so His disciples can flourish only in uninterrupted communion with Him.

But as the branches’ share in the fruitful sap flowing to them from the vine must be revealed in an abundance of fruit, so the disciples must express their share in divine life by acting for the benefit of the Kingdom of God.

As the vinedresser cuts away branches that bear no fruit and only vainly exhaust the vital power of the vine, so those who do not manifest the power of divine life in action must be excluded from the Kingdom of God.

The very lack of this power in them already testifies that they are not truly penetrated by divine life. Therefore their communion with Christ is only visible.

But even fruitful branches constantly need the care of the vinedresser. They must be cut back and cleansed of bad growths and of everything that hinders the development of vital power in them.

So also the disciples who abide in direct communion with Christ and have received His divine life still need cleansing from everything foreign. This includes what remains from their former ideas, which hinders the unfolding of divine life in them and does not allow it to appear in corresponding activity.

And so the Lord begins an allegorical discourse, in which He portrays God as the vinedresser, Himself as the grapevine, and believers, first of all the apostles, as branches on this vine.

Verses 1-6. This figurative discourse is not a parable, because it lacks the distinctive feature of a parable: the portrayal of acting persons in the form of a historical narrative.

The thought expressed in this comparison is as follows. The innermost union between Christ and His faithful is as close as the union of the grapevine with its branches.

This union with Christ is the necessary condition for a man to bear fruits of truly good works.

One may belong outwardly to Christianity and yet not be in innermost spiritual union with Christ. In the absence of this inward communion with Christ, a man gradually loses the life communicated to him by Christ.

In such a case, the judgment of the vinedresser, God the Father, will in due time outwardly separate him from the society of Christ and condemn him to the sufferings of eternal fire.

But the more the faithful man manifests in his life the power of life communicated to him by Christ, the more God will assist him in virtue by His grace. He cleanses him from errors of the mind and vices of the heart.

Through His grace-filled word, Christ’s disciples had been cleansed to such a degree that they already belonged to His branches.

Therefore what is now required of them is to abide in Christ through constant and unwavering fulfillment of His commandments. With their whole being devoted to His teaching, they must abide in union with Him, without whom no one can do anything good.

In spring many shoots, or branches, grow from this vine. Yet not all of them are fruitful. Therefore, so that unfruitful branches may not exhaust the root, the vinedresser cuts them off.

He cleanses the fruitful branches of excess side shoots, so that all the sap may be directed into the forming clusters. Thus their size and weight increase, and more fruit is obtained.

If such pruning and cleansing is not done, either no berries are produced at all, or they are small and unripe.

Comparing the life of the grapevine with the life of the Apostles and of all members of the Kingdom of God, Jesus said that a vine branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it is nourished by the vine.

So also His followers cannot do anything good unless they are in constant union with Him. And as a vine branch is cleansed of everything hindering its fruitfulness, so His disciples, members of the Kingdom of God, are sent various trials.

These trials compel them to cast away everything that prevents them from bearing the fruits that Christ has the right to expect from them, and that He requires of them.

In time they would bring forth still more spiritual fruits in their life and activity. This cleansing through the word is not final or perfect, nor does it exclude further moral cleansing.

That further cleansing was accomplished by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon them, and was accomplished more and more throughout their whole life (cf. Jn 15:4).

Yet this cleansing through the word laid, so to speak, the foundation for their future and more perfect cleansing, or purity.

“You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.” Earlier the Heavenly Father was called the Vinedresser who cleanses the branches. Here the Savior of the world cleanses souls by His word.

This is because, as the Father works until now, so also the Son works (Jn 10:10). What is this word by which the disciples were cleansed?

Without doubt, the Savior’s teaching, so lofty and so different from the erroneous teaching of the scribes, greatly cleansed the disciples’ thoughts of various Jewish prejudices and errors.

Yet the Savior, repeating the words spoken at the washing of the feet, shows that this cleansing would not have followed if His teaching had not been joined to a mysterious grace-filled power. Without it, by His own word, they could have no part with Him (Jn 13:8).

Behold, then, the general relations of grace to believing souls. In spiritual life believers depend upon the Lord Jesus as vine branches depend upon the vine’s trunk.

Spiritual powers, like sap from the root into the branches, pass from Christ Jesus into believers. The Heavenly Father Himself is the Husbandman who raises every spiritual branch, every believing soul, if only it does not resist the good care of the heavenly Vinedresser.

Oh, that you would firmly remember this lesson of the Savior. Oh, that the instruction of the heavenly Teacher would be the constant guardian of our soul.

Lord Jesus, Thou desirest this. By Thy power, may that which Thou desirest for us be with us. Amen.

We firmly oppose a very widespread method among English theologians. They suppose that the Lord took His comparisons from objects that happened to fall before His eyes. Thus Westcott, in this place, thinks that the vineyards along the road on which the Lord walked with the disciples could have awakened the symbolism of the vine.

Or, on the mistaken supposition that He entered the temple, Westcott thinks the symbolism of the vine arose from the image of the golden vine on the temple gates. Flavius Josephus speaks of this, calling the gates porticoes, in Antiquities of the Jews, book 15, chapter 14, section 4, and in The Jewish War, book 5, chapter 14, section 8, in his description of the temple.

In the same way, in John chapter 10, Westcott supposes that shepherds were visible in the distance. We have encountered similar thoughts in other English theologians. But we decisively reject these opinions, which give the Lord’s symbols and likenesses an almost accidental character. In truth they are eternal images of eternal truths.

Isaiah says: “My Beloved had a vineyard,” and “He fenced it,” and “planted it,” and “looked for it to yield good grapes, but it yielded wild berries.” “And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah. Judge between Me and My vineyard.” “And I will leave it desolate.” “For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are His beloved planting. He looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, a cry” (Isa 5:1-7).

“I am the true vine,” said the Lord, “and My Father is the husbandman.” Comparing Isaiah’s prophecy with the Lord’s words, we see that the men of Israel, appointed to bring forth the fruits of goodness, could not bring them forth. They were fenced by the law and cleansed by prophecies. Yet Israel did not become the vine of God, the true vine. It brought forth wild berries.

Then the Son of God appeared in the flesh. In human form He became the one true Israel whom God wished to create. As man, representing all mankind in Himself, He alone is the “true vine,” grown according to the thought of the Father, the husbandman.

Therefore it is natural that only the branches belonging to the true vine share in the fruitfulness of the vine. Its life is the essence of the Second Hypostasis of the Holy Trinity, inseparable from the Holy Spirit who abides with Him.

The words of verses 1 and 2 do not depict a separation of the Hypostases. They depict the manner of working and operation of almighty God, worshiped in the Holy Trinity.

The Father, in His mercy, is the husbandman. According to the thought of God, the Word who reveals the Invisible became flesh and becomes the vine. In this vine Godhead and humanity are united, so that men may be grafted into this eternal vine, which gives eternal blessedness to those who remain inseparable from it.

Chrysostom notes that the Father cleanses not the vine or the root, but only the branches. His care is for them, since the vine is the incarnate God the Word. But the shoot or branch grafted into the vine must bear fruit. Otherwise it is cut off, and the same fate befalls it as befalls every dry tree: it will be burned with fire (cf. Mt 3:10, the words of John the Baptist).

The Lord’s words about the vine and the branches are not addressed only to the tribe of Judah. The time of Israel as a tribe has passed irrevocably, and they themselves rejected the Lord. Therefore Paul beautifully likens the Jews to broken-off branches, and the believing Gentiles to branches of a wild olive, grafted into the eternal olive tree and made partakers of its root and sap (Rom 11:16-21). He speaks of the eternal olive tree in the same sense as of the eternal vine. They have been grafted in and are held fast by faith.

But what does the Lord say about the branch that does not bear fruit, or, taking the likeness from Isaiah, that bears wild berries? This second likeness, in the Christian world, may be applied to heretical teachings. In words they do not deny the Lord, yet they are not penetrated by the Spirit of His teaching. All such branches are cut off by the Father as useless and harmful to the community of Christ and to the Kingdom of God.

Below, at verse 5, we shall see under what condition the branches can bear fruit. Here we shall say only this: let each one remember that the Lord is the one strength.

Thus the Lord, recalling Isaiah’s prophecy to the disciples, points out to them the weakness and evil of mankind. Though fenced about by the law, mankind could not become the vine of God. In order for mankind to become God’s vine, at least in the branches of the vine, it was necessary that the Lord the Word Himself become the vine in human form. In Him are concentrated both God’s love for man and man’s love for God.

Let the branches that abide on this vine not wither and fall away. For the happiness of man is joined to the fruitfulness of the branches, not only in the life to come, but also in the present life.

As we have said more than once, let mankind create a social order according to the plan of the positivists, on the condition that it must forget all Christian principles. Then let it look at the results of this ready pyre of dry branches, broken off from Christ. Let it be horrified at the consequences, which perhaps no one would be left to understand in a society that had forgotten Christ.

The Lord indicated to the disciples that they were clean, because they had been cleansed by His teaching, by His word. His word alone is eternal and leads man to perfection outside and above the environment in which he lives.

Under the influence of His word, the Lord’s disciples understood the full vanity of Jewish superstitions and the whole falsity of the Jewish understanding of fulfilling the law. In the Sermon on the Mount they heard a wholly new revelation of the law in the commandments of love, compassion, purity, forgiveness of offenses, and forgetfulness of wrongs.

Among the Jews they were already no longer Jews, but Christians. They had already risen above their society. They had been grafted into the eternal vine. Therefore they had both a higher goal in life and a guiding thread, of which all who do not know the Lord are deprived.

After the Lord’s Resurrection, the Holy Spirit gave them strength to create a new society of living branches grafted into the eternal vine, the Lord. This society exists to this day, and the gates of Hades shall not shake it.

All the heavier, then, is it to see fallen branches that have not yet completely dried up only because the living power of the Vine that nourished them is still preserved in them, unconsciously even to themselves. These fallen branches think and preach that the world can do without that eternal Vine on which it grew, and which nourished it for the last two thousand years.