“…The one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.”
John 6:37

Many know the parable of the vineyard, used by Jesus to describe the relationship between His followers, Himself, and His Father. God is the Vinedresser, Jesus is the Vine, and we are the branches. It powerfully illustrates how God has planted and nourished the Vine, which now sends its life-giving sap to each branch, to bear beautiful fruit to the glory of the Vinedresser. Yet it is amazing to see how two possible translations of one Greek word can produce two completely opposite pictures of our Heavenly Father’s character. The issue appears within the first two verses, which we’ll first read in the most common translation, with the statement of focus underlined…

John 15:1-2 “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 bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.”

I’ve heard this verse quoted this way many times, in an apparent attempt to use fear to motivate believers who are not bearing Christ’s fruit in their lives. The message effectively received is that, “You better get your act together and start producing fruit, or God will cut you off from the Vine!” And just like that, a poor, struggling Christian has been blasted with a performance-based gospel, where they need to try harder to produce the fruit God wants to see in their lives. Yet this fruit, as the parable itself reveals, is absolutely impossible to produce by human effort.  “…For without Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5) Thus they have been given an impossible task, which is certain to fail and leave them in an even greater sense of unworthiness and fear of being deemed disposable by the Father (who the Bible tells us is love—1 John 4:8). This is just one example of an interpretation which severely distorts God’s character.

I always sensed that there was something wrong here, and by God’s amazing grace He brought me clarity, as He promises to do whenever we ask Him!

Firstly, we must notice that the one NOT bearing fruit in this verse IS abiding in Christ. They are leaning on Him, desiring to surrender their life into His hands. They have acknowledged their deep need and have received Him as their personal Saviour. Therefore, this first translation we’ve considered which says that God will cast this person off for not bearing fruit is a direct contradiction to Jesus’ statement that, “the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.”   

 

So it absolutely thrilled my soul to discover that there is an alternate translation, which after further study appears to me to be much more likely according to the Greek meaning, the context, and the fact that God’s Word cannot contradict itself. The word in question is airo (G142), translated as “takes away.” But we see here that the alternative presents a completely different story.
John 15:2 “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He LIFTS UP; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.”
This verb is translated many times throughout Scripture in the following ways: to raise upwards, to elevate, to lift up, (and my personal favourite) to take upon one’s self and carry what has been raised up, to bear. Here are some examples (with the translation of airo underlined):

Matthew 4:6 “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’”

Matthew 16:24 “Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.”

Mark 2:3 “Then they came to Him, bringing a paralytic who was carried by four men.”

As soon as I noticed the footnote in my Bible beside “takes away” that said “or lifts up,” my spirit said, “Yes. That is my God. And that is His Gospel.”

Our Father is a tender and skillful gardener. He does not hastily and impatiently snip off every branch He sees not bearing fruit, that those who are bearing will have more of the nutrient supply. He doesn’t need to do this, because the Vine’s supply is limitless! When He looks upon the fruitless branch He sees unlimited potential for fruitfulness, and would never cast them off as unneeded or unworthy. No, He seeks out the branch who is attached to the Vine yet is struggling to live victoriously, and identifies its need. He places His strong hands beneath it and tenderly lifts it heavenward, into a position where it can receive more direct sunlight and more support from the surrounding branches. Then He patiently bears it up, no matter how long it takes, until His heart thrills to see the tiny buds bursting forth. God identifies the problem, and provides the solution, just as He has done through the entire plan of redemption. He does not cast us off when we are lacking strength, He intervenes to provide the strength we need to thrive.

Romans 5:6 “For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.”
God has done everything necessary for our salvation. Period. There is no strength that we can add to the equation. But the key is that since we are not literal branches, but human beings with free will, we must cooperate in allowing Him to lift us up. We have the power, and the right, to resist His attempts to lift us. But in consistently resisting His help, we will slowly but surely disconnect ourselves from the Vine, and bring upon ourselves the result of being “cast out as a branch and withered” (John 15:6). We are the ones who do this, not God.

 

God gives us the simple instruction to abide in His Son, because “He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” (1 John 5:12). And He will do everything necessary to help us do so, if we let Him.

John 15:4-5 “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.”

Isaiah 40:31 “Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait on Yahweh shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

Phil. 2:13 “For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.”

And as the children of God are called to have His character (Rev. 14:1), may this parable be a reminder to us of how we are to treat our brothers and sisters in the body of Christ who seem not to be producing His fruit in their lives. May we not cast them off, not deem them unworthy to walk alongside us, but bear them up, as the surrounding branches are meant to do.

I Cor. 12:25-26 “…There should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it…”

Galatians 6:2 “Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”