Expository Thoughts (continued)
trials. Our trials are not meant to do us harm, but good. God chastens us "for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness."
(Heb. 12:10.) Fruit is the thing that our Master desires to see in us, and He will not spare the pruning knife if He sees we need it. In the last day we shall see that all was well done.
Technical Notes:
1. I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.
2. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away; and every branch that bears fruit he prunes it, that it may bring forth more fruit. 3. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken to you. 4. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can ye, unless ye abide in me. 5. I am the vine, ye are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit; for without me ye can do nothing. 6. If a man does not abide in me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and men gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
1.—[I am...vine... Father...husbandman.] In this and the following chapter, our Lord proceeds to give instruction rather than consolation. Having cheered and comforted the timid disciples (in the 14th chapter), He now presses on their attention certain great truths which He would have them specially remember when He was gone. And He begins by urging the absolute necessity of close union