Faithful Steward Ministries and FSM Women's Outreach

If you are a typical male or like me ex-military with many type-A personality traits, it is this verse can be difficult. I mean come on is Jesus really saying that apart from Him were are all but useless? The short answer is YES, sort of, Spiritually speaking, we are dead (John 3:19). All Mankind, living without Christ as LORD AND SAVIOR are incapable of moral good. The standard, the only acceptable standard is God’s Holy Word, and man is incapable of keeping it.

We do not need God to condemn us we condemn ourselves by refusing to walk in the light of Christ.

Chapter CONTEXT MHCC: It is generally agreed that Christ’s discourse in this and the next chapter was at the close of the last supper, the night in which he was betrayed, and it is a continued discourse, not interrupted as that in the foregoing chapter was; and what he chooses to discourse of is very pertinent to the present sad occasion of a farewell sermon. Now that he was about to leave them, I. They would be tempted to leave him, and return to Moses again; and therefore he tells them how necessary it was that they should by faith adhere to him and abide in him. II. They would be tempted to grow strange one to another; and therefore he presses it upon them to love one another, and to keep up that communion when he was gone which had hitherto been their comfort. III. They would be tempted to shrink from their apostleship when they met with hardships; and therefore he prepared them to bear the shock of the world’s ill will. There are four words to which his discourse in this chapter may be reduced; 1. Fruit (v. 1-8). 2. Love (v. 9-17). 3. Hatred (v. 18-25). The Comforter (v. 26, 27).

Ver. 5. I am the vine, ye are the branches, &c.] Christ here repeats what he said of himself, the vine, for the sake of the application of the branches to his disciples: which expresses their sameness of nature with Christ; their strict and close union to him; and the communication of life and grace, holiness and fruitfulness, of support and strength, and of perseverance in grace and holiness to the end from him: he that abideth in me, and I in him; which is the case of all that are once in Christ, and he in them: the same bringeth forth much fruit; in the exercise of grace, and performance of good works; and continues to do so as long as he lives, not by virtue of his own free will, power, and strength, but by grace continually received from Christ: for without me ye can do nothing; nothing that is spiritually good; no, not any thing at all, be it little or great, easy or difficult to be performed; can’t think a good thought, speak a good word, or do a good action; can neither begin one, nor, when it is begun, perfect it. Nothing is to be done without Christ; without his spirit, grace, strength, and presence; or as separate from him. Were it possible for the branches that are truly in him, to be removed from him, they could bring forth no fruits of good works, any more than a branch separated from the vine can bring forth grapes; so that all the fruitfulness of a believer is to be ascribed to Christ, and his grace, and not to the free will and power of man.

John Gill, An Exposition of the New Testament, vol. 2, The Baptist Commentary Series (London: Mathews and Leigh, 1809), 66.

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