I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
Christ's words are too plain to be evaded: we can do nothing of ourselves. The Papists pretend to acknowledge this while imagining we possess some power of our own that cooperates with His grace, but that is sophistry. He deprives us entirely of all power except what He imparts to us. We do not become branches before union with Him; we begin to be branches only when united to Him.
AI summary
Here Christ discourses concerning the fruit, the fruits of the Spirit, which his disciples were to bring forth, under the similitude of a vine. Observe here, I. The doctrine of this similitude; what notion we ought to have of it. 1. That Jesus Christ is the vine, the true vine.
Commenting on John 15:1-8
The branch cast forth as unfruitful is removed from the vine and withers at once. So those who profess Christ but deny His Gospel truths or live unworthily are ejected from the church's communion. Their leaf of profession, which once seemed green, decays immediately; their seeming fruit shrinks to nothing.
AI summary