John 15:2-3—Play on Words (Monday with Mounce 30)

I suspect that there is nothing harder to bring into English than a play on words. When that play on words branches (pun intended) into metaphors (and the question of how hard to push the imagery), and into the relationship between justification and sanctification, it moves from "hard" to "almost impossible." Then add in John’s use of double meanings and nuances, and many translators go screaming into the night.

As a follow-up on a previous post, in which I was asked about the relationship between "prunes" (John 15:2) and "clean" (v 3), here are the two verses; pay special attention to the Greek. "Every branch (klema) of mine that does not bear fruit he takes away (airo) , and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes (kathairo), that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean (katharos) because of the word that I have spoken to you" (ESV).

Okay, there are lots of things going on here. First of all, klema is not the normal word for a branch, which is klados.

klema is more appropriate for the tendrils, the non-fruit bearing suckers that will never produce fruit and yet absorb life-giving nourishment. So the image is of the vinedresser removing anything that would take nourishment away from the fruit-bearing branches.

Secondly, airo means "to prune." As you may have noticed in the comments to the previous post, there is some debate as to the precise meaning of this, but basic to the word is the idea of taking something away, not just lifting up (see references in BDAG, especially the references to meaning "take away" without any reference to "taking up").

The non-fruit bearing suckers are cut off. They will never bear fruit.

The life of the vine (i.e., Jesus) is intended only for those branches that can and will bear fruit. (In an interesting parallel, John 13:10, Jesus earlier said that the disciples are already clean (katharos), but not all, meaning Judas, the "son of perdition.") Now starts the play on words. Those branches that are able to bear fruit because of the vine need to be pruned. If they are not pruned, they will not be nearly as fruitful. But kathairo has an interesting semantic range. It can be used in a physical sense of pruning, but it can also mean "to clean" such as when you sweep a floor clean (see BDAG). Jesus is starting to make the shift from a physical truth to his true intent of making a spiritual truth. He is concerned with the spiritual purity and fruitfulness of his followers.

We have two apple trees in our front yard. When the blossoms come out, I have a choice. I can either cut back about two-thirds of the stems holding the blossoms and end up with some good Washington apples later in the summer, or I can be lazy and not prune them back, and the best I am going to get is lots of small apples fit only for the deer, and also expect some of the branches to break under the weight of too many little, worthless apples. The same is true of vines. A vine will produce a lot of unproductive growth that must be cut off if the true branches are going to receive enough nourishment to be fruitful. As my father writes, "God’s ‘pruning’ is his gracious way of directing the flow of spiritual energy in order that his plans for our lives will be realized" (Robert Mounce, John in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Revised, page 574).

While the pruning process is not painful to the apple tree or the vine, it can be painful to Jesus’ followers, can’t it? It is similar to Heb 12:6. "For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives" (which I blogged on earlier). Even though we are to count all things in the context of joy, the snipping of God’s shears can be painful, whether it is a loss of job, or friends, or security, or personal goals. The question is, is our pruner all-loving and all-knowing, and of course the answer is "Yes."

But back to the vine. V 3 had always been a strange verse to me, parenthetical at best. And I know that Jesus and the biblical writers at times include parenthetical remarks, but my default is to assume a comment is not parenthetical and to look for connections. That connection is provided by the play on words — and this is one of the reasons why we all learn Greek. The connection will be lost, or its strength diminished, if you don’t see how strongly the Greek is tying vv 2-3 together.

As the disciples listen to Jesus and hear him talking about cutting off dead wood and pruning the new fruit on the vine, I suspect they were looking puzzled. (Perhaps most of the Upper Room Discourse puzzled them.) Jesus wants to assure them, now that Judas is gone, that they are not dead wood to be cut off and burned. They are true branches attached to the life-giving vine, Jesus. But that means the vinedresser would be snipping away at them. In fact, they have already been pruned back; they have already be purified by the message of the Messiah (feel the play on words).

These are wonderful words of encouragement, that despite all the ups and downs they have experienced, and the big one that is yet to come (a crucified Messiah), they are firmly attached to the vine and have been prepared by God to bear much fruit. It has hurt, and is going to hurt, but that does not mean the vinedresser has ignored them or doesn’t know what he is doing. In fact, the pruning is part of their assurance, as is the disciplining of a son, that God knows exactly what he is doing, and the end of the process is their own spiritual growth and the glory given to God though our fruit.

The final question of the passage is how far to push the metaphors. Are the tendrils apostate Christians, or are they people who joined the visible community of the church but never were truly attached to the vine, or is it part of the imagery to help the metaphor come alive?

Regardless of the answer to this question, the primary purpose of the metaphor is "to insist that there are no true Christians without some measure of fruit. Fruitfulness is an infallible mark of true Christianity" (Carson, The Gospel According to John, p. 515). He concludes, there is a persistent strand of New Testament witness that depicts men and women with some degree of connection with Jesus, or with the Christian church, who nevertheless by failing to display the grace of perseverance finally testify that the transforming life of Christ has never pulsated with them."

Both Calvin and Wesley would respond, "Well said."

William D. [Bill] Mounce posts every Monday about the Greek language, exegesis, and related topics at Koinonia. He is the author of numerous books, including the bestselling Basics of Biblical Greek, and general editor for Mounce's Complete Expository Dictionary of the Old and New Testament Words. He served as the New Testament chair of the English Standard Version Bible translation. Learn more and visit Bill's blog (co-authored with scholar and his father Bob Mounce) at www.billmounce.com.

Comments

[Andrew Faris]

Dr. Mounce,

I still disagree and planning on responding soon, but I just wanted to mention that you wrote airo means "to prune" above where I think you meant kathairo.

Thanks for another post on the issue!

Andrew Faris

[Jimmy Snowden]

Dr. Mounce,

I appreciated your comments on John 15. I do have one question: is it not significant that John uses klema in verse 5 as well when he is, in a blanket statement, referring to his people? "I am the vine; you are the klemata." The reason I bring this up is because you stated that John most likely used the word klema to refer to

"the tendrils, the non-fruit bearing suckers that will never produce fruit and yet absorb life-giving nourishment."

Then you said,

"So the image is of the vinedresser removing anything that would take nourishment away from the fruit-bearing branches."

And yet, he uses this same word (klema) to refer to his disciples. I am not challenging here, I am just curious.

Thanks,
Jimmy

[David]

The final question of the passage is how far to push the metaphors.

I would love to see a post further discussing that issue (not necessarily related to this post)

[Bill Mounce]

Jimmy. Good point. Didn't think of that. Let me mull it over.

[Andrew Faris]

Dr. Mounce,

Regarding the use of klema, I was going to say the same thing as Jimmy, though I would add that it is the only noun in v. 2 as well, which means that it has to refer to both branches there (i.e. including the fruit-bearing one).

Regarding what is "basic" to the meaning of airo, I would suggest that it is clear that it can simply mean "lift up" without much reference to "take away." That seems to be the way to understand the uses in Jn. 5:8-12, and even more so Jn. 8:59 (where the people simple "pick up" stones to throw- they aren't "taking them away" from anything but the ground, but that would be an odd way to take the word). And how about the second use in Jn. 11:41? How can "lifting up" one's eyes at all mean "taking away"?

Those are just John's uses, but I would also refer you to Mk. 6:43; Lk. 4:11; Acts 4:24; Rev. 10:5; 18:21, to name a few.

It seems clear then that the semantic range of airo allows for each use without reference to the other. And correct me if I'm wrong, but this is a basic issue of lexical semantics too, isn't it? With all due respect (and again, I have quite a lot of it for you!), your appeal to the list of meanings in BDAG doesn't prove much. It only establishes range.

I also don't know why you think airo means "to prune" when that is what kathairo means. Are the fruitful and unfruitful branches being pruned?

I again respectfully take issue with Carson's quote about the main point of the passage. It seems to me that the main point is the charge to remain in Jesus since he is the life-giving vine pruned by the perfect vinedresser, the Father. It surprises me how easily take the attention of this passage away from the "I am" statement that begins it, especially when in every other "I am" passage in John we make such a big deal out of the emphatic use of the construction and the theological weight of each statement. That is, we center on them.

When we center on the "I am" statement- that is, the statement that clearly begins the discussion- and the repetition of the corresponding "in me" language (which is so important because of the "I am" just spoken), fruit-bearing seems only to be a result of the main issue, i.e. remaining in Jesus. It is absolutely still important to the discussion. But it is not the main point. The main point is that Jesus gives life, so we should remain in him.

If it is about fruit-bearing, then v. 6 becomes quite parenthetical and difficult to handle, since fruit-bearing is not mentioned at all there. Rather, the problem there is that a branch has not been "abiding in me".

Finally, when we take airo in v. 2 as a reference to "lifting up" so that a fruitless branch begins to bear fruit, and when we recognize that v. 6 is about being "in me" rather than fruit-bearing (which, again, is not mentioned at all in that verse), then there actually is very little difficulty in understanding how far to push the imagery. If you are in Christ, you are saved and will bear fruit. If you are not, you are not saved and you won't bear fruit. It's quite plain and simple really.

Again, Dr. Mounce, I greatly respect and appreciate your work. I just think you are wrong about this passage.

And if you have a moment, do read my full length post on this passage that I wrote in response to your first post here. While I have seen plenty of arguments for your view, I've seen few if any that directly interact with the one I purport.

Andrew

[Bert de Haan]

Thank you for your post. One thing becomes abundantly clear; Knowing a little bit of Greek is not enough to pick up on the play on words. I would have read this passage without having noticed any of it.
Thanks again.

[Gianni]

Nice point. However, presumably Jesus didn't speak in Greek to the disciples. The author of the play on words in Greek must be John, not Jesus. Perhaps the play on words in Greek is based on an original play on words by Jesus in Aramaic, but wordplay is often lost in translation.