"Bless you friend but I believe you made a mistake in your paraphrase of John 15. You said “The tares, the thorns & thistles and fruitless branches are thrown into the fire & burned.“
I thought about stopping posting here in this thread, but for the sake of the rest reading this thread, I need to make some points & clarification. It will be longer because context & harmonization of Scripture needs to be shown & included & it takes time to show what has happened here. So all those reading this please bear with me.
First of all, your quote above is NOT my paraphrase of John 15. You said that but I DID NOT. If you had been reading all the passages I used, you would see that the ISOLATED sentence you tore out of MY context, is ACTUALLY ONLY A PART OF A SUMMARY of all the passages I shared. IT IS NOT a summary of John 15 at all. So you are the incorrect one here, now that I am clarifying WHAT I meant by what I said.
Don't PRESUME to know unless you ask a simple question. If you had simply asked, 'is this statement a summary of John 15' I would have told you no as I am doing now. Why? BECAUSE I NEVER mentioned any verse in John 15 in my posting; NOT ONE.
So WHY would you misrepresent me & push the issue to John 15? Inquiring minds want to know, since that is NOT what I did.
If you had READ the various passages I used or alluded to, you would see the 'isolated quote' you USED of me was ONLY A SMALL PART OF A SUMMARIZING STATEMENT of Heb 6, Matt 7, the synoptic gospel accounts of the parable of the seed/soil, Luke 10, Phil 4:3, Daniel 12;2 Heb 12, I Pet 5:10, I John 5:10-13, Eph 4:30, Ezek 36:27, 2 Tim 1:14, I Cor 6:16-19, Rom 8:9-15, Gal 4:6, Eph 3:16, etc.
This is EXACTLY how one misinterprets Scripture, ignoring what was said IN CONTEXT & pulling things out of context & isolating them to make a pretext. In hermeneutics that is called eisogesis.
Back to inquiring minds want to know: did I even ONCE mention John 15 in my post? No. Yet you took it upon yourself to ASSUME I was commenting on it & then set up a straw argument & said I was mistaken in my summary of John 15. You added that, when I never even mentioned the passage of John 15 or any verse in it. Why did you do all this?
It was because you had a pre-determined agenda! You wanted to drive the conversation to John 15, thinking that I would have no answers for it. Thus, your AGENDA is now exposed.
Here is what I ACTUALLY said--IN CONTEXT--& in contrast to what you SELECTIVELY did, pulling one sentence OUT OF THAT CONTEXT for your own agenda & pretext.
"Here again is the REPETITIOUS PATTERN OF BIBLICAL TEACHING on those who produce fruit, a crop to maturity & those who DON'T produce fruit or a crop, but rather end up producing thorns & thistles. The tares, the thorns & thistles & fruitless branches are thrown into the fire & burned. THESE ARE THE REPROBATE, who do not produce any fruit or crop of any kind. The parable of the seed & the soils is a classic example. Doing a harmony of them in the gospels shows plainly the first three are not saved, only the last soil that produced a crop are the saved."
There were so many more that I didn't include. The parable of the good seed & bad seed is another. The parable of the good fish & the bad fish is yet another of MANY.
It should be obvious to all reading, that this is what you did & I never meant what YOU said. You ignored & never addressed all the multitude of passages I shared or alluded to--because you had an agenda. You ignored the WHOLE context of my summary, which tied together all those passages, showing the harmony of Scriptures concerning who & what happens to the bad soils or the branches of THE OLIVE TREE or who are the good seed vs the bad seed, etc. & how Jesus & Scripture identifies each of these.
"In this message Jesus was speaking only to His 11 faithful apostles. There were no tares present. Verse 2 Jesus says He (The Father) cuts off every branch in Me that does not bear fruit. the branches who are “in Christ” and attached to the vine (Christ) are believers. Jesus is warning His 11 faithful apostles of the consequences of failing to bear fruit and failing to abide in Him. This is why He told them “abide (remain) in Me”. He wouldn’t have said this if they were incapable of failing to abide in Him."
Here is another example of your ADDING or taking away from the context & putting things into the text that AREN'T THERE! God warns us in various Scriptures not to add to, take away from, or change His Word, that EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS FROM THE MOUTH OF GOD IS RELEVANT, REVELATIONAL & IMPORTANT & IS THERE FOR A SPECIFIC PURPOSE. (Deut 8:1-4; 2 Tim 3:16,17; Isaiah 55:6-11, etc.)
You said John 15:1 was irrelevant. Scripture verses above & I showed you otherwise, that it was very relevant as well as vs. 3, which you made a passing comment on & then your agenda was to get to vs. 4. Yet I showed you HOW RELEVANT vss 1 & 3 were & the whole context of those first 3 verses. You never refuted anything I said prior & now here.
The Father is THE ONE WHO REMOVES THE UNFRUITFUL BRANCHES as well as the One Who in contrast prunes (cleans of all debris) the believing branches, who are already producing fruit, SO THAT THEY WILL PRODUCE MORE FRUIT & MUCH FRUIT.
Again, the Father is the one WHO UPROOTS the plants who are NOT HIS. Again, the Father is THE ONE WHO GIVES THE BELIEVERS TO THE SON (Jn 17), who prays for them & protects them & preserves them, to be with Him in glory! Hallelujah. So many more verses I could share, in context & in correlation. Here is another harmonizing one. I wish I had more time to discuss Romans 8.
Romans 8:9-11 But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, IF IT BE SO that the Spirit of God DWELL IN YOU. Now if any man has not the Spirit of Christ, HE IS NONE OF HIS. And if Christ be IN YOU, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit IS LIFE because of righteousness. But IF the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead DWELL IN YOU, He that raised up Christ from the dead WILL ALSO MAKE ALIVE YOUR MORTAL BODIES BY HIS SPIRIT THAT DWELLS IN YOU.
If anyone has the Holy Spirit INDWELLING THEM, they are believers & Christ's. Those who don't are NONE OF HIS. And IF the Holy Spirit indwells us (He never leaves us like in the OT nor does Christ leave us either--so many passages can show this--John 14:16) THEN we will be raised from the dead just like Christ was & our new bodies will be alive like Christ's resurrected body, ready for living in glory like Christ.
Rom 8:28-30 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. Because whom He did foreknow, He ALSO did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he might be the firstborn AMONG MANY BRETHREN.
Rom 8:31 Young's Literal Translation AND whom He did fore-appoint, THESE ALSO He did call & whom He did call, THESE ALSO He declared righteous & whom He declared righteous, THESE ALSO He did glorify.
The same thing Jesus taught in the continuous chapters of John, 13 through 17, are also taught by the Apostle Paul, who received His teaching by direct revelation from Christ Himself. Here he is talking about the same group of believers: those foreknown ahead of time & then pre-appointed & predestined to to be conformed to the image of the Son--they were called & then He declared them righteous when they believed, just like Abraham was credited God's righteousness when he believed, as the father of those who have faith in God.
Notice all the ALSO'S that make a continuous declaring of what happens to THESE PEOPLE! And these same believers were not only declared righteous in God's eyes (justified before Him, as many Scriptures verify of believers) but we are ALSO to be GLORIFIED as well. That means all THESE will be with Christ IN GLORY & those alive in Christ because of the indwelling Spirit will get glorified, resurrected bodies & will dwell in Christ's kingdom forever. Hallelujah!
31What shall we then say to these things? If GOD BE FOR US, who can be against us? The obvious answer is no one. When a person received ETERNAL life, that is exactly what it means: this life we have received is for all eternity. It will never stop. And the Holy Spirit, indwelling believers will never leave us but will be with us forever.
John 14:6 I will ask the Father & another Comforter He will give to you, that He may REMAIN WITH YOU FOREVER.
Eph 1:11-14 In Him we were also CHOSEN AS GOD'S OWN, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything by the counsel of His will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, WOULD BE FOR THE PRAISE OF HIS GLORY. And in Him, having heard & believed the word of truth—the gospel of your salvation—you were SEALED with the promised Holy Spirit, that Spirit being a pledge (earnest, down payment) & foretaste of our inheritance, in anticipation of its full redemption--the inheritance which He has purchased to be specially His for the extolling of His glory.
Eph 4:30 Neither be grieving the Holy Spirit of God, for you have been SEALED IN HIM for the DAY OF REDEMPTION.
2 Cor 1:20-23 Now it is God who establishes both us and you in Christ. He anointed us, placed His SEAL on us & put His Spirit in our hearts as a PLEDGE of what is to come.
Greek Parsing: V-AIP-3P -- Verb - Aorist Indicative Passive - 3rd Person Plural
'You were sealed' 'esphragisthēte', parsing of the Greek word used in this sentence: Part of Speech - Person, Tense, Mood, Voice – Case, Number, Gender. Here sealed is, to use normal parsing abbreviation terminology--V-AIP-2P. The Greek word is a verb, in the aorist tense, with the indicative mood & the passive voice. It is in the 3rd person & in the plural.
From spragizw, old verb, common in LXX & papyri for setting a seal to prevent opening ( Daniel 6:17 ), in place of signature ( 1 Kings 21:18 ). Papyri examples show a wide legal use to give validity to documents, to guarantee genuineness of articles as sealing sacks & chests, etc. (Deissmann, Bible Studies, p. 238; Moulton & Milligan's Vocabulary)
ἀρραβὼν (arrabōn) Noun - Nominative Masculine Singular; Strong's Greek 728: Of Hebrew origin; a pledge, i.e. Part of the purchase-money or property given in advance as security for the rest. (to come)
This word only occurs 3X in the NT & all refer to the Holy Spirit being the evidence of God's pledge, promise & guarantee to bring about us as His purchased possession & redemption in Christ--the glorifying of His declared righteous & adopted sons--to receive their inheritance in Christ. Three is a significant number showing Divine completeness. Here all three usages of the word refer directly to the Holy Spirit being that very thing! God keeps His promises! He follows through with His pledge, to do what He said He would do.
Robertson's Word Pictures in the NT
An earnest (arrabwn). See 2 Cor 1:22 for discussion of arrabwn. Here "of promise" (th epaggelia) is added to the Holy Spirit to show that Gentiles are also included in God's promise of salvation. Of our inheritance (th klhronomia hmwn). God's gift of the Holy Spirit is the pledge & first payment for the final inheritance in Christ. Of God's own possession (peripoihsew).
The word God's is not in the Greek, but is implied. Late and rare word (from peripoiew, to make a survival) with the notion of obtaining ( 1 Thess 5:9 ; 2 Thess 3:14 ) and then of preserving (so in the papyri). So in 1 Pet 2:9 ; Heb 10:39 & here. God has purchased us back to Himself. The sealing EXTENDS (ei) TO the redemption & to the glory of God.
I need to make a very important point here on correctly interpreting Scripture. First of all, John 15 IS a specific teaching for the 11 apostles--but Jesus' teaching them DID NOT START IN CH. 15! It was in the middle of what Jesus was continually teaching them--STARTING in John 13 & NOT COMPLETING IT UNTIL John 17.
THEN He was arrested & they all scattered. He taught, starting in the upper room, then they left there & were traveling across the valley to the Garden of Gethsemane & the Mt of Olives, all the while Jesus was teaching them as they followed Him.
One CANNOT ignore the whole context of Jesus' teaching in those 5 CONTINUOUS chapters without making incorrect conclusions. You said there were no tares, because you ONLY ISOLATED CH. 15. That was your agenda, as was shown.
In the whole context of ch. 13-17, tares ARE mentioned SEVERAL TIMES, showing the continual context in those chapters, Jesus talking about the same things! And yes there was a tare, that had DEPARTED & part of Jesus continuous teaching TO THE 11 APOSTLES INCLUDED THE ONE WHO WOULD BETRAY HIM, the son of PERDITION, contrasting him as lost vs the other 11 that were chosen to bear fruit & were saved & would persevere & be in Christ's kingdom with Him, judging the 12 tribes of Israel.
They were specially CHOSEN for this. It cannot be ignored. Jesus' teaching cannot be ignored. All corresponding & harmonizing passages ALL FIT TOGETHER to bring us the WHOLE COUNSEL of God concerning this issue & the topic of this thread.
Am I isolating that like yourself? No. Because what Jesus said in the beginning of His teaching in Ch. 13 about Judas Iscariot being reprobate, a son of perdition & the rest chosen, carries through this continuous teaching about those who bear no fruit or have no life in them. Jesus again repeats the same thing in chapter 17, as He finishes up his continual teaching, just before He is arrested & taken away & the disciples scatter.
John 17:9-12, 20-25 I ask on their behalf. I do NOT ask on behalf of THE WORLD, but on behalf of those YOU HAVE GIVEN ME BECAUSE THEY ARE YOURS. All I have is Yours & all You have is Mine & in them I have been glorified. 11I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world & I am coming to You.
Holy Father, PROTECT THEM by Your name, the name You gave Me, so that THEY MAY BE ONE AS WE ARE ONE. 12While I was with them, I PROTECTED & PRESERVED THEM BY YOUR NAME, the name You gave Me.
NOT ONE OF THEM HAS BEEN LOST--EXCEPT--THE SON OF PERDITION--SO THAT THE SCRIPTURE WOULD BE FULFILLED. Not one of them is lost, fallen away, sons of perdition, EXCEPT ONLY ONE. The rest have already been chosen, prayed for, protected & preserved until they enter the kingdom of God to judge the 12 tribes of Israel. The Father CONTINUES TO PROTECT THEM after the Son departs the earth & returns to heaven.
Is this consistent with what Jesus taught back at the start of His continuous discourse in ch. 13 & also taught in the parallel to John 13, in Luke 22 for example? Yes. First let us look at John 13 again for a reminder, finish John 17 & then look at the parallel passage in Luke 22. (to be continued)