Liglitfoot says, "Hitherto Israel had been the vine, into which every one that would worship the true God must be grafted. But from henceforward they were to be planted into the profession of Christ."
The meaning of the verse seems to be this : — " The relation between you and Me is that of a vine and its branches. I am the true source of all your life and spiritual vigor ; and you are as entirely dependent on Me, as the branches of the vine are on the parent stem : and there is as close union between you and Me, as between a vine and its branches. My Father takes the same tender interest in you that tlie vine-dresser does in the branch of the vine ; and is continually watching over your health, fruitfulness, and fertility. Think not for a mo- ment that my Father is not as deeply interested in your spirit- ual prosperity as I am myself."
The interpretation adopted by Alford and many others, that the vine means " the visible Church," of which Christ is the inclusive Head, appears to me thoroughly unsatisfactory. Our Lord is speaking specially to eleven believers, and treating of their relation to himself. To apply all the language of this parable to so mixed and defective a body as the " visible Church," seems to me to lower and degrade the v/hole passage.
2. — ]^Every branch. ..not fruit. ..taketh away.'] Perhaps no sentence in the parable is more perverted, and wrested, and misapplied than this. Many assert that it teaches that a man may be a real true branch of the vine, a member of Christ, and yet lose all His grace, and be finally cast away. In short, the sentence is the favorite weapon of ail Arminians, of all who maintain an inseparable connection between grace and baptism, and of all
• who deny the perseverance in faith of believers.
I will not urge in reply that this view of the sentence cannot be reconciled with other plainer texts of Scripture, which are not parts of a parable like this ; and that we should always shrink from interpreting Scripture so as to make one part con- tradict another. I prefer saying that the sentence before us will not bear the sense commonly put on it.
The plain truth is that this text is precisely that part of the parable which will not admit of a literal interpretation. As a matter of fact it is not true that the Father " taketh away " all unfruitful branches. When does He do it? When does He remove from the Church all graceless Christians ? On the contrary, for 1800 years He has allowed them to exist in the Church, and has not taken them away. Nor will He take them away till the day of judgment. If the expression "taketh away " cannot be interpreted literally we must beware of inter- preting literally the expression, " branch in Me." As the one phrase is figurative, so also is the other. In short it cannot be shown that a " branch in Me " must mean a believer in Me. It means nothing more than " a professing member of my Church,