It is a question of fruit-bearing and not of life. Judas was gone out, and they were all clean; it was to His disciples He spoke. I know if I do not abide in Him I am as a withered branch. What use is a Christian who is not abiding in Christ? No use for the world, no use for the church. We know, as Ezekiel says, that the vine-wood is no use, not even to make a pin of. It is “cast forth.”
Men would not leave scattered vine branches about the garden path, they chop them up and burn them. They are no good unless the sap is in them. Abiding in the vine, His words abide in us. G. J.