John 15:6. If any one abide not in me he is cast forth as the branch, and is withered; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they burn. ‘The branch' here is simply ‘the branch' of John 15:4, the branch considered in itself: the words ‘cast forth' and ‘is withered' are so used in the original as to denote the certainty, the immediateness, of the doom referred to: the last three verbs of the verse carry our thoughts to a later period than that to which the casting out and the withering belong. Instead of exhibiting beauty of leaf and bearing clusters of fruit, these branches shrivel up, die, and are consumed. It is to be observed that, although the branches spoken of are barren, it is not their barrenness that is the immediate thought here, but the fact that they do not abide in the vine.

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Old Testament