 So perspective number one, conditional security, that John 15 basically means you can lose your salvation. So that's how a lot of people interpret this passage. So this doctrine presupposes that a branch in Christ is somebody who is saved, has eternal life, and so to be cut off in verse six is to be cut off from this life, cut off from everlasting life. They lose their salvation. Now conditional security advocates almost always, without question, have some sort of a workspace salvation in there somewhere. So they will usually say that as well as continuing in your belief about who Jesus is and what he has done, you also have to continue in your works of obedience. Okay, because if you don't, you fall into the James 2 dustbin. So the reason why the reason why they reach this conclusion is obvious, is that John 15 1 to 6 is sandwiched between if you love me, keep my commandments from John 14 15. And if you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love. That's later in verse 10 of John 15. So what are the merits of this interpretation? Where does it come from? Well, the branches are in Christ quote unquote. Okay. And so this is then applied to mean having eternal life, because we can see from other verses in the Bible that being in Christ is interchangeable with having everlasting life. So like John 5 26, son to have life in himself, eternal life in John 6 56, dwells in me and I in him. You've got Second Timothy 11 life, which is in Christ Jesus, Romans 6 23. Now in the King James, it says eternal life through Christ Jesus, but some translations say it. So obviously somebody using one of those translations would use this verse as well. Then 1 John 5 11 to 12, this life is in his son. So obviously we've got these various passages that eternal life is in Christ. And so obviously you can understand why they will make that bridge with John chapter 15 here. And also as well, later in the chapter abiding in Christ or more specifically in his love is tied with the commandments. And naturally, as we had to expose in the previous study, a lot of work salvation folk that they filter in their minds at these marginal notes and theologians commentary. So that when it when it goes in saying if you love me keep my commandments, it works its way around the filter and all the, you know, theological commentary gets wrapped around it. And that turns itself into turn from all your sins that thou shalt be saved. Because you know that that's often how their mind retranslates what the Bible actually says. So there are a few things going on here. Even though the eternal security go to passage in John chapter six and 10 actually mentioned eternal life, the conditional security go to passage in John doesn't at least not directly. Okay, so they are standing on sandy ground when they have to use a passage that doesn't mention eternal life verbatim and make it about eternal life and then wrestle against passages and explain those away when they do mention eternal life. Having said that, to play the devil's advocate as the saying goes, they can easily demonstrate that being in Christ has a clear connection to eternal life from other eternal life versus. Okay, we can't really dispute that, right? So for this reason, we cannot just completely ignore or dismiss this passage to win an argument against them either. We have to be able to address this passage with eternal life in mind. A key focus on abiding in Christ here appears to be about commandments as the explicit requirement for abiding in his love rather than faith since this word does not appear in John 15. And although the word believe was used a few times in John 14, not in the context of eternal life necessarily, although that's arguably an aspect of it, that's now suddenly stopped because you know in John 15 we're moving away from that. So obviously when you look at the passage superficially, it looks more commandment orientated or more obedience orientated rather than faith orientated. And obviously, you know, they're going to be kicking and screaming if we start word swapping and just say it just means to believe. Well, we need to explain why he uses the word commandments if that's what it actually means. So, you know, we did unpack that in the previous study that was what the commandments actually entail in, you know, in this passage. So this is just a brief summary of how they interpret this passage. So sorry, I don't know why I've put it twice there. So being cast into the fire in verse six must mean hellfire as it's not merely metaphorical or allegorical fire. You know, it doesn't represent something else. It means they interpret it as hellfire. Okay. The fruit that the brand branches must bring forth is interpreted usually as works or at least evidence of faith, this idea that saving faith must produce works. If we cannot see these works, then men man sees a branch, but it does not does not see its fruit. The commandments are being applied to more or less anything that Jesus commanded ever, or at least anything that they think you should be obeying, which was already explored and debunked in our John 14 study, seeing why the commandments in this passage isn't really talking about sins of the flesh and really legalists, they often have to arbitrarily pick and choose which commandments they think applies to anyway. So we've seen we've seen the merit and origin of conditional security from this passage. Now let's see its shortcomings and why it's actually easily disproved from this passage. Okay, we can easily disprove trying to use this passage to justify a workspace salvation. We can easily disprove that this passage is some kind of an urgent imminent warning that you could lose your salvation today. Okay, we can easily demonstrate that if this passage did teach that you could lose salvation, let's just suppose it did, it would be irrecoverable. But most conditional security advocates believe you can get your salvation back again. They very conveniently change the rules of how salvation loss actually works when it suits them. So they make rules in this passage that are different to rules that they put in other passages and we'll see that in a moment. So the first problem with interpreting conditional security from John 15, notice who is doing the work according to this illustration and you can see very, very quickly why you cannot logically get a workspace salvation from this passage. It says my father is the husband man. Okay, he's the one that's doing the actual work on the vine. You are the branches and the branches are attached to the vine. So scripture is very, very clear in this illustration. It's the father that is doing the work. He purges, he takes away. You are a branch. Now a tree or a vine branch does not do work. It's the husband man that's doing the work. Okay, the branches just either grow through or they don't, but the husband man is doing the work. Now they might try and rebut this saying, you know, as those other verses we looked at clarify, there is work involved based on the commandments, you know, keep my commandments. But if you watched my study on John 14, you will remember that this is a very inappropriate interpretation because first of all, they arbitrarily pick and choose which commandments they think you should obey and not obey. They don't tell you to go wash in the pool of Siloam, but Jesus did quite clearly command go wash at the pool of Siloam. Jesus isn't talking about sins of the flesh with his disciples in these chapters here and turning, you know, turning from them in the John 13, 16 conversation. He's not warning his disciples about the drunkenness and the harlots on the streets in this conversation. Looking at what commandments Jesus actually gave in this conversation between chapters 13, 16, helps us to understand what he actually meant to buy his commandments, things like love one another, abide or continue in me, be of good cheer, believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And we can also see, as we looked at in the previous study from John's epistles, how he himself interpreted this same conversation that it means to abide in the doctrines of Christ. And we will explore that later as well in our John 15 study. And also, just in case you haven't noticed, fruit itself is not work. Fruit is the product of work. The husband does work and gets fruit. Any of you that owns a fruit tree knows you're the one that's putting the work in. It's the tree that grows the fruit, but the fruit is not the work. You putting the work in is the work. And the fruit is something that you're expecting to get from that work. Okay. Problem number two, then, is that although there are some exceptions, most people who believe that you can lose salvation believe that you can repent all over and over again and get it back. This is not consistent with the passage though, because once a branch is removed and cast forth, it's withered. And men gather them and cast them onto the fire and they are burned. So scripture is very clear that once the branches are removed, they are burned in the fire. So how can they be regrafted or reattached onto the vine if they have already been destroyed? And this is similar to where they often quote Hebrew 6 to say that you can lose your salvation. But it did say in Hebrew 6 that if they fall away, it's impossible to get them renewed onto repentance. So you see how they're not even consistent with their favorite passages. And this is kind of a side note, but looking at the same verse, notice who is casting the branches into the fire, because it doesn't actually say that the father is casting them into the fire. It says that men gather them and cast them into the fire. Right? Well, Jesus did clearly explain not to fear men because they can kill the body, but they can't kill the soul. You should be fearing him that can destroy both soul and body in hell. But Jesus is very clear in John 15, it's men casting them into the fire. Now, granted, this particular point is not in of itself a strong argument because the men in this illustration could be interpreted as angels. So it could be angels casting them into the fire. But let's just say that if that is so, that means then that this is an illustration only. So nobody can say, well, John 15 quite clearly says that you can lose your salvation because this is an illustration. It doesn't quite clearly say anything. Because if it quite clearly says you can lose salvation, it's very, very clear. Well, then it quite clearly says that men cast them into the fire. But we know that men can't cast you into hell fire. Okay. So we must allow some room for allegorical interpretation here. You can't, you know, you have to be careful with how literal you actually try and get this because you can't necessarily be consistent then. Either that or you can't necessarily interpret the fire as being hell fire otherwise. So this is, you know, open to interpretation as to what this all really means. Problem number three, then, is that the legalists will try to make this passage such an imminent warning that at any point you could disobey a commandment and immediately lose your salvation. You might do it in the next hour if you're not careful. But this just doesn't really fit the illustration at all. Because an important condition of the father cutting off a branch is that it doesn't produce fruit. Now anybody who knows the first thing about gardening knows that fruit does not just suddenly appear, nor does it grow continually all the time. Fruit takes time to grow. It takes time for the fruitful and unfruitful branches to manifest. A branch doesn't grow fruit continually all the time. It grows fruits at certain times of year. Different times of year depending on the plant species or the climate or the hemisphere. But, you know, it grows fruit only at certain times of year. And different plant species, I don't know a lot about this, but different plant species grow fruits on what's called old wood or new wood. And so even fruitful branches may eventually need trimming and pruning anyway so that new wood can grow and eventually become fruitful later. We'll explore a little bit about that, but I don't know a lot about gardening though. Problem number four is that people try to use this passage as a dire warning passage. But actually this conversation in Chapter 1316 is meant to be an encouragement to the disciples. Not a dire health fire warning because, you know, he says, if you know these things, happy are you if you do them. By this all men shall know that you are disciples if you love one another. Let not your heart be troubled. I go to prepare a place for you. Ask anything in my name and I will do it. I will not leave you comfortless. You are clean through the word. So have I loved you. I have called you friends. Your sorrow shall be turned into joy. This is very, very, very encouraging language for something that's supposed to be this terrible warning that you could lose your salvation. Okay. And further as well, building on these encouragements, is that when Jesus encourages or commands the disciples, he very often uses the pronouns you or ye you and the vows specific to one disciple with an occasional he. Whereas anything he says to look that looks like it could be a warning or a condemnation to the world like being cut off or reproving the world of sin, Jesus always says he it they doesn't say you ye as if he's, you know, not talking about the disciples directly. So we see then that when Jesus gives versus that look like they could be warnings, it's not so much about the disciples themselves not abiding, but rather being able to identify others who will not abide and be cut off. And problem number five is that conditional security advocates bend the rules and change the rules when it suits them to do so. Because if I brought out an eternal security verse like John 10 28, you know, that no man is able to pluck them out of my hand or my father's hand in verse 29, they will reply to that. Well, no other man can snatch you out or pluck you out, but you can still walk away though. Right. Okay. Well, how about this one? Then we go to John 6 37 39 37 and 39. Sorry. I will in no wise cast out or I should lose nothing. So we point that out. Well, he won't cast you out and he won't lose you, but you can still walk away in the free will. Okay. Well, okay. So we have this premise then I it's you who walks away, the father doesn't lose you, he doesn't cast you out. But then when it comes to John 15, it says that my father is the one that takes them away. So they will use John 15 as a key proof text for losing salvation, where it's the father that takes away the branches, the branches don't just run off or fall off, the father willing will fully remove them. So they pick and choose the rules when it suits them in John 6 and 10. The rule is that you walk away in John 15. The rule is that you will be forcibly removed. So they're very inconsistent with their own rules about how this actually works. Problem number six as well is that they often use problematic terminology that doesn't really match the passage. So for example, they might say something like, if you stop abiding in Christ, you will be cut off. But the problem is that there are only two types of people or rather branches, I should say, in this illustration. Those who abide and those who don't abide, they're the two options. Abiding means by definition to continue to stay to remain. So if somebody stops abiding and they did not, they did not abide in Christ, they don't temporarily abide and they're in the branch and they're growing through and then they stop growing through and stop abiding. Either they abide or they don't abide. Well, if they only temporarily abided, they didn't abide. Okay, now, as I mentioned earlier in the study, there are parts of the Bible where abiding is temporary, but that's not the case in John 15. So you only have two options. You can't invent a third option where you were abiding yesterday and you're not abiding today. That's not compatible with the passage. Same thing with growing through. Either you grew through or you didn't. There's no, well, you grew through yesterday, but not today. That doesn't work with this illustration. And so that leads me on to problem number seven is that there's only two options. The branch that produces fruit and the branches that don't. So if conditional security advocates insist that salvation must produce fruit, then if a branch produced any fruit at all, it means that the criteria for salvation were met. So a branch cannot be cut off for being unfruitful because it bought fruit. If a branch is cut off and it produced no fruit, but we have to have this fruit to be saved, well, then it wasn't saved then, was it? Otherwise, why didn't it produce any fruit? OK, so you see how they have a self-refuting doctrine. And so we see very quickly the fundamental flaws of conditional security from this passage. They use a passage that says God removes the branches, the branches don't walk away, but then change the rules of operation when you invoke passages whereby God won't lose any and won't cast any out and won't let any be plucked out. So, you know, which is it? They're trying to justify a workspace salvation from a passage where God is the one doing the actual work. A branch on a tree does not actually work. OK, it just grows. They invent a new type of branch to the illustration that the illustration doesn't give because they have self-contradictory salvation requirements for this branch in the first place. And they redefine the meaning of commandments and fruit in this passage to be all about your sin and your personal obedience to all the commanded works in the Bible, when those things are not fundamentally a part of this discussion in John 13 to 16. We've already seen them in my previous study of John 14, what the commandments are in context and how John understood them. Love one another as I have loved you. Continue in Christ, his love, his doctrine, his sayings, his words. Believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Be of good cheer. Let not your hearts be troubled. So, you see how they just turn a comforting passage into a dire warning. It's really bizarre.