What is the Christian universalist interpretation of John 15; 1-7, especially verse 6?
Thanks for any possible reply.
Alex
Hi Alex,
We generally see the “fire” of God as redemptive and refining. It is the destruction of the “old self”, the “flesh”, the “body of death”, the “wood, hay and stubble.” It is not the destruction of the man himself – or at least not his permanent destruction, because God is able to make him anew.
Jesus says: “For everyone will be salted with fire.” (Mar 9:49)
And Paul: “each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.” (1 Cor 3:13)
Paul also uses this picture of branches being broken off in Romans 11 and goes on to say, “And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again.”
Sonia
The message of the passage is about the importance of abiding in the Lord. Without abiding in Him we dry up and do not produce fruit. The note concerning drying up and being thrown into the fire is a warning of judgment that God brings upon his children if they are not acting like His children. On the positive side, if we abide in the love and grace of God and follow His teachings/directions, then we will have a fruitful life. If not then our lives will be worthless, trash, good for nothing but to be cast into the fire and burnt up. It’s a sobering message meant as a warning to the disciples of Christ, not in any way meant to draw a distinction between the saved and the unsaved.
And I believe on that day, on judgment day, we shall all face the fire. That which is worthless in our lives will be burnt up and that which is valuable in us and by us will be purified as if by fire.
Sadly, the traditional misinterpretation of this passage as warning of hell at worst nullifies the power of this passage to call believers to repentance, at worse it confuses the revelation of salvation being by grace. If a believer thinks this passage is about salvation he thinks “this doesn’t apply to me because I’m saved.” And unbelievers do not care what it says. If he is a believer and thinks this passage is talking about the possibility of him going to hell, then though he is saved by grace, he must maintain his salvation by works. How messed up is that!
Now an entry in my Exegetical Commentary series (with a link back here for discussion – but people are welcome to post further comments there, too).
Beyond agreeing with Sherman and Sonia above, I find quite a few interesting details pointing in an unexpected direction in and around this portion of scripture.
The NON Universalist interpretation.
“Because you are neither hot nor cold but lukewarm I will spit you out of my mouth” - Jesus
Those without salt are people who profess to be Christians and do nothing. Never preach the Gospel, never warn sinners about hell. Teach false doctrines and heresy. Cowardly - love the praises of men more than the praises of God.
John the Baptist had salt. He called a sinner a sinner to his face and was murdered for it by Herod.
The passages you quoted are not from Jn.15. Please at least address the passage in question.
Really, that would have seemed to be much easier, wouldn’t it?
But our pseudonymous new member must have been distracted by the courage he is showing, and lost track of the topic. 
Well what about the verse wherein Jesus makes that promise against the party in question being lukewarm in Revelation?
I love that verse, because it basically means Jesus recognizes, respects, and can even work with honest opposition (being cold instead of hot/zealous)!
Otherwise, so what? He’s using a colorful analogy for punishment and the reason of it. If scripture elsewhere indicates rejection by God isn’t hopeless or permanent and is intended by God to foster repentance and reconciliation, which He promises will surely happen, then there’s more to the story than only being spit out of Jesus’ mouth the end.
Now if those other portions (and similar supporting evidence) didn’t exist, then there would be no scriptural evidence of the story going on to a conclusion of total victorious evangelism. Even that lack might not necessarily mean such an end was impossible, but a systematic exegetical argument would lean in the direction of the evidence, and the countervailing evidence would at least seem to weigh in the direction of some kind of hopeless punishment finally happening.
Not coincidentally, most people arguing for a finally hopeless punishment don’t think there is any scriptural evidence at all of the story continuing for the punished beyond their punishment. When I myself first became a universalist, I knew of a few odd passages here and there, but they were about the principle of universal salvation not (I thought) about the accomplishment of it. So I concluded that God would keep acting toward saving all sinners from sin (which was still technically universalism) but that the scriptures revealed there would be a never-ending stalemate; and notionally I was okay with that.
Then I studied the scriptures in more detail for a few years, and saw a ton more things I had missed before. So now I believe more than before. (But I don’t blame other people for not seeing it.)
The principle is that God’s judgement and punishments are for a purpose – to bring about a change of heart and mind, to turn the sinner from his way, to replace the heart of stone with a heart of flesh.
I love what this verse shows us about God’s ways:
Deu 32:39 'See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.
After he kills, he makes alive, after he wounds, he heals – and no one can escape his judgment. We will be judged, and we will learn to do right, and we will grow up into true sons and daughters of God. We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.
Here it is again:
Isa 19:22 And the LORD will strike Egypt, striking and healing, and they will return to the LORD, and he will listen to their pleas for mercy and heal them.
Hsa 6:1 "Come, let us return to the LORD; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.
Sonia
That Deut 32 verse (and its related contexts) are super-important in another way, too: proponents of hopeless punishment have a tendency to quote NT authors (the Hebraist for example) who are citing nearby verses when talking about punishment. But the context of those verses isn’t about hopeless punishment, as verse 39 helps indicate. God will vindicate his rebel people by destroying them to the point where they are neither slave nor free (i.e. dead), after which they will repent and return and He’ll restore them better than ever and reconcile the Jews with the Gentiles etc.
(Sonia knows that; I’m just mentioning it for other readers. 
)
This is a message on a different rendering of ‘lukewarm’. This phrase has been really mishandled in the western church
Message by Matthew Klein