Objection 17

From Sovereign Grace and the Scope of Election: A Comparative Examination of Attainment Theology and Grace Theology, with Particular Attention to the Question of Whether God's Elect Are Found Among All Nations and Religions

John 15:2, 6, fruitless branches are "taken away" and "cast into the fire.

The vine discourse is spoken to the eleven about discipleship, fruit-bearing, and answered prayer, the visible, professing connection to Christ. Judas had just left the room: a branch "in me" by profession and office, never by life ("ye are clean, but not all," 13:10-11). Fruitless professors are removed from the visible fellowship and come to nothing; that is observably true and threatens no promise. Alternatively, and consistently with viticulture, "taketh away" (airo) can be rendered "lifteth up", the vinedresser raises a trailing branch off the soil so it can fruit. Either way, the passage governs fruit-bearing and fellowship ("that your joy might be full," 15:11), not the security Christ had just finished asserting in the same upper room: "I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish" (John 10:28), a promise John 15 cannot be read to repeal one chapter later without making Christ contradict Himself within a single evening.