Verse 5
I am the vine, ye are the branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for apart from me ye can do nothing.
See under John 15:1 and John 15:4, and under John 14:20.
Apart from me ye can do nothing ... As regards procurement of righteousness in the sight of God, no human being can ever achieve any semblance of it. Christ Jesus wrought the only righteousness (in the ultimate sense) ever known on earth. No man could ever achieve the tiniest fraction of such a righteousness as that of Christ; and therefore, no man can be saved as HIMSELF. The only way he can be saved is to be saved as CHRIST. God makes sinners righteous, not by imputing to them "a righteousness" of some kind, but by transferring the sinner himself "into Christ," thus identifying him as Christ and thus enabling the sinner to be presented "perfect in Christ" (Colossians 1:28). The analogy in the metaphor is that the branch is in fact the vine, being in it, and part of it; but when that union is destroyed by the branch's being cut off, it dies.
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