The Lord Jesus presented a powerful illustration: the vine, the branches, and the vinedresser. The Father is the vinedresser, Christ is the true vine, and the disciples are the branches. He warned that the Father would remove branches that did not bear fruit, but the branches connected to the true vine would be pruned. Another word for pruning is cleaning. The Lord said that His word cleaned the disciples, which also means that the Father uses the words of Christ to prune the genuine disciples.
