John 15:6

ἐὰν μή τις μείνῃ, “if any one shall not have abided in me”. ἐβλήθη … ἐξηράνθη, the gnomic aorist, cf. 1 Peter 1:24; and see Burton, M. and T., 43, and Grotius: “Hi aoristi sine designatione temporis significant quid fieri soleat, pro quo et praesens saepe usurpatur”. The whole process undergone by the fruitless branch is described in these six verbs, αἴρει John 15:2, ἐβλήθη, ἐξηράνθη, συνάγουσιν, βάλλουσι, καίεται, and each detail is thus given for the sake of emphasising the inevitableness and the completeness of the destruction. ἐβλήθη ἔξω ὡς τὸ κλῆμα, “is cast out,” i.e., from the vineyard, as the next words show; here this means hopeless rejection. The result is ἐξηράνθη, the natural capacity for fruit-bearing is destroyed. The figure derived from the treatment of the fruitless branch is continued in συνάγουσιν … καίεται, cf. Matthew 13:49-50; and Matthew 13:41-42. On καίεται, Euthymius remarks οὐ μὴν κατακαίονται “but are not consumed”. And in Exodus 3:2, the bush καίεται, but οὐ κατεκαίετο “burns, but was not consumed”. But this only shows that without the miraculous interposition it would have been consumed.