The Fruit of the Spirit

Galatians 5:22-23 ESV

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”

The fruit of the Spirit is the action or the result or the yield or outgrowth of the Spirit of God. So, if we are living our lives under the control of the Holy Spirit, and not under the control of the flesh, we should be producing the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. This fruit should be what we produce via our true partnership (union, fellowship) with the Holy Spirit. For it is the Lord living his life out through ours which yields what is eternal, but only as we cooperate with that work of grace and do what our Lord commands.

So, the fruit listed for us here should be what we are yielding (producing), in practice, and not the works of the flesh mentioned in the previous verses. So I want to look here at what these words mean, for they do have very specific meanings which we may not always understand with our English translations of the Scriptures. And it is important that we know what these words mean so we know what the outgrowth of a Spirit-filled life should look like. And these definitions are largely taken from the biblehub.com interlinear:

So, the first word is love which is agape love, which centers in moral preference. And it means to prefer, and it typically refers to divine love which equals what God prefers. And what our Lord prefers is what is godly, holy, righteous, morally pure, upright, honest, and faithful, etc. So when we love with this love we will prefer what God prefers and we will obey his choices through his power and strength.

The second word is joy which means to rejoice because of God’s grace, but a grace which teaches us to say “No!” to ungodliness and fleshly lusts and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives while we wait for our Lord’s soon return (Titus 2:11-14). It is not the cheap grace which so many are teaching today as though it is God’s true grace. For they teach a grace which permits the sinner to continue on living in sin without guilt and without remorse.

The third word is peace and it means “to join, tie together into a whole.” Properly it means wholeness. For when all essential parts are joined together that is God’s peace, his gift of wholeness. It is also an invocation of peace, which is a common Jewish farewell, in the Hebraistic sense of the health (welfare) of an individual. So this is about peace of mind, heart, emotion and spirit, in addition to quietness and rest and lack of fear and of unrest.

The fourth word is patience, and it means longsuffering, and it embraces steadfastness and staying-power. It is long-tempered as a counterpart to “short-tempered.” It is also persistence, endurance, perseverance, and forbearance. So it has to do with not being quick to anger, and it has to do with the God-given ability to wait on the Lord for answers to our requests, and to persevere in following the Lord even in the face of many trials.

The fifth word is kindness, and it means goodness, excellence, uprightness, usefulness, and what is profitable, well-fit for what is really needed. And it refers to meeting real needs, in God’s way, in his timing. It is the Spirit-produced goodness which meets the need and avoids human cruelty; kind and good. So this is not about saying things to people to make them feel good, which may be lies, but this is about meeting real needs in God’s way.

The sixth word is goodness which is the goodness that comes from God. So, it shows itself in spiritual and moral excellence (virtue). So this is not about human goodness. And this, as well, is similar in nature to kindness.

The seventh word is faithfulness which is faith and is always a gift from God and never something that can be produced by people. For the believer it is God’s divine persuasion. The Lord continuously births faith in the yielded believer so that he can know what God prefers, i.e. the persuasion of His will. This is not of our own doing. It is gifted to us by God, persuaded by God, authored and perfected by God – not of the will nor the flesh of man.

The eight word is gentleness which is meekness (gentle strength) which expresses power with reserve, a gentle-force. It begins with the Lord’s inspiration and finishes by his direction and empowerment. It is a divinely-balanced virtue that can only operate through God-given and God-persuaded faith in Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ was meek but he was not weak, and he had no issues with speaking boldly the truth of God with love.

The ninth and last word is self-control which is self-restraint and self-discipline. And it is the opposite of self-indulgence, pleasure-seeking, and selfishness. For the believer in Jesus Christ "self-control, i.e. Spirit-control" can only be accomplished by the power of the Lord. So it is us exercising self-restraint in the power of God’s Holy Spirit and not in our flesh. For self-modification has its limits, but the power of God has staying power.

Galatians 5:24-26 ESV

“And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.”

So, in summary, those of us who genuinely belong to Christ via God-given and God-persuaded faith in Jesus Christ, we are those who have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. We have died with Christ to sin, and we have been raised with Christ to walk in newness of life in him, no longer living as slaves to sin but now as slaves to God and to his righteousness. So, we now walk by the Spirit and no longer by the flesh, and we die daily to sin and to self, and we follow Jesus in obedience, in practice.

But there is a caution here to us since we are still human beings, and since we still live in flesh bodies, and since we are still tempted to sin, and since we still have the propensity to sin against our Lord and against other humans. We must guard our minds and hearts against conceit, provoking one another, envying one another, and against any other type of sinful attitudes and behaviors which may tempt us. And we must continue to walk in the fear of the Lord, obeying our Lord’s commands (New Covenant).

[Matt 7:21-23; Matt 24:9-14; Lu 9:23-26; Rom 1:18-32; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14,24; Rom 12:1-2; Rom 13:11; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; 1 Co 1:18; 1 Co 15:1-2; 2 Tim 1:8-9; Heb 9:28; 1 Pet 1:5; Gal 5:16-21; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-32; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:5-17; 1 Pet 2:24; Tit 2:11-14; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6,24-25; 1 Jn 3:4-10; Heb 3:6,14-15; Heb 10:23-31; Heb 12:1-2; Rev 21:8,27; Rev 22:14-15] 

Oh, to Be Like Thee, Blessed Redeemer 

Lyrics by Thomas O. Chisholm, 1897

Music by W. J. Kirkpatrick, 1897

Oh, to be like Thee! blessèd Redeemer,

This is my constant longing and prayer;

Gladly I’ll forfeit all of earth’s treasures,

Jesus, Thy perfect likeness to wear.

Oh, to be like Thee! full of compassion,

Loving, forgiving, tender and kind,

Helping the helpless, cheering the fainting,

Seeking the wandering sinner to find.

O to be like Thee! lowly in spirit,

Holy and harmless, patient and brave;

Meekly enduring cruel reproaches,

Willing to suffer others to save.

O to be like Thee! while I am pleading,

Pour out Thy Spirit, fill with Thy love;

Make me a temple meet for Thy dwelling,

Fit me for life and Heaven above.

Oh, to be like Thee! Oh, to be like Thee,

Blessèd Redeemer, pure as Thou art;

Come in Thy sweetness, come in Thy fullness;

Stamp Thine own image deep on my heart.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrYhiK2nQBg 

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