Scripture reading: Galatians 5:19-26.
This is the first in a series of articles on the Fruit of the Spirit. Before getting into the list in Galatians, there are several points which must be considered and used as a guide for what you will be reading in this series.
1. A number of years ago, someone pointed out to me that the singular fruit is used and not the plural fruits. While I am not always one to get hung up on semantics and syntax, I do believe this was intentional in Galatians. Let’s cut open an apple and examine it together. On the outside, there is the peel or skin. The skin is rich in fiber and nutrients. Next there is the meat of the apple. The meat satisfies, nourishes and, consisting of water, quenches our thirst. There is also a stem which connects the apple to the tree. It is through the stem that the apple is developed and derives its life. In the center are the seeds which give new life.
Each part is distinct and separate from the other yet together form a recognizable, whole piece of fruit. The Fruit of the Spirit is descriptive of one Holy Spirit which has many different characteristics. If each characteristic were a separate fruit, then we would be wrangling over problems with polytheism. Each descriptive characteristic is part of the larger whole, thus, the use of the singular fruit. For us, this means it is a package deal. One cannot claim to have self-control but not love and still be full of the Holy Spirit. One cannot claim to have joy but not long-suffering and still be full of the Holy Spirit. It is a package deal. If we are full of the Holy Spirit, then we will exhibit all of these characteristics. If we lack some of the characteristics, then we are not full of the Holy Spirit. This is not to say we will never be full of the Holy Spirit because we are all on a journey toward becoming like Christ, and we are all still prone to sin. The question is not whether we have these characteristics but whether we have more of them today than we did yesterday. We’ll talk more about this in a few minutes.
2. Each and every word listed is rooted in the Old Testament. This is important for several reasons. First and foremost, the Holy Spirit was as active in the world in Old Testament times as He is today. This means that when Christ promised to send another Comforter (the Holy Spirit), He did not mean that a new being was coming onto the scene who had no prior experience with humans and no prior knowledge of what occurred in the world to that point. The Holy Spirit has been on the scene since the world was formed and since humans first drew breath. If you take the time to trace the theology and doctrines of the New Testament, you will find as I have that Christ introduced very little that was new. Much of what Christ taught had already been provided through instruction in the Old Testament, and particularly in the Pentateuch.
Galatians is telling us that the Holy Spirit will be manifested through us in these unique ways. When time is taken as I have done in writing this series to examine the roots of each word in the Old Testament, a clear picture of the Holy Spirit can be seen. This special is because it becomes more personal to us and helps us better understand just Who it is that we are becoming more like. Becoming more like Christ with the help of the Holy Spirit is not some abstract concept that comes on the scene in the Gospel of John, the Acts of the Apostles or the Epistles of Paul. We are instead stepping into the mind of God Himself Who has been active in the world since it was formed and since before it was formed. We have here an opportunity to know God on a much deeper level and in ways we have ever known before, and through these few verses in Galatians, we are given a glimpse into the constant, unchanging nature of God.
3. Each and every word listed has multiple interpretations and usages for various settings. Many of these words can be found in the Matthew 5 Sermon on the Mount. On closer examination, however, I observed that the variations of the words used in Galatians refer to the context of our relationships with other people and not our relationship with God. Let’s look at an example. I love God. I love my wife. I love my neighbor. I love chocolate. Each one of those statements brings to mind a different definition of love. Loving God means devotion and obedience to what He says we are to do if we would please Him and receive the salvation He offers through Christ. Loving my wife involves a much different type of relationship than loving my neighbor. Loving chocolate is more of an expression than a useful definition of love.
The Old Testament and the Sermon on the Mount teaching on love are that if we love God all other loves will follow. The Galatians reference to love has to do with how we relate to one another, not to God. What this means for us is that all of the words listed describe the impact the Holy Spirit has on our human relationships. Very often I have read this list of words as if they were spoken in a vacuum or to describe how I would handle a particular experience or situation. To some extent, these characteristics will describe how we handle situations, however, the primary purpose of the words is to describe how we interact in our human relationships. Trying to explain this further is difficult without examining the words listed, so I’ll stop here and simply ask you to keep this in mind when reading the articles that follow in this series.
4. I challenge you not to see the Galatians list as a set of lofty ideals. Richard Pryor in a family oriented comedy event said, “I am a Christian but not that good of a Christian.” There is a certain tendency to resist the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We may be ugly sinners, but we are comfortable being in control of ourselves. If we relinquish control of our lives and our demeanor to the Holy Spirit, what will we become? R.A. Torrey challenges this question with this exhortation, “Many are afraid to make a full surrender to God. They fear that if they should make a full surrender to God, that God would require of them some hard thing or even some absurd thing. Who is your God, anyway? He certainly is not the God of the Bible. The name of God in the Bible is love, ‘God is love;’ and absolute surrender to God is simply absolute surrender to infinite love. Is there anything to be dreaded in that? … When we make an absolute surrender of our wills and all we have to Him, He brings into play all the resources of infinite wisdom and grace and power, to fill our lives with sunshine. He may ask of us things that we would not of ourselves have chosen to do, but if He does, those things will be the very happiest things that we have to do.”
The process of becoming more like Christ and having the Holy Spirit manifest Himself through us more each day is not necessarily comfortable. We want to pray, “Lord, give me patience and give it to me now!” Unfortunately, the best patience is that which comes through experience, and most of those experiences are uncomfortable. The issue comes down to whether we are allowing ourselves to be transformed by the Holy Spirit. There are many who started this process but then for whatever reason closed their hearts to further work by the Holy Spirit. There are others who have been waiting for it to rub off the church pew and keep coming back to church Sunday after Sunday without making significant forward progress.
And then there are those who are sincere but stumble. The transformation process is not immediate. David did not go into battle and defeat Goliath on the basis of blind trust in the Lord. David had already developed his own understanding of the Lord through experience. He came to trust the Lord so deeply that he would stand in the shadow of a great warrior, launch a simple stone, and leave the rest to God. We are not loving, long-suffering, joyful or peaceful overnight. We are not even those things in every time of testing God puts in our pathway. It is the accumulation over time of the effects of our seeking the Lord and allowing the thick skin of our hearts to be pierced with the transforming power of the Holy Spirit that we come to manifest His work in our lives.
With that, I hope you will follow along with me in this series and enjoy reading the articles as much as I enjoyed writing them.
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