"OF THE SPIRIT"

NOBODY but God can make a fruit. No fruit-farmer or vine-dresser in the world can actually make an apple or a grape. All he can do is create the most favourable conditions for growth, and let the natural laws established by God bring about the fruit.

So in a very real sense all natural fruit is of the Spirit, because God has brought it into existence, not man. Every item of produce that emerges from the ground and appears on your meal table is directly attributable to the hand of God. Hence the very excellent custom of giving thanks before eating.

But our subject is not fruit that grows on trees and vines. It's more important than the mere food on our tables. "Is not the life more than meat?" (Matt.6:25).

According to the Apostle Paul, writing by the Spirit of God, "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance."

This fruit is extra special. It brings together all the qualities of character which are produced in the heart of a believer by the Spirit. And in a sense, in the same way that no man can make an apple or a grape, so no man can manufacture these qualities for himself. As Paul says, they are "of the Spirit".

Simply deciding to make these qualities ours won't change us in any appreciable way. As if to say, "Name a virtue and it's yours!" We can't turn the aspects of the fruit into something like a list of New Year resolutions, and expect to have them. If we do that, they'll go the way of most New Year resolutions. Probably sooner! Just deciding to have these things, by an effort of will, won't generate them. Fruit has to go through a process of growth. You can no more demand spiritual fruit of yourself than you can demand apples of a tree. This fruit is of the Spirit, not of our own wills.

Not the real thing

I also believe that the good works of the unchristian of the world fail to please God because they are not the fruit of the Spirit. Dare I say that the love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness etc. which the world exhibits is only a synthetic fruit. Laudable as it is––and sometimes in appearance and effect it puts true believers to shame––it is not the genuine article, but mimics the real fruit of the Spirit.

This may seem like a harsh thing to say, bearing in mind all the energy and sincerity that undoubtedly goes into the good works of the world, but if all the qualities of the fruit are in a person, and he or she has not obtained them through delighting and meditating in the Word according to a sound understanding of the gospel, what else can we call this fruit but imitation? Though it's hard to accept that the well-intentioned and sincere good characters we often encounter are viewed by God as mere imitations of what He really expects, I find it hard to escape this view.

But the fact that the only character acceptable to God is one which exhibits the fruit of the Spirit does help us understand why so many very good people are actually unacceptable to God. What they have only appears to be what God wants. You may be the greatest philanthropist on earth, but still be a long way short of what God wants from you.

Not a gift of the Spirit

One thing we must get clear in our minds is that the fruit is of the Spirit, and not a gift of the Spirit. The qualities that make up the fruit are not conferred by the Holy Spirit. Believers have never had the fruit of the Spirit bestowed upon them as they once had the Spirit gifts. If that were to happen it would make a nonsense of believers' probations, the whole point of which is to instill these qualities into their characters.

To have one's character suddenly and miraculously changed by the Holy Spirit (presumably at baptism, or shortly after) would make all the warnings and exhortations of the New Testament about failure a complete waste of Bible space.

With supernaturally changed characters we would never need to be told what to do and what not to do; it would come naturally. No-one would ever leave the Truth. The very notion of God's re-programming us for righteousness not only flies in the face of Christian experience (meaning it doesn't happen), but it's contrary to the way God has historically dealt with us. God wants our free-will response. And love, the first (and probably the whole) of the fruit of the Spirit, is impossible to programme into someone.

Try programming your computer to say "I love you" and you'll quickly realize that the response is less than satisfying! Do you really think it means it? That certainly isn't love.

The fruit of the Spirit was never a gift of the Spirit to alter us regardless of our own efforts and intentions. Even those powers that were gifts of the Spirit never made the first century believers righteous. They still had problems and failed.

The fruit is of the Spirit because...

So, if it isn't a gift of the Holy Spirit, how is the fruit to be understood as being of the Spirit? It is of the Spirit because it results from the influence of the Spirit Word. Perhaps it will be helpful to look at some parallel phrases from the New Testament.

"Fruit of the Spirit" (Gal.5:22) "mind of the Spirit" (Rom.8:27) "spiritually minded" (Rom.8:6) [minding] the things of the Spirit" (Rom.8:5) "mind of Christ" (1 Cor.2:16, Phil.2:5) "Spirit of Christ" (Rom.8:9) "Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" (Rom.8:2) "Walk in the Spirit" (Gal.5:16)

All these phrases amount to the same thing. They all refer to a mind which is dominated by spiritual thinking, a mind influenced by the Spirit Word, as opposed to fleshly thinking. None of these phrases refers to the direct influence of the Holy Spirit on the mind. Walking in the Spirit is taking the spiritual path through life, not the fleshly path dominated by self. The mind of the Spirit is the mind influenced and directed by the Spirit Word.

Spirit in all these cases is used as the opposite to flesh. God's Spirit way is contrasted with our natural inclinations. Most of the phrases above come from Romans 8, and if you look at that chapter you'll see that this spirit-and-flesh antagonism is the theme of the chapter. The same is true of Galatians 5 where the fruit of the Spirit is set against the works of the flesh.

If we attempt to make the word Spirit in Romans 8 mean the direct influence of the Holy Spirit, then we have the very nonsense we mentioned earlier. We have a situation where the Holy Spirit makes people righteous. For in verse 13, Paul writes: "For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." The Holy Spirit did not make believers righteous by mortifying the flesh (deeds of the body); the believers themselves were asked to do that through the Spirit––that is, through acquiring a spiritual mind. They would accomplish it through their delight and meditation in the Spirit word, not through any gift of the Holy Spirit.

The mind of Christ

A phrase of particular interest among those quoted above is "the mind of Christ." Without doubt Christ exhibited the fruit of the Spirit to perfection. To have the mind of Christ is to have the fruit in all its aspects. It hardly seems necessary to prove it, but here is the proof anyway: all these refer to Christ:

"... love one another as I have LOVED you" (John 15:12)

"... that my JOY might remain in you..." (John 15:11)

"... my PEACE I give unto you..." (John 14:27)

"... Jesus Christ might shew forth all LONGSUFFERING." (1 Tim.1:16)

"... the Lord [Jesus] is gracious [Gk. chrestos, KIND = gentleness] (1 Pet. 2.3)

"Can there any GOOD thing come out of Nazareth?... Come and see" (John 1:46)

"... Christ Jesus who was FAITHFUL to him that appointed him" (Heb.3:2)

"...by the MEEKNESS and gentleness of Christ" (2 Cor.10:1)

"Every man that striveth for the mastery is TEMPERATE in all things" (1 Cor.9:25) [includes Christ]

Taking this a step further, it has to be remembered that God is love. God is agape, in fact, as the word is in 1 John 4.16. God is the great originator and epitome of this love. And Jesus the Son is spiritually the image of the Father (Heb.1:3). The mind of Christ is a true reflection of the mind of the Father.

The mind of the Father is expressed in His Word. Jesus found it there, delighted in it and meditated day and night upon it, to the full exclusion of the mind of the flesh. He achieved a likemindedness with God unequalled in man before or since. He could always think or say, "as the scripture hath said," or "how readest thou?" or "have ye not read this scripture ...?" He was so in tune with his Father's thinking that he could say that he and his Father were one.

Our aim, too, is to get ourselves in tune with the thinking of the Father. And we will achieve success in this enterprise to whatever degree we apply ourselves to the Spirit Word. The Scriptures are the only place in this world where the mind of God, and subsequently of Christ, is shown.

Delight and meditation in the Word will slowly, almost imperceptibly, produce the fruit of the Spirit for us, where no amount of will-power can. Fruit is not summoned into existence; it will grow in its own good time. We cannot force it. But we can create the most favourable conditions for growth (like the successful farmer), and let the natural laws established by God bring about the fruit.

This is not the operation of the Holy Spirit working directly upon us, but the bringing together, over a sustained period, of the mind of God and a receptive heart. These are the only favourable conditions for the production of the fruit of the Spirit.