10. Conversion: Staying In (Part 2)— The Fruit of the Spirit
10
Conversion: Staying In (Part 2)—
The Fruit of the Spirit
The goal of individual conversion is for us to bear the fruit of the Spirit, that is, to be transformed into God’s own likeness, the likeness of Christ.
“You’ve come a long way, baby,” the cigarette ad announces to those women whom it is trying to seduce with its deadly product. The implication is that smoking this brand will bring them “the whole way” into the modern world. The ad, of course, has it all wrong, desperately wrong, not only in its demeaning women but also in its implications about the goal of the journey. In the real journey into the life of the future, we come a long way only as we walk in the Spirit. Thus are we conformed more and more into the likeness of God’s Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
To change metaphors: however much we may wish it otherwise, when we receive the Spirit at conversion, divine perfection does not set in, but divine “infection” does! We have been invaded by the living God himself, in the person of his Spirit, whose goal is to infect us thoroughly with God’s own likeness. Paul’s phrase for this infection is the fruit of the Spirit. The coming of the Spirit, with the renewing of our minds, gives us a heavenly appetite for this fruit. The growing of this fruit is the long way on the journey of Christian conversion, the “long obedience in the same direction,” and it is altogether the work of the Spirit in our lives. Life at a lower level is no advertisement for the future!
My primary purpose in this chapter is to look more closely at Paul’s list of these “fruit” in Galatians 5:22–23—a list that in effect is a mirror image of Christ himself, and thus also a reflection of what Spirit people look like. But before that, we take a brief look at how broad Paul’s understanding of life in the Spirit really is.
Other Spirit Activity
All sorts of other activities besides ethical “fruit” are understood by Paul as the work of the Spirit. Most of these belong to the life of the individual believer. What they reveal is the wide range of Paul’s view of life in Christ as empowered by the Spirit.
For example, our experience of hope—for the certain future noted in chapter 5 above—is empowered by the Spirit (Gal. 5:5; Rom. 15:13). Similarly, in Romans 9:1 Paul indicates that his clear conscience regarding what he is about to say is the work of the Spirit in his life. If Romans 12:11 refers to the Spirit at work in the believer’s spirit, then the Spirit is also the source of zeal for service. In Philippians 1:19 Paul expects the combination of the Philippians’ praying and the “supply of the Spirit” to make it possible for him to experience either deliverance or death without shaming the gospel, and to the glory of Christ. And even though he makes little of it with regard to apostleship, the Spirit is the key to Paul’s “many visions and revelations” (2 Cor. 12:1; see further chap. 12 below).
These several texts together merely demonstrate further what has already been said—that Paul’s view of life in Christ is so thoroughly dominated by the Spirit that the Spirit is the one absolutely essential ingredient for that life. Our focus in this chapter, however, is with the ethical dimension of that life, as illustrated by the fruit of the Spirit.
The Spirit and His Fruit
Before we look at the fruit individually, some general observations about the list of fruit in its context in Galatians might prove helpful.
1. Although Paul sets out the fruit of the Spirit in contrast to the preceding works of the flesh, he does not thereby intend passiveness on the part of the believer. After all, ethical instruction elsewhere comes by way of command, calling believers to active obedience. What we must not disregard is the element of the miraculous. In Paul’s ethics we walk in the Spirit (Gal. 5:16) as we are led by the Spirit (v. 18). The Spirit produces the fruit as believers continually walk with the Spirit’s help.
2. The essential nature of the fruit is the reproduction of the life of Christ in the believer. As noted in chapter 3 above, the Spirit is in fact the Spirit of Christ. We are not surprised therefore that many of the words Paul uses to describe this fruit are used elsewhere of Christ. In Ephesians 4:20 he speaks of ethical life in terms of “learning Christ.” The fruit of the Spirit is simply another way of talking about our being “predestined to be conformed to the likeness of God’s Son” (Rom. 8:29).
3. It is misleading to refer to this list as the ninefold fruit of the Spirit. The list is intended to be not exhaustive but representative, just like the preceding list of vices in Galatians 5:19–21. Paul concludes both lists by referring to “such things,” meaning all other vices and virtues similar to these. All such lists, including the description of love in 1 Corinthians 13:4–7 and of charismata (“gifts of the Spirit”) in 1 Corinthians 12:8–10, are written for the occasion and tailored to their contexts. In this case, they have been fashioned to address the conflict in the Galatian congregations (see Gal. 5:15 and 26). This also means that a full discussion of the fruit of the Spirit would need to spread a wide net to include, for example, the further items mentioned in Colossians 3:12–13 (compassion, humility, forgiveness) as well as specific applications like those in Romans 12:9–21.
4. These fruit cover a broad range, including all manner of attitudes, virtues, and behavior. Every aspect of Christian life, across the broadest possible spectrum, is the work of the Spirit. Fruit include the experiences of joy and peace within the believing community; attitudes such as gentleness, forbearance, and self-control; and behavior such as love, kindness, goodness, and all others consonant with these.
5. To reiterate from chapter 9 above, this list of Spiritual fruit is not intended to regulate Christian behavior by rules of conduct. Because truly Christian ethics are the product of walking and living in the Spirit, there can be no law (Gal. 5:23); nor may we turn Paul’s ethics into a new law. Rather these fruit are pointers; here is what one who is being conformed into Christ’s image will look like.
6. To bring this discussion full circle, most of these items have to do not with the internal life of the individual believer but with the corporate life of the community. While it is true that individuals must love, work toward peace, express forbearance, kindness, and goodness, and be characterized by gentleness, in Pauline ethics these virtues characterize God’s relationship toward his people. The Spirit bears fruit in our individual lives for the same purpose, to be toward one another the way God is toward us.
This is demonstrated in Galatians 6:1 by Paul’s use of “the S/spirit of gentleness” as the motivation behind their restoration of a brother or sister who has sinned. When Paul admonishes in 6:4 that they are to “test” or “examine” themselves, that is not a call to introspection, Christian “navel gazing” as it were, but for them to see whether as individuals the fruit of the Spirit are at work in each of them for the sake of the common good.
Thus the opening command, “walk by the Spirit” (Gal. 5:16), is directed not so much toward the individual in terms of his or her own personal life in Christ but toward the Christian community, in which some are “biting and devouring” one another, hence using their freedom in Christ as an “occasion for the flesh.” The flesh/Spirit contrast in this passage, therefore, has nothing to do with one’s introspective conscience. It has everything to do with “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, and gentleness” within the believing community. They are ethics for believers who are learning to live together as God’s people in a fallen world.
The Individual Fruit
It is common to make more of the singular “fruit,” in contrast to the plural “works,” than the language will allow. Paul probably had no such contrast in mind, nor does he think of the works as many and individual but the fruit as one cluster with several kinds on it. The word karpos (“fruit”) in Greek functions as a collective singular, much as the word “fruit” does in English. In both languages one would refer to “the fruit in the bowl,” whether they are all of one kind or of several. Here they are of several kinds.
Love
That love should assume pride of place is no surprise. Paul has already accorded it such a place in this argument (Gal. 5:6, 13–14), a place it always holds in his ethics, as in all of Scripture. The reason for this is that in Paul’s theology, resulting from his long life in the Old Testament, this word captures the essence of the character of God as seen in his relationship to his people. Thus in the trinitarian benediction of 2 Corinthians 13:14, in which the primary characteristic of the divine Persons is expressed, Paul prays for the Corinthians to know “the love of God.” God’s love for his people is what has been poured out into their hearts by the Spirit (Rom. 5:5). For Paul this love has been expressed most powerfully in God’s sending his Son, and in the Son’s death on the cross (Rom. 5:6–8). God’s love is full of forbearance and kindness (see below) toward his people, and finally expresses itself to the full in the self-sacrificial death of Christ on behalf of his enemies.
But for Paul this is not simply theory or abstract reality; the Spirit had poured this love into his heart. In this same letter he has already described the indwelling Christ as the one “who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). This is surely what he intends by the “law of Christ” in 6:2, which lies behind the imperative by which all of this began in 5:13 (“through love perform the duties of a slave for one another”). Such love is the direct result of being loved by the God whose love has been lavished on us in the Son, who likewise loved us and gave himself for us, and by whose indwelling presence we now live.
Love, therefore, is not something one can do or feel on one’s own; nor is it to be distorted into its current North American version of good feelings toward someone, so that love is turned on its head—instead of self-sacrificial giving of myself for others, it has become identified with what I do or feel for another for the sake of my own self-fulfillment. Love heads this list of virtues over against the works of the flesh precisely because it stands as the stark opposite of the self-centeredness of most of the items on the former list. As the fruit of the Spirit, love spells the end to “hostilities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of rage, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions, envies,” and the like (see Gal. 5:20–21). This can only be lived out in the context of other people, especially other believers. Thus it is Paul’s own antidote in verses 13 and 14 to their internal strife mentioned in verse 15.
Joy
Life in Christ, and therefore life by the Spirit, is a life of joy; above all else, such joy is to characterize the Christian community (1 Thess. 5:16). What is remarkable is the appearance of joy in this list of virtues that are primarily ethical in character. As with love and peace that stand on either side of it, Paul is probably not thinking so much of the personal, individual experience of joy—although as with this whole list, that can scarcely be excluded—but of the joy that characterizes a community who are walking in the Spirit.
God has brought us eschatological salvation; the future has already made its appearance in the present; God’s people have already tasted the life that is to be. Already they have received full pardon, full forgiveness; by the Spirit they cry out “Abba” to the God who has loved them and given his Son for them. This is cause for joy, unquenchable, uninhibited joy, as “by the Spirit we eagerly await the hope of righteousness” (Gal. 5:5). The fruit of the Spirit is joy, joy in the Lord. What must begin at the individual level must also therefore characterize the believing community, among whom God still generously supplies the Holy Spirit.
The presence or absence of joy is therefore unrelated to one’s circumstances, as Paul’s letter to the Philippians makes plain. It is related entirely to what God has done for us in Christ through the Spirit. The Pauline imperative, stemming from joy as the fruit of the Spirit, is not simply “rejoice”—although it often comes in that simple form as well—but “rejoice in the Lord.” This focus is the key to our understanding the joy of the Spirit. A community that is “rejoicing in the Lord always” is not a community easily given to “eating and devouring one another” (Gal. 5:15), one in which people think too highly of themselves (6:4).
Peace
As with love, peace is especially associated with God and his relationship to his people; and as with love and joy, for Paul it is especially a community matter. That is, Paul’s first concern with peace is not the well-arranged heart—although again, it is difficult to have peace in a community where God’s people themselves know little peace individually. But here peace occurs in a list of virtues that deliberately stand over against the works of the flesh, eight of which describe the causes or results of human discord.
God himself is often described as “the God of peace,” the God who dwells in total shalom (wholeness, well-being) and who gives such shalom to his people in their life together. What is striking is that this divine ascription occurs exclusively in contexts where there is strife or unrest close at hand. Thus the antidote to unruly charismata in the community is the theological note that God himself is a “God of peace” (1 Cor. 14:33); or in a community where the unruly idle live off the largesse of others, Paul prays that the God of peace will give them peace at all times (2 Thess. 3:16); or in a context where believers are warned against those who “cause divisions and put obstacles in your way,” he assures them that the God of peace will bruise Satan under their feet shortly (Rom. 16:20).
Furthermore, the mention of peace in Paul’s letters (apart from the standard salutation) most often occurs in community or relational settings. Christ is our peace who has made Jew and gentile one people, one body (Eph. 2:14–17), who are urged to “keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (4:3). Similarly in the argument of Romans 14:1–15:13, Paul urges Jew and gentile together to “make every effort to do what leads to peace” (14:19). In the community context of Colossians 3:12–4:6, Paul urges the Colossians to “let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace.” Peace, therefore, has primarily to do with the cessation of hostilities. Blessed are the peacemakers! The Spirit alone can produce such peace in our midst.
Forbearance
It is common to translate this word (Greek makrothymia) as “patience.” To be sure, in some cases it may well carry that meaning. But in English, patience tends to be individualistic; that is, one is patient about all kinds of nonpersonal matters pertaining to life in general (e.g., burnt toast). But in Paul makrothymia and its corresponding verb are always used in contexts involving one’s forbearance toward others. As such it often refers, as it does here, to the passive but tenacious side of love, of which its companion “kindness” is the active side. Thus Paul describes God’s attitude toward human arrogance as one of forbearance and kindness (Rom. 2:4). These are the first two words that describe (God’s) love in 1 Corinthians 13:4; and they occur together in Colossians 3:12 as part of Christian dress when we “put on Christ.”
Thus “longsuffering” (KJV) has to do with long forbearance toward those who stand over against us in some way. Although Paul nowhere else attributes such forbearance to the direct working of the Spirit, its appearance here makes clear that Spirit empowering is not simply for joy and miracles but also for this much-needed quality of hanging in there with those who need long and patient love and kindness (cf. Col. 1:11). This is the antidote to “outbursts of rage” (5:20) or “provoking one another” (v. 26).
Kindness
Like the forbearance with which it is frequently allied, the key to understanding “kindness” is found in the instances where it describes God’s character or activity toward people. Thus it occurs as a verb in 1 Corinthians 13:4 to express the active side of love, for which longsuffering expresses its passive side. In such a context it surely refers to God’s active goodness, lavished upon those whom he loves. God’s kindness is found in his thousandfold acts of mercy toward people like ourselves who deserve his wrath. This is especially borne out by its usage in Ephesians 2:7, where the extravagant expression of God’s grace is demonstrated in his kindness toward us in Christ.
In this list, of course, where it occurs again in conjunction with forbearance, it has to do with genuine acts of kindness toward others. As such it fits the larger context as another contrast to the works of the flesh, with their self-centered, basically hostile-toward-others way of life. The Spirit not only empowers us to endure the hostility or unkindness of others; he also enables us to show kindness to them, actively to pursue their good. If longsuffering means not to “chew someone’s head off” (see Gal. 5:15), kindness means to find ways of binding up their wounds.
Goodness
As noted above, this word is closely allied with kindness. If there is a difference, “goodness” is the more all-embracing quality, describing one’s character. The adjective (“good”) from which this noun is formed is a primary word to describe God’s character in the Old Testament. Similarly, believers may be described as “full of goodness” (Rom. 15:14); when put into practice it takes the form of “doing good.” Indeed, goodness does not exist apart from its active, concrete expression.
Thus this is the quality of Christian grace, produced in the life of the believer by the Spirit, that Paul picks up on at the end to conclude the present argument: “let us do good to all people” (Gal. 6:9–10). Again, as with the preceding words, its appearance here presupposes the present context. Those who sow to the Spirit are those who do good to all; obviously this stands as yet another antonym to those works of the flesh that have found a measure of existence among the Galatians.
Faith(fulness)
The word here is pistis, Paul’s primary word for “faith,” having to do with one’s basic stance toward God—of utter trust in his trustworthiness. In the Septuagint it was the basic Greek word used for the concept of God’s faithfulness. This is the sense that Paul picks up in Romans 3:3, that the “unfaithfulness” of God’s people does not call into question God’s own pistis (“faithfulness”). From a theological perspective, one could not object to faith as the meaning of the word even here—that is, that one of the fruit of the Spirit is our trust in God. But given the other virtues, especially those that immediately surround it, Paul is no doubt referring to faithfulness, that is, our faithful living out our trust in God over the long haul.
The more difficult question is whether it also carries a nuance of faithfulness in relationship to others. Since the New Testament has no other examples of such usage, it seems unlikely, despite the context, that Paul has this nuance in mind here. More likely the sense is that of faithful devotion to God, which in turn will express itself toward others by means of the various other fruit in this list. True faith for Paul always includes the element of faithfulness; thus true faith for him in this sense, as a fruit of the Spirit, expresses itself in love (Gal. 5:6).
Gentleness
This is the word that earlier versions translated “meekness.” For Paul it derives its Christian meaning from its relationship with Christ. In Matthew 11:25–30 this is one of the two words used to describe the character of Christ, which he, as the only Son of the Father, revealed about the character of the Father. That Paul knew this tradition, or one like it, seems certain from his appeal to the “meekness and gentleness of Christ” in 2 Corinthians 10:1.
As a Christian grace, reflecting the character of Christ himself, it occurs eight times in Paul. This fruit is the most difficult to translate adequately by an English word. It conveys at least the sense of humility toward oneself (that is, a proper estimation of oneself before God) and considerateness toward others. It is to this fruit that Paul will appeal in Galatians 6:1, when he urges those who walk by the Spirit to restore a brother or sister overtaken in a fault. We need to do so in the “S/spirit of gentleness” both because the life of the other person is at stake, and because we thereby remember our own frailties and susceptibility to temptation. In this list it stands as the exact antonym to the work of the flesh translated “selfish ambition.” It is that fruit of the Spirit at work in those who do not think too highly of themselves (6:3) but who “in humility consider others better than themselves” (Phil. 2:3)—in the sense that their needs and concerns are to be looked after before one’s own.
Self-Control
The last word on this list is unique in several ways. First, it is the one word on the list that does not appear elsewhere in Scripture with reference to the character of God. Second, the noun occurs only here in Paul’s letters, although the verb occurs in 1 Corinthians 7:9 with reference to sexual continence and in 1 Corinthians 9:25 with regard to the self-discipline of the athlete. Third, it is the one virtue in the list that is clearly aimed at the individual believer. This is not something one does in community; it is a general stance toward excesses of various kinds.
In contrast to the rest of the terms in the list, which take aim at those eight works of the flesh that have to do with relational breakdowns, this one takes aim at either (or both) the sexual indulgences that appear as the first three works of the flesh (sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery) or (and) the excesses with which that list concludes (drunkenness, orgies). This, too, is the effective working of the Spirit in the life of the believer.
In terms of Pauline ethics, we may not turn “self-control” into abstinence as such. Paul denounces anything that even smacks of abstinence per se as a Christian virtue (see 1 Cor. 10:31–33; Rom. 14:1–23; 1 Tim. 4:1–5), for example, “don’t handle, don’t taste, don’t touch” (Col. 2:21). Because of this fruit of the Spirit, we are free to abstain from anything for the sake of others; but we may never turn such free giving up of food or drink or whatever into some virtue on its own. These are merely “human traditions,” as Paul calls them (Col. 2:22), the “teachings of demons” (1 Tim. 4:2). Only the Spirit can set us free for self-control—life in moderation but with abstention for the sake of someone else.
* * *
Paul concludes this list by bringing it back into context: “Against such things as these there is no law.” This means something like, “when these virtues are evident among us because of the presence of the Spirit, Torah is an irrelevancy.” There is no need of Torah to say to people who by the Spirit are loving one another, “you shall not kill,” nor to say to those who are actively pursuing the good of others out of kindness, “don’t covet.”
This does not mean that reminders like this list are irrelevant—Paul himself is long on such—but that the need for Torah to “hem in human conduct because of the transgressions” (Gal. 3:19, 22) has come to an end with the advent of the Spirit, God’s own way of fulfilling the promised new covenant. This is Torah being etched on the heart, so that God’s people will obey him (Jer. 31:33; Ezek. 36:27). Here also is the clear evidence that for Paul the elimination of Torah does not mean the end of righteousness. To the contrary, the Spirit produces the real thing, the righteousness of God himself, so that his children reflect his likeness.
Of equal importance, these are the fruit of the eschatological Spirit. In us and in our believing communities the Spirit is at work reproducing the very life of God, so that in our present between-the-times existence, we might live the life of the future, toward which we are walking. This is what lies behind Paul’s command in Philippians 1:27, where in a wordplay on the fact that Philippi was a Roman colony, whose free people were therefore citizens of Rome, Paul urges them “to live out their [heavenly] citizenship in Philippi in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.” Picking up this same imagery again in 3:20 he says that “our citizenship is in heaven.”
God’s people in Philippi were in effect a “colony of heaven” in this colony of Rome. Paul’s point is that if people are to see what heaven is to be like, they should see it now in the way the heavenly citizens live their life together. Obviously, only the Spirit of the living God can pull that off! But that is what it is all about.
We need, finally, to return to the beginning. Pauline ethics has to do with walking—putting one foot in front of the other, if you will—and doing so in the Spirit, as we are led by the Spirit. Both Paul’s exhortation to the community in Ephesians 5:18 (“be filled with the Spirit”) and his instruction to Timothy in 2 Timothy 1:6–7 (“fan the gift into flame”) imply the need for a continual, ongoing appropriation. The Spirit’s presence is the crucial matter, but that presence does not automatically ensure a quickened, fervent Spiritual life. Both individuals and the church as a whole are exhorted to keep the gift aflame. One way of doing this is by mutual encouragement and growth in the context of community life, especially in worship (see chapter 13 below).
But before that, two further areas of life in the Spirit call for special attention, the Spirit/flesh and power/weakness contrasts. Most Christians see both of these as belonging to individual Christian life; but as has already been suggested in this chapter, that is simply not true of the former, at least not in Paul’s view. To this matter we now turn.
Reflection Questions