“Basic Christianity, Part 47” by Romans
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We are continuing in our Series, “Basic Christianity.” Tonight, we are continuing in the review and examination of our Christian walk, as a facet of Basic Christianity. We are going to continue our acrostic review of the phrase, “By Growing in Grace,” in regard to our following in the steps of Christ. For the word “By,” we have covered thus far the letters B and Y. And, we completed all the letters in the word “Growing.”
Last week we reviewed the need of bearing Fruit to the Glory of God. I thought that this week we should take a break from reviewing the letters in the Acrostic, and see exactly which Fruit we are supposed to bear. That Fruit is specifically named in Galatians 5 where we read: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law” (Galatians 5:22-23).
The Expositor's Bible tells us of the Fruit of the Spirit: “The tree is known by its fruits." Such was the criterion of religious profession laid down by the Founder of Christianity. This test His religion applies in the first instance to itself. It proclaims a final judgment for all men; it submits itself to the present judgment of all men-a judgment resting in each case on the same ground, namely that of fruit, of moral issue and effects.
For character is the thing which in our secret hearts and in our better moments we all admire and covet. The creed which produces the best and purest character, in the greatest abundance and under the most varied conditions, is that which the world will believe.
These verses contain the ideal of character furnished by the gospel of Christ. Here is the religion of Jesus put in practice. These are the sentiments and habits, the views of duty, the temper of mind, which faith in Jesus Christ tends to form. Paul’s conception of the ideal human life at once "commends itself to every man’s conscience."
And he owed it to the gospel of Christ, His ethics art the fruit of his dogmatic faith. What other system of belief has produced a like result, or has formed in men’s minds ideas of duty so reasonable and gracious, so just, so balanced and perfect, and above all so practicable, as those inculcated in the Apostle’s teaching?
The picture of the Christian life takes its place side by side with others found in Paul’s Epistles. It recalls the figure of Charity in 1Corinthians 13:1-13, acknowledged by moralists of every school to be a masterpiece of characterisation. It stands in line also with the oft-quoted enumeration of Philippians 4:8 : "Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are reverend, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are chaste, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are kindly spoken, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."
These representations do not pretend to theoretical completeness. It would be easy to specify important virtues not mentioned in the Apostle’s categories. His descriptions have a practical aim, and press on the attention of his readers the special forms and qualities of virtue demanded from them, under the given circumstances, by their faith in Christ.
Nine virtues are woven together in this golden chain of the Holy Spirit’s fruit. They fall into three groups of three, four, and two respectively-according as they refer primarily to God, love, joy, peace; to one’s fellowmen, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faith; and to oneself, meekness, temperance.
But the successive qualities are so closely linked and pass into one another with so little distance, that it is undesirable to emphasise the analysis; and while bearing the above distinctions in mind, we shall seek to give to each of the nine graces its separate place in the catalogue.
1. The fruit of the Spirit is love. That fitliest first. Love is the Alpha and Omega of the Apostle’s thoughts concerning the new life in Christ. This queen of graces is already enthroned within this chapter. In Gal_5:6 Love came forward to be the minister of Faith; in Galatians 5:14 it reappeared as the ruling principle of Divine law. These two offices of love are united here, where it becomes the prime fruit of the Holy Spirit of God, to whom the heart is opened by the act of faith, and who enables us to keep God’s law.
Love is "the fulfilling of the law"; for it is the essence of the gospel; it is the spirit of sonship; without this Divine affection, no profession of faith, no practice of good works has any value in the sight of God or intrinsic moral worth. Though I have all other gifts and merits-wanting this, "I am nothing". (1Co_13:1-3) The cold heart is dead.
Whatever appears to be Christian that has not the love of Christ, is an unreality-a matter of orthodox opinion or mechanical performance-dead as the body without the spirit. In all true goodness there is an element of love. Here then, is the fountain-head of Christian virtue, the "well of water springing up into eternal life" which Christ opens in the believing soul, from which flow so many bounteous streams of mercy and good fruits.
This love is, in the first instance and above all, love to God. It springs from the knowledge of His love to man. "God is love," and "love is of God." (1 John 4:7-8). All love flows from one fountain, from the One Father. And the Father’s love is revealed in the Son. Love has the cross for its measure and standard. "He sent the Only-Begotten into the world, that we might live through Him.
Herein is love: hereby know we love". (1John 3:16; 1 John 4:9-10) The man who knows this love, whose heart responds to the manifestation of God in Christ, is "born of God." His soul is ready to become the abode of all pure affections, his life the exhibition of all Christlike virtues. For the love of the Father is revealed to him; and the love of a son is enkindled in his soul by the Spirit of the Son.
In Paul’s teaching, love forms the antithesis to knowledge. By this opposition the wisdom of God is distinguished from "the wisdom of this world and of its princes, which come to nought.” Not that love despises knowledge, or seeks to dispense with it. It requires knowledge beforehand in order to discern its object, and afterwards to understand its work. So the Apostle prays for the Philippians "that their love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and all discernment". Philippians 1:9-10)
It is not love without knowledge, heat without light, the warmth of an ignorant, untempered zeal that the Apostle desiderates. But he deplores the existence of knowledge without love, a clear head with a cold heart, an intellect whose growth has left the affections starved and stunted, with enlightened apprehensions of truth that awaken no corresponding emotions. Hence comes the pride of reason, the "knowledge that puffeth up." Love alone knows the art of building up.
Loveless knowledge is not wisdom. For wisdom is lowly in her own eyes, mild and gracious. What the man of cold intellect sees, he sees clearly; he reasons on it well. But his data are defective. He discerns but the half, the poorer half of life. There is a whole heaven of facts of which he takes no account.
He has an acute and sensitive perception of phenomena coming within the range of his five senses, and of everything that logic can elicit from such phenomena. But he "cannot see afar off." Above all, "he that loveth not, knoweth not God." He leaves out the Supreme Factor in human life; and all his calculations are vitiated. "Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?" If knowledge then is the enlightened eye, love is the throbbing, living heart of Christian goodness.
2. The fruit of the Spirit is joy. Joy dwells in the house of Love; nor elsewhere will she tarry. Love is the mistress both of joy and sorrow. Wronged, frustrated, hers is the bitterest of griefs. Love makes us capable of pain and shame; but equally of triumph and delight. Therefore the Lover of mankind was the "Man of sorrows," whose love bared its breast to the arrows of scorn and hate;
and yet "for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross, despising the shame."
There was no sorrow like that of Christ rejected and crucified; no joy like the joy of Christ risen and reigning. This joy, the delight of love satisfied in those it loves, is that whose fulfilment He has promised to His disciples. (Joh_15:8-11)
Such joy the selfish heart never knows. Life’s choicest blessings, heaven’s highest favours fail to bring it happiness. Sensuous gratification, and even intellectual pleasure by itself, wants the true note of gladness. There is nothing that thrills the whole nature, that stirs the pulses of life and sets them dancing, like the touch of a pure love.
It is the pearl of great price, for which "if a man would give all the substance of his house, he would be utterly contemned." But of all the joys love gives to life, that is the deepest which is ours when "the love of God is shed abroad in our heart." Then the full tide of blessedness pours into the human spirit. Then we know of what happiness our nature was made capable, when we know the love that God hath toward us.
Joy is the beaming countenance, the elastic step, the singing voice of Christian goodness. This joy in the Lord quickens and elevates, while it cleanses, all other emotions. It raises, the whole temperature of the heart. It gives a new glow to life. It lends a warmer and a purer tone to our natural affections. It sheds a diviner meaning, a brighter aspect over the common face of earth and sky.
It throws a radiance of hope upon the toils and weariness of mortality. It "glories in tribulation." It triumphs in death. He who "lives in the Spirit’" cannot be a dull, or peevish, or melancholy man. One with Christ his heavenly Lord, he begins already to taste His joy, - a joy which none taketh away and which many sorrows cannot quench.
1. But joy is a thing of seasons. It has its ebb and flow, and would not be itself if it were constant. It is crossed, varied, shadowed unceasingly. On earth sorrow ever follows its track, as night chases day. No one knew this better than Paul. "Sorrowful," he says of himself, (2 Corinthians 6:10) "yet always rejoicing": a continual alternation, sorrow threatening every moment to extinguish, but serving to enhance, his joy. Joy leans upon her graver sister Peace.
2. There is nothing fitful or febrile in the quality of Peace. It is a settled quiet of the heart, a deep, brooding mystery that "passeth all understanding," the stillness of eternity entering the spirit, the Sabbath of God. (Hebrews 4:9) It is theirs who are "justified by faith.” It is the bequest of Jesus Christ. He "made peace for us through the blood of His cross." He has reconciled us with the eternal law, with the Will that rules all things without effort or disturbance.
After the war of the passions, after the tempest of doubt and fear, Christ has spoken, "Peace, be still!" A great calm spreads over the troubled waters; wind and wave lie down hushed at His feet. The demonic powers that lashed the soul into tumult, vanish before His holy presence. The Spirit of Jesus takes possession of mind and heart and will. And His fruit is peace-always peace.
This one virtue takes the place of the manifold forms of contention which makes life a chaos and a misery. While He rules, "the peace of God guards the heart and thoughts" and holds them safe from inward mutiny, outward assault; and the dissolute, turbulent train of the works of the flesh find the gates of the soul barred against them. Peace is the calm, unruffled brow, the poised and even temper which Christian goodness wears.
3. The heart, at peace with God has patience with men. Charity "suffereth long." She is not provoked by opposition; nor soured by injustice; no, nor crushed by men’s contempt. She can afford to wait; for truth and love will conquer in the end. She knows in whose hand her cause is, and remembers how long He has suffered the unbelief and rebellion of an insensate world;
she "considers Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself."
Mercy and longsuffering are qualities that we share with God Himself, in which God was, and is, "manifest in the flesh." In this ripe fruit of the Spirit there are joined "the love of God, and the patience of Christ." (2 Thessalonians 3:5)
Longsuffering is the patient magnanimity of Christian goodness, the broad shoulders on which it "beareth all things". (1 Corinthians 13:7). "Charity suffereth long and is kind." Gentleness (or kindness, as the word is more frequently and better rendered,) resembles "longsuffering" in finding its chief objects in the evil and unthankful.
But while the latter is passive and self-contained, kindness is an active, busy virtue. She is moreover of a humble and tender spirit, stooping to the lowest need, thinking nothing too small in which she may help, ready to give back blessing for cursing, benefit for harm and wrong.
2. Kindness is the thoughtful insight, the delicate tact, the gentle ministering hand of Charity. Linked with kindness comes goodness, which is its other self, differing from it only as twin sisters may, each fairer for the beauty of the other. Goodness is perhaps more affluent, more catholic in its bounty; kindness more delicate and discriminating. The former looks to the benefit conferred, seeking to make it as large and full as possible; the latter has respect to the recipients, and studies to suit their necessity.
While kindness makes its opportunities, and seeks out the most needy and miserable, goodness throws its doors open to all comers. Goodness is the more masculine and large-hearted form of charity; and if it errs, errs through blundering and want of tact. Kindness is the more feminine; and may err through exclusiveness and narrowness of view. United, they are perfect.
Goodness is the honest, generous face, the open hand of Charity... 3. This procession of the Virtues has conducted us, in the order of Divine grace, from the thought of a loving, forgiving God, the Object of our love, our joy and peace, to that of an evil-doing, unhappy world, with its need of longsuffering and "kindness"; and we now come to the inner, sacred circle of brethren beloved in Christ, where, with goodness, faith- that is, trustfulness, confidence- is called into exercise.
The Authorised rendering "faith" seems to us in this instance preferable to the "faithfulness" of the Revisers. It is true that "God" or "Christ" is elsewhere implied as the object of faith; but where the word stands, as it does here, in a series of qualities belonging to human relationships, it finds, in agreement with its current meaning, another application.
The faith that unites man to God, in turn joins man to his fellows. Faith in the Divine Fatherhood becomes trust in the human brotherhood. In this generous attribute the Galatians were sadly deficient. "Honour all men," wrote Peter to them; "love the brotherhood" (1 Peter 2:17).
Their factiousness (or, divisiveness) and jealousies were the exact opposite of this fruit of the Spirit. Little was there to be found in them of the love that "envieth and vaunteth not," which "imputeth not evil, nor rejoiceth in unrighteousness," which "beareth, believeth, hopeth, endureth all things." They needed more faith in man, as well as in God.
The true heart knows how to trust. He who doubts every one is even more deceived than the man who blindly confides in every one. There is no more miserable vice than cynicism; no man more ill-conditioned than he who counts all the world knaves or fools except himself. This poison of mistrust, this biting acid of scepticism is a fruit of irreligion. It is one of the surest signs of social and national decay.
The Christian man knows not only how to stand alone and to "bear all things," but also how to lean on others, strengthening himself by their strength and supporting them in weakness. He delights to "think others better" than himself; and here "meekness" is one with "faith." His own goodness gives him an eye for everything that is best in those around him.
3. Meekness, as we have seen, is the other side of faith. It is not tameness and want of spirit, as those who "judge after the flesh" are apt to think. Nor is meekness the mere quietness of a retiring disposition. "The man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth." It comports with the highest courage and activity; and is a qualification for public leadership. Jesus Christ stands before us as the perfect pattern of meekness.
"I intreat you," pleads the Apostle with the self-asserting Corinthians, "by the meekness and gentleness of Christ!" Meekness is self-repression in view of the claims and needs of others; it is the "charity" which "seeketh not her own, looketh not to her own things, but to the things of others." For her, self is of no account in comparison with Christ and His kingdom, and the honour of His brethren.
Meekness is the content and quiet mien, the willing self-effacement that is the mark of Christlike goodness. 4. Finally temperance, or self-control, - third of Plato’s cardinal virtues. By this last link the chain of the virtues, at its higher end attached to the throne of the Divine love and mercy, is fastened firmly down into the actualities of daily habit and bodily regimen.
Temperance, to change the figure, closes the array of the graces, holding the post of the rear-guard which checks all straggling and protects the march from surprise and treacherous overthrow. If meekness is the virtue of the whole man as he stands before his God and in the midst of his fellows, temperance is that of his body, the tenement and instrument of the regenerate spirit.
It is the antithesis of "drunkenness and revellings," which closed the list of "works of the flesh," just as the preceding graces, from "peace" to "meekness," are opposed to the multiplied forms of "enmity" and "strife." Amongst ourselves very commonly the same limited contrast is implied. But to make "temperance" signify only or chiefly the avoidance of strong drink is miserably to narrow its significance.
It covers the whole range of moral discipline, and concerns every sense and passion of our nature. Temperance is a practised mastery of self. It holds the reins of the chariot of life. It is the steady and prompt control of the outlooking, sensibilities and appetencies, and inwardly moving desires.
The tongue, the hand and foot, the eye, the temper, the tastes and affections, all require in turn to feel its curb. He is a temperate man, in the Apostle’s meaning, who holds himself well in hand, who meets temptation as a disciplined army meets the shock of battle, by skill and alertness and tempered courage baffling the forces that outnumber it.
This also is a "fruit of the Spirit"-though we may count it the lowest and least, yet as indispensable to our salvation as the love of God itself. For the lack of this safeguard how many a saint has stumbled into folly and shame! It is no small thing for the Holy Spirit to accomplish in us, no mean prize for which we strive in seeking the crown of a perfect self-control.
This mastery over the flesh is in truth the rightful prerogative of the human spirit, the dignity from which it fell through sin, and which the gift of the Spirit of Christ restores. And this virtue in a Christian man is exercised for the behoof of others, as well as for his own. "I keep my body under," cries the Apostle...
"I make it my slave and not my master; lest, having preached to others, I myself should be a castaway" - that is self-regard, mere common prudence; but again, "It is good not to eat flesh, nor drink wine, nor to do anything whereby a brother is made to stumble or made weak." (Romans 14:21). Temperance is the guarded step, the sober, measured walk in which Christian goodness keeps the way of life, and makes straight paths for stumbling and straying feet.”
For time's sake I have excerpted Alexander MacClaren's thoughts on this subject. He writes, “‘The fruit of the Spirit,’ says Paul, not the fruits, as we might more naturally have expected, and as the phrase is most often quoted; all this rich variety of graces, of conduct and character, is thought of as one. The individual members are not isolated graces, but all connected, springing from one root and constituting an organic whole.
There is further to be noted that the Apostle designates the results of the Spirit as fruit, in strong and intentional contrast with the results of the flesh, the grim catalogue of which precedes the radiant list in our text. The works of the flesh have no such unity, and are not worthy of being called fruit. They are not what a man ought to bring forth, and when the great Husbandman comes, He finds no fruit there, however full of activity the life has been.
We have then here an ideal of the noblest Christian character, and a distinct and profound teaching as to how to attain it. I venture to take the whole of this list for my text, because the very beauty of each element in it depends on its being but part of a whole, and because there are important lessons to be gathered from the grouping.
I. The threefold elements of character here. The first of these three triads includes love, joy, and peace, and it is not putting too great a strain on the words to point out that the source of all three lies in the Christian relation to God. They regard nothing but God and our relation to Him; they would be all the same if there were no other men in the world, or if there were no world. We cannot call them duties or virtues; they are simply the results of communion with God—the certain manifestations of the better life of the Spirit.
Love, of course, heads the list, as the foundation and moving principle of all the rest. It is the instinctive act of the higher life and is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit. It is the life sap which rises through the tree and given form to all the clusters. The remaining two members of this triad are plainly consequences of the first.
Joy is not so much an act or a grace of character as an emotion poured into men’s lives, because in their hearts abides love to God. Jesus Christ pledged Himself to impart His joy to remain in us, with the issue that our joy should be full. There is only one source of permanent joy which takes possession of and fills all the corners and crannies of the heart, and that is a love towards God equally abiding and all-pervasive.
Peace will be built upon love and joy, if our hearts are ever turning to God and ever blessed with the inter-communion of love between Him and us. However long and close may be the siege, the well in the castle courtyard will be full. True peace comes not from the absence of trouble but from the presence of God, and will be deep and passing all understanding in the exact measure in which we live in, and partake of, the love of God.
The second triad is long-suffering, kindness, goodness. All these three obviously refer to the spiritual life in its manifestations to men. The first of them—long-suffering—describes the attitude of patient endurance towards inflictors of injury or enemies, if we come forth from the blessed fellowship with God, where love, joy, and peace reign unbroken, and are met with a cold gust of indifference or with an icy wind of hate.
The second and third members of this triad—kindness, goodness, slide very naturally into one another. They do not only require the negative virtue of not retaliating, but express the Christian attitude towards all of meeting them, whatever their attitude, with good. It is possible that kindness here expresses the inward disposition and goodness, the habitual actions in which that disposition shows itself. These three graces include all that Paul presents as Christian duty to our fellows.
The third triad—faithfulness, meekness, temperance—seems to point to the world in which the Christian life is to be lived as a scene of difficulties and oppositions. The rendering of the Revised Version is to be preferred to that of the Authorised in the first of the three, for it is not faith in its theological sense to which the Apostle is here referring... [T]he meaning is faithfulness, and Paul’s thought is that the Christian life is to manifest itself in the faithful discharge of all duties and the honest handling of all things committed to it.
Meekness even more distinctly contemplates a condition of things which is contrary to the Christian life, and points to a submissiveness of spirit which does not lift itself up against oppositions, but bends like a reed before the storm. Paul preached meekness and practised it, but Paul could flash into strong opposition...
The last member of the triad—temperance—points to the difficulties which the spiritual life is apt to meet with in the natural passions and desires, and insists upon the fact that conflict and rigid and habitual self-control are sure to be marks of that life.
II. The unity of the fruit. We have already pointed out the Apostles remarkable use of the word ‘fruit’ here, by which he indicates that all the results of the life of the Spirit in the human spirit are to be regarded as a whole that has a natural growth.
The foundation of all is of course that love which is the fulfilling of the law. It scarcely needs to be pointed out how love brings forth both the other elements of the first triad, but it is no less important to note that it and its two companions naturally lead on to the relations to men which make up the second triad.
It is, however, worth while to dwell on that fact because there are many temptations for Christian people to separate between them. As plainly Paul’s first triad naturally leads to his third. When the spiritual life has realised its deepest secret it will be strong to manifest itself as vigorous in reference to the difficulties of life. When that heart is blessed in its own settled love, abounding joy and untroubled peace, faithfulness and submission will both be possible and self-control will not be hard.
This concludes this Evening's Discussion, “Basic Christianity, Part 47.”
This Discussion was originally presented “live” on August 25th, 2020.
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