Galatians 5:23

Galatians 5:22 , Galatians 5:23.

The Fruits of the Spirit.

I. Every tree is known by its fruit. And just so it is with us. The Bible often speaks about men as trees. Our root is the heart; the heart is the root of every man and of every man's life; and according then to what the heart is will be the life. Now what is the fruit of the Spirit? It is the fruit of a heart that has been renewed by the Spirit of God. God does not begin at the outside, at the circumference, but with the heart. He makes the acts and deeds right by making the heart right; He makes and keeps the tongue right by making the heart right. There is the difference between man's way and God's. Man begins at the outside, and tries to work towards the centre; God begins at once in the centre and in the heart, and by changing the heart He changes the life; and so Christ's word to Nicodemus is Christ's word to every man, "Ye must be born again."

II. Notice that in this particular list the fruits of the Spirit are dispositions. Paul in this particular passage is not dealing with actions, with deeds, but with dispositions love, joy, and so on, till you come to meekness and temperance dispositions, not activities. Then, further, he is not telling us of allthe dispositions that result from the indwelling of the Spirit of God in our breasts, but only of someof them. We are taken by the Apostle into a particular sphere of life, and are shown what the dispositions are belonging to that sphere. He is referring to the Galatian Churches as communities of men and women associated together in the profession of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He is taking us into the sphere of Christian fellowship and Christian intercourse; and the dispositions which he names are the dispositions produced by the Spirit among Christian men and women in their social intercourse one with another, in their Church fellowship and Church life.

J. Culross, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxx., p. 43.

The Fruit of the Spirit.

I. The Holy Spirit always clusters His work; one Christian virtue necessarily raises up another; there is no such thing as sanctification in a single point. But as one berry in a bunch of grapes cannot ripen but that the others ripen too, so it is with the Christian. Try to eradicate one sin of your character, and you will invariably find that in doing it you will weaken, if you do not pull up, another. Cultivate one good trait, and you will be surprised to find how many more seem to grow up, you scarcely know how, at its side. So that often this is the best way to carry on one's own edification: to concentrate one's prayers and self-discipline upon one particular point of attainment, not only because by that fixedness we shall best secure the growth and the attainment which we desire, but also because by cherishing that one excellence we shall promote all.

II. In the outer world, all the vicissitudes of the seasons and the weather go to make the harvest. Do you wonder in the spiritual husbandry, where such fruits as these have to be wrought, that there must be sometimes the bracing cold of a stern adversity, alternating with the warmer rays of summer hours? Can it be but that the sap of the Spirit shall be set free to flow by the winds which blow on us, and that we shall be cleansed by many a storm which is sent, for this very reason, to sweep over us? The wise man prayed that his soul might be subject to the changes of a moral atmosphere: "Awake, O north wind, and come, thou south; blow upon our garden, that the spices thereof may flow out." And then the far end of all" Let my beloved come into his garden and eat his pleasant fruits."

J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,5th series, p. 26.

References: Galatians 5:22; Galatians 5:23. J. H. Thorn, Laws of Life after the Mind of Christ,2nd series, p. 239; A. Murray, The Fruits of the Spirit,pp. 13-113; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol. i., p. 164; Ibid.,vol. xix., p. 169; Ibid.,vol. xxix., p. 51.Galatians 5:22. Ibid.,vol. vi., p. 83; R. W. Dale, Ibid.,vol. xxxv., p. 116. Galatians 5:24. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxi., No. 1239. Galatians 5:25. Ibid., Morning by Morning,p. 262.