Once again, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:
22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faith[fullness], 23gentleness and self-control.
Against such things there is no law.
I want to briefly record some thoughts about the last two
fruits which I have translated “gentleness” and “self-control.” “Gentleness” is
one place where a word study is seriously needful. The problem is that this is
one of those instances where there simply is no English word to express the
meaning of the Greek word “prautes.” It gets translated as gentleness,
humility, mildness, and the old KJV meekness. Vine says, “The meaning of prautes is not easily expressed in English … It is that
temper of spirit in which we accept His dealings with us as good, and therefore
without disputing or resisting … the meekness manifested by the Lord and
commended to believers is the fruit of power [not weakness].”
The word is actually expressing an idea of submissiveness.
The problem for us in English is that every word we can come up with, whether
gentleness, humility, mildness, meekness, or submissiveness, they all bear for
us a connotation of weakness. But as Vine alludes above, this fruit is not a
matter of weakness but of power. It is submissiveness but not as an expression
of weakness. The word contains no hint of weakness. The best illustration I
have ever heard was that of a horse. A wild, unbroken horse is a creature of
stunning beauty, speed, and power. Then someone “breaks” it and what do you
have? A creature of stunning beauty, speed, and power – with one difference:
now it is willing to yield all of that beauty, speed, and power to another’s
control. We use the word “broken” which would convey weakness, but no one ever
understands a “broken” horse as something weak. That is the picture here – of a
gentleness or submissiveness arising not from weakness but rather from a
deliberate choice to yield ourselves to another’s control.
Jesus, of course, is the ultimate example of prautes. “… although He existed in
the form of God, [He] did not regard equality with God something to be grasped, but
emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being
found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the
point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil
2:6-8). As we are all very aware, Jesus’ death on the Cross was in no way or
form a result of weakness. It was the supreme example of power submitted to the
Father’s control. “Not My will, but Thine
be done,” He prayed in the Garden; and when Peter thought he should take
the day with his sword, Jesus chided him, “Do you think I cannot call on
my Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of
angels?” (Matthew 26:53). It was not weakness that made Jesus “as a sheep
before its shearers.” It was a
deliberate choice on His own part to submit Himself to the Father’s will. This
is what Jesus was referring to in Matthew 11:28,29, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you
rest. 29 Take
My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart,
and you will find rest for your souls.” There is our
word prautes again, here translated “gentle.”
You no doubt can see the problem here. There
simply is no English word to express the idea of submissiveness without a
connotation of weakness. There is no English word that expresses both
submissiveness and power in the same word. Rather than thinking the word “gentle”
(or submissive, or mild, or meek) we just have to somehow envision this picture
of power deliberately yielded.
That is the idea of this fruit which I have
translated “gentleness” (for lack of a better word). As I would ponder this
fruit, the only thing I know to do is to keep the illustration of the horse and
the example of Jesus in my mind, keep the picture in focus, and forget trying
to describe it with an English word. There simply is none.
When I go to live out this fruit, this
submissiveness of power, it not only expresses itself in my relationship with
God, but also with the people around me. When the Lord calls us to “submit
ourselves” to one another, this is what He is looking for – not the bedraggled
slave who has no choice, but a person who retains all of their dignity, all of
their strength and power, talents, and mental abilities, but yet is willing to
defer to those around us. This shows up very specifically at work, where we are
to “submit” to our bosses, and in other authority relationships, then
throughout our lives as we, in love, deliberately defer to others. The Holy
Spirit is not producing weak defeated drones but powerful, capable people who
are willing to submit their resources to God and others – people like Jesus.
Then, of course, there is this final fruit
listed, “self-control.” In this case, it means in Greek exactly what it means
in English – self-control. Vine gets right to the point when he says, “…the
various powers bestowed by God upon man are capable of abuse; their right use
demands the controlling power of the will under the operation of the Spirit of
God.” The fact is, God made human beings as creatures of amazing beauty,
strength, talent, intelligence, and innovation and He placed us in a world full
of opportunity. Our problem is that we so easily take all of that and turn it
into evil and self-destruction. Self-control is simply the idea of holding
mastery over oneself, as Paul refers to in I Cor 9:24-27:
“Do you not know that in a race all the
runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the
prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training.
They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that
will last forever. Therefore
I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer
beating the air. No,
I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I
myself will not be disqualified for the prize.”
I doubt if any thinking person can even read the word “self-control”
and not immediately be aware of many areas in our own life where this virtue is
needed. In a sense, we’ve come full circle. The first fruit given was love, yet
it takes a lot of self-control to be loving, it would seem. Then it is
interesting that self-control is a fruit of the Spirit – hence, if I yield
myself to the control of the Spirit, I get self-control. Spirit-control produces
self-control! I suppose that sounds ludicrous but I know how true it is … and
how hopeful it is! I am all too aware
that I am my worst enemy, that I am a slave of my own evil habits. It is all
too common to have to cry out, “Who shall save me from this body of death???”
The good news is that I am not on my own. The more I, in fact, yield myself to
the indwelling Spirit’s influence, I can actually break free from “myself,” the
self that keeps me beaten down, that keeps me self-destructing in the same
stupid ways over and over and over. Spirit-controlled self-control is the very
freedom that Jesus promised when He said, “And you shall know the truth and the
truth shall set you free.”
These last two fruits we’ve studied, prautes and
self-control are so encouraging. It is great to have the freedom to see “submissiveness”
not as some kind of surrender of myself to mindless stupidity but rather to
understand it as being everything God created me to be, simply yielded to Him
and appropriately to others. Then, since everything it seems comes down to
self-control and since I am a hopeless victim of my own lack of self-control,
isn’t it awesome to know that it is actually a fruit of the Spirit – of His
control??
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