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 need to wrap up my study of these verses. It is hard to
leave though. As I’ve said before, I could just sit and stare at this passage
for hours. I wish somehow I could turn it into a pill, swallow it, and forever
be all of these things. What a day that will be, either at death or the Lord’s
coming, when He does in fact forever change me, when I’ll never again even want
to do evil, when love and joy and peace will be as natural to me as barking to
a dog! I realized early what a dignity and privilege the Lord gave us when He
created us with the power of choice. In spite of my evil, I was so glad He didn’t
make us robots. But then I wondered how in Heaven He could “confirm” us in
holiness, so that then we “have no choice” but to do good. Now that what little
hair I have is peppered gray, I see how it can happen. It is my choice. I want to be
confirmed in holiness. If He were to ask me right now, I would cry, “Yes! Change
me now! Take away my bent to sinning! Make my heart entirely Yours!” Yes, I
will then “have no choice” but that is because I want it that way. Too long have “my eyes been open, knowing good
and evil” … and having no power to conquer it all.
For now, I must content myself that this is the Lord’s plan.
He could have saved me and immediately confirmed me in holiness. But instead He
has ordained this process of progressive sanctification. The fruit of the Spirit
is available to me. The Holy Spirit actually lives inside of me. But the home
of my heart is a duplex and the other tenant is my evil self. For now, I don’t
have the power to evict him. I simply must, in the power of the Spirit, conquer
him.
The good news, to me, is that in fact all of these things
are fruits of the Spirit! What I mean is it is so hopeful that the indwelling
Holy Spirit actually wants to give me a heart of love and joy and peace and
actually make me faithful. Because He is present I can be patient and kind and good. Because He is not only with me
but in me, His control actually
becomes to me self-control.
These are not “far-away” possibilities that I hope to attain
to. That again is so OT. No! They are very present realities right in the very
depths of my heart because there is a holy Spirit living there! As Jesus predicted, He is not just with me (OT). He is now in me (NT). All of these beautiful
qualities are to me as close as the choice to let Him be my spirit, be my attitude,
my motivation, my desires, my outlook. Alas, it is not a pill I can swallow.
The battle must go on; but it is so encouraging to think that the fruit of the
Spirit is already present with me. All of this is the NT miracle of Holy Spirit
indwelling. “Oh that they had such a heart in them,” the Lord lamented. Now we
do! Oh may we all see that this is faith; not the legalistic circus we conjure
but the reality of love and joy and peace and patience and kindness in our
hearts.
Back to the text, the Lord concludes the matrix with the six
(Greek) words, “Against such things [there] is no law.” I note first of all
that it is “such things.” In spite of the beauty of the 3x3 matrix, He did not
intend for this list to be exhaustive. He did the same thing with the works of
the flesh. He concluded that list with a “and
the such like these.” He didn’t intend either list to be exhaustive. There are far more than nine fruits of the Spirit! Obviously,
the Lord also wants to grow in us the many other Christian virtues such as hope,
righteousness, justice, humility, compassion, mercy, wisdom, endurance, purity,
etc. All of these things are also “fruit of the Spirit.” As I noted above, even
confidence in others is something already present with me and something He
actually wants to help me express.
What a priceless treasure to be given this diamond with a million faces all
sparkling in their own beautiful way!
And again, back to the text, He says, “Against such things [there]
is no law.” In a sense, this is the point of the whole book. The Galatians want
to go back and embrace law as the essence of their faith. The Lord here would
have them (and us) realize you can’t make enough rules to create in people love
or joy or peace. Although you might make up rules to get people to do kind
things, you cannot make them kind. You
can’t make people good by giving them rules of what they can and can’t wear,
what kind of music they should and shouldn’t listen to, what they can and can’t
drink, how often they should be in the church building, which Bible they should
carry, and on and on and on. The human problem is not that we need more rules
or less rules, new rules or old-fashioned rules. The problem has nothing to do
with rules at all. The real problem is our heart. To make us people of love and
joy and peace is not a matter of rules, it is a matter of something that can
change us from the very core of our being, the very depths of our heart – and that
something the Lord has provided by this amazing New Covenant gift of the Holy
Spirit’s indwelling, “Christ in us, the hope of glory.”
This, again, is the wonderful world of grace. Not the
tutelage of the law but the fullness of grace. Not a different set of rules but
blood-bought forgiveness and the Holy Spirit in our hearts. Not a “do this and
live,” but a “Now you’re alive, do this!” God’s law is no longer words etched
on stone tablets but the very beating of my heart. “Oh to be like Thee, blessed Redeemer, This is my constant longing and
prayer; Gladly I'll forfeit all of earth's treasures, Jesus, Thy perfect
likeness to wear.”
I wish I had understood this thirty years ago, but, alas,
here am I. By the grace of God I am what I am. May grace make me who I should
be.
“Tis grace hath brought us safe thus far, and grace will lead us home!”
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