Galatians 5:22,23 – Exegetical Matters

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.

Here’s another place where I almost feel like I need to take off my shoes just to study. All of God’s Word is, of course, holy ground, but this passage is one of those that really stands out to me. Here it is, all in a nutshell. The bottom-line. What it’s all about. In a sense, here is Jesus “defined.” When I say, “I want to be like Christ,” here is what it means in two little verses. When I say I want to grow, I want to “walk in the Spirit,” here is what God wants me to mean. In a sense, this passage condenses all 66 books of the Bible into two verses. When Jesus says the two great commands are to love, this is what love will look like. I feel I could just sit and stare at these two verses for hours.

But first, some very technical exegetical matters. I looked intently at the list of the works of the flesh to try to discern some order but could find none. I even suspected that list was deliberately not orderly. Sin produces chaos, not order, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Paul deliberately threw down that list chaotically to paint that very picture. But the fruit of the Spirit is something entirely different. God is a God of perfect order. I was not at all surprised to find that these two verses contain (in Greek) exactly 21 words, which form a perfect 3x7matrix. 3 of course is God’s number and 7 is the number of perfection and completion. And just to prove that the matrix is deliberate, the fruit of the Spirit themselves (there are 9 of them) form a perfect 3x3 matrix precisely in the middle of the 3x7. There are exactly 6 words before the 9 fruit of the Spirit and exactly 6 words after.

See the matrix depicted in the following. The first is the matrix in English. The words in brackets [---] are words that have to be added to make sense in English but they are not present in the Greek. In the second chart I have included only the Greek words. See below:

Here is a case where we can not only admire the order of God’s Word; I believe the order helps us with some exegetical matters. First of all, I have heard the following suggested over the years: Someone noted that the sentence reads “the fruit of the Spirit is…” The word “is” is of course singular, yet there are 9 “fruits” of the Spirit. One could expect the sentence to read “the fruits of the Spirit are …” Why the singular? Whoever was discussing this observation suggested that the fruit of the Spirit is actually love (singularly) and the rest of words listed are explaining what love is. That may be true in a sense. Love certainly expresses itself in all the other 8 qualities. However, when love is simply one of 9 qualities grouped in a 3x3 matrix, the implication from that order would be that Paul did not intend to “pull out” love and make it stand separately. I think, based on the order, we simply have to understand the word fruit in its natural sense as a collective singular. One doesn’t speak of a “bowl of fruits.” Even if there are nine different kinds of fruit in a bowl, it is still a “bowl of fruit” and we would speak of it singularly, “The fruit in the bowl is very attractive.” In this case, Paul’s order confirms the natural understanding of the terms.

Secondly, there were apparently two textual variants which added a tenth word to the list. One added “hupomone,” which we would normally translate “endurance.” It is the other “patience” word. The word which is the fourth “fruit” and which I translate “patience” is the word makrothumia and means almost literally “long-fused.” We’re all familiar with people who are “short-fused.” The Spirit’s presence makes us “long-fused” or “slow to anger.” Now it is also true that His presence makes us people of endurance. The immediate question, though, is whether “endurance” really did appear at the end of Paul’s list here. The other word which added a tenth was “hagneia,” which is normally translated “purity.” As with endurance, purity is certainly an important word and no doubt a fruit of the Spirit in our lives. However, as important as both words may be, I would suggest that the perfect order of the matrix argues against the inclusion of either. If there are 10 fruits of the Spirit, then there is no matrix at all. For myself, I think the order is deliberate in a perfect 3x7 matrix with a 3x3 exactly in the middle, in a premier passage of what God’s perfect presence means in our lives. I believe in this case, the order would lead us to say that neither hupomone nor hagneia were a part of the original text.

Having made both these observations, I would still say it is notable that love is the first in the list and it is also certainly notable that endurance and purity are both fruits of the Spirit in our lives. All of that truth is supported elsewhere in the Scriptures. My only issue here is to be exegetically precise with the specific passage before us. While love may be at the top of the list, in this case it is not somehow to be understood as summarizing the rest. And while endurance and purity may be important, they simply are not specifically being addressed in this passage. As always, I believe the careful exegete’s first task is in fact to “rightly divide” the Word of God, to determine to whatever extent possible in any given passage exactly what God has said and what He has not said. Only after I’ve completed that investigation am I really ready to confidently and authoritatively proceed to valid interpretations and applications.

I will publish this for now and then come back and look more at the passage.