GRACES OF CHARACTER.
There is a singular charm, a charm that one can scarcely explain, in the
words of Paul in Gal. v. 22, 23, R. V., “The fruit of the Spirit is love,
joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness,
temperance.” What a catalogue we have here of lovely moral
characteristics. Paul tells us that they are the fruit of the Spirit, that
is, if the Holy Spirit is given control of our lives, this is the fruit
that He will bear. All real beauty of character, all real Christlikeness
in us, is the Holy Spirit’s work; it is His fruit; He produces it; He
bears it, not we. It is well to notice that these graces are not said to
be the fruits of the Spirit but the fruit, _i. e._, if the Spirit is given
control of our life, He will not bear one of these as fruit in one person
and another as fruit in another person, but this will be the one fruit of
many flavours that He produces in each one. There is also a unity of
origin running throughout all the multiplicity of manifestation. It is a
beautiful life that is set forth in these verses. Every word is worthy of
earnest study and profound meditation. Think of these words one by one;
“love”—“joy”—“peace”—“longsuffering”—“kindness”—“goodness”—“faith” (or
“faithfulness,” R. V.; faith is the better translation if properly
understood. The word is deeper than faithfulness. It is a real faith that
results in faithfulness)—“meekness”—“temperance” (or a life under perfect
control by the power of the Holy Spirit). We have here a perfect picture
of the life of Jesus Christ Himself. Is not this the life that we all long
for, the Christlike life? But this life is not natural to us and is not
attainable by us by any effort of what we are in ourselves. The life that
is natural to us is set forth in the three preceding verses: “Now the
works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, fornication,
uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife,
jealousies, wraths, factions, divisions, heresies, envyings, drunkenness,
revellings and such like” (Gal. v. 21, R. V.). All these works of the
flesh will not manifest themselves in each individual; some will manifest
themselves in one, others in others, but they have one common source, the
flesh, and if we live in the flesh, this is the kind of a life that we
will live. It is the life that is natural to us. But when the indwelling
Spirit is given full control in the one He inhabits, when we are brought
to realize the utter badness of the flesh and give up in hopeless despair
of ever attaining to anything in its power, when, in other words, we come
to the end of ourselves, and just give over the whole work of making us
what we ought to be to the indwelling Holy Spirit, then and only then,
these holy graces of character, which are set forth in Gal. v. 22, 23, are
His fruit in our lives. Do you wish these graces in your character and
life? Do you really wish them? Then renounce self utterly and all its
strivings after holiness, give up any thought that you can ever attain to
anything really morally beautiful in your own strength and let the Holy
Spirit, who already dwells in you (if you are a child of God) take full
control and bear His own glorious fruit in your daily life.
We get very much the same thought from a different point of view in the
second chapter and twentieth verse, A. R. V., “I have been crucified with
Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me: and that
life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in
the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”
We hear a great deal in these days about “Ethical Culture,” which usually
means the cultivation of the flesh until it bears the fruit of the Spirit.
It cannot be done; no more than thorns can be made to bear figs and the
bramble bush grapes (Luke vi. 44; Matt. xii. 33). We hear also a great
deal about “character building.” That may be all very well if you bear
constantly in mind that the Holy Spirit must do the building, and even
then it is not so much building as fruit bearing. (See, however, 2 Pet. i.
5-7.) We hear also a great deal about “cultivating graces of character,”
but we must always bear it clearly in mind that the way to cultivate true
graces of character is by submitting ourselves utterly to the Spirit to do
His work and bear His fruit. This is “sanctification _of the Spirit_” (1
Pet. i. 2; 2 Thess. ii. 13). There is a sense, however, in which
cultivating graces of character is right: viz., we look at Jesus Christ to
see what He is and what we therefore ought to be; then we look to the Holy
Spirit to make us this that we ought to be and thus, “reflecting as a
mirror the glory of the Lord, we are transformed into the same image from
glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit” (2 Cor. iii. 18, R. V.).
Settle it, however, clearly and forever that the flesh can never bear this
fruit, that you can never attain to these things by your own effort that
they are “_the fruit of the Spirit_.”