Can we suppose that the Apostle here is going back in thought to our
Lord's profound teaching that every good tree bringeth forth good fruit,
but the corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit? The obvious felicity of
that metaphor often conceals for us the drastic force of its teaching,
it regards all a man's conduct as but the outcome of his character, and
brushes aside as trifling all attempts at altering products, whilst the
producer remains unaltered. Whether Paul was here alluding to a known
saying of Jesus or no, he was insisting upon the very centre of
Christian ethics, that a man must first be good in order to do good. Our
Lord's words seemed to make an impossible demand--'Make the tree
good'--as the only way of securing good fruit, and it was in accordance
with the whole cast of the Sermon on the Mount that the means of
realising that demand was left unexpressed. But Paul stood on this side
of Pentecost, and what was necessarily veiled in Christ's earlier
utterances stood forth a revealed and blessed certainty to him. He had
not to say 'Make the tree good' and be silent as to how that process was
to be effected; to him the message had been committed, 'The Spirit also
helpeth our infirmity.' There is but one way by which a corrupt tree can
be made good, and that is by grafting into the wild briar stock a
'layer' from the rose. The Apostle had a double message to proclaim, and
the one part was built upon the other. He had first to preach--and this
day has first to believe that God has sent His own Son in the likeness
of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin--and then he had to proclaim
that, through that mission, it became possible that the ordinance of the
law might be fulfilled in us who 'walk not after the flesh but after the
spirit.' The beginning, then, of all true goodness is to be sought in
receiving into our corrupt natures the uncorrupted germs of the higher
life, and it is only in the measure in which that Spirit of God moves in
our spirits and, like the sap in the vine, permeates every branch and
tendril, that fruit to eternal life will grow. Christian graces are the
products of the indwelling divine life, and nothing else will succeed in
producing them. All the preachings of moralists and all the struggles
after self-improvement are reduced to impotence and vanity by the stern,
curt sentence--'a corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit.' Surely it
should come to us all as a true gospel when we feel ourselves foiled by
our own evil nature in our attempts to be better, that the first thing
we have to do is not to labour at either of the two impossible tasks of
the making our bad selves good, or of the getting good fruits from bad
selves, but to open our spirits through faith in Jesus for the entrance
into us of His Spirit which will change our corruption into
incorruption, and cleanse us from all filthiness of flesh and spirit.
Shall we not seek to become recipient of that new life, and having
received it, should we not give diligence that it may in us produce all
its natural effects?
These fruits, though they are the direct results of the indwelling
Spirit and will never be produced without its presence, are none the
less truly dependent upon our manner of receiving that Spirit and on our
faithfulness and diligence in the use of its gifts. It is, alas! sadly
too true, and matter of tragically common experience that instead of
'trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord' heavy with ruddy
clusters, there are but dwarfed and scrubby bushes which have scarcely
life enough to keep up a little show of green leaves and 'bring no fruit
to perfection'. Would that so-called Christian people would more
earnestly and searchingly ask themselves why it is that, with such
possibilities offered to them, their actual attainments should be so
small. They have a power which is able to do for them exceeding
abundantly above all that they can ask or think, and its actual effects
on them are well on this side of both their petitions and their
conceptions. There need be no difficulty in answering the question why
our Christian lives do not correspond more closely to the Spirit that
inspires them. The plain answer is that we have not cultivated, used,
and obeyed Him. The Lord of the vineyard would less often have to ask
'Wherefore when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it
forth wild grapes?' if we listened more obediently to the pathetic
command which surely should touch a grateful heart--'Grieve not the holy
Spirit of God whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.'