The Fruit of the Spirit & the Spirit-Filled Life
The Fruit is significant because Paul contrasts it with the acts of the flesh. They're opposites.
Gal. 5:19 Now the works of the flesh are obvious: ...
Gal. 5:23 But the fruit of the Spirit is: ...
It almost sounds like Paul is contrasting two ways of living. In fact, that's exactly what he's doing!
Gal. 5:16 But I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh.
This is one of the big themes in Paul's depiction of the Christian life. You either carry out the desires of the Spirit or you carry out the desires of the flesh. Those desires are opposite to each other (Gal. 5:17). Living out the flesh's desires results in death; fulfilling the Spirit's desires results in life and peace (Rom. 8:5-6).
The flesh as a ruling principle has consequences. Paul calls them works.
The Spirit as a ruling principle has consequences. Paul calls them fruit.
The Fruit is the Symptom of Spirit-Filled Life
The Fruit isn't just a VBS theme. It's a depiction of the character of those who have the Spirit of Jesus (Rom. 8:9; Gal. 5:25). That means the Fruit is an important diagnostic tool for Jesus' students. We want to see a total absence of the works of the flesh in our lives, and we want to see the Fruit present in our lives.
The Fruit is singular. These aren't the Fruits of the Spirit, but the Fruit of the Spirit. Gal. 5:23-24 gives us the portrait of a fully-orbed disciple, one whose Love motivates Gentleness, one whose Joy overflows in Kindness, whose Peace enables Endurance (or Patience), one whose whole character is undergirded by Self Control.
The facets of the Fruit together comprise a whole character. Rom. 8:6 says that "the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace." Gal. 5:22-23 gives a more fully-rounded portrait of that peaceful life.
How to Cultivate Fruit
It would be easy to receive this list of the Fruit-Life's characteristics as a list of burdens, a portrait we have to distort ourselves to match, like someone trying to win hide and seek by contorting themselves into a chalk outline to hide in a crime scene.
Let's not do that. By telling us that this is the Fruit of the Spirit, Paul points us to a cultivation method, and it's not Trying Really Hard. Instead, this Fruit-Life is the natural result of the mind set on the Spirit (Rom. 8:6).
We don't cultivate Fruit-Life by Trying To Be Good™️ (corporate motto: At Least Try To Be Seen To Be Good!). The Spirit cultivates the Fruit in us as we walk in step with Him, and that naturally brings an end to the Death-Works (Gal. 5:16). Walking in step with the Spirit is not effortless. It is effortful, but that effort is oriented toward and enabled by dependence on the Spirit of God.
We leave behind dependence on merely human resources (willpower, lifehacks) — though we will use our human resources, as the Spirit guides us.
We leave behind pursuit of merely human ends (these are many, but these two may be most common: being thought of well or being given responsibility for leadership of others) — though these things may occur, as the Spirit wills.
The Spirit-filled life doesn't add rules, responsibilities and benchmarks. It subtracts our duplicity in speech (Matt. 5:37), our negotiations with many masters (Matt. 6:24).
If we want to bear fruit, we must pursue mere dependence on the Spirit of Jesus (John 15:4-5).
The Place of the Means of Grace
The Fruit-Life is simple, but it is not effortless. Instead of spending our effort on Being Seen To Be Good, we invest our effort in learning to depend on the Spirit. In the language of Dallas Willard, we want to become people whose thoughts and imaginations return again and again to God and His ways, so that as God and His ways fill our minds, we will involuntarily imitate Him.
That is where the activities we call Means of Grace or Spiritual Disciplines come into play. The Church through history has taught that God intends for us to practice things regularly and in community that focus our minds on the reality of God and His ways — means by which we tune in to and participate in God's ongoing Trinitarian conversation with His people.
We are tempted to regard the Means of Grace as tools that help us contort ourselves into a shape that will coerce fruit to appear. And we are tempted to regard as fruit things that Scripture does not regard as fruit (numeric church growth or success in business might be examples).
We must reject this way of seeing the Means of Grace, and we must reject such a definition of fruit. The Spirit is teaching us in Galatians 5:16-26 that the Fruit is His character, and that the Fruit comes from living in step with Him. The Means of Grace are for dependence on the Spirit; any other use bears rotten fruit, which is not fruit at all.
This post is influenced in many ways (and ways hard to trace) by a recent read of Zoltán Dörnyei's book, The Psychology of the Fruit of the Spirit. It's not a smooth read, but lots of good stuff is in there. I'm grateful to him for his persuasive arguments for seeing the Fruit as singular (pp. 32-33), a composite portrait of a Christ-like character.
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