Fruits of the Spirit by G. B. THOMPSON

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 22, 1913

Fruits of the Spirit

By G. B. THOMPSON

The Holy Spirit—No. 19

Fruits of the Spirit

G. B. THOMPSON

FRUIT-BEARING is an important factor in the Christian life. “Trees of the fruit Lord” bear fruit unless they are dead. A living tree cannot keep from bearing fruit, a dead tree cannot bear fruit. Jesus says, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.” John 15:1, 2. While the husbandman may dig about us for a time if we do not bear fruit, yet if no fruit appears, there is but one thing that remains to be done; that is to cut us off as dead branches, and cast us finally into the fire. Cumberers of the ground will do well to reflect soberly on these solemn words.

But the Master does not leave us here in uncertainty. He tells us how we may bear fruit: “I am the vine, ye are the branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.” The secret of fruit-bearing is in union with Christ. In the lives of those who so “abide,” there is seen, not a little but “much fruit.” The life is in the tree, and if there is a proper union between the vine and the branch, the sap of life will flow into the utmost twig. Apart from the Vine, we but wither and die.

The result of having a professed connection with the Vine and yet bearing no fruit, is illustrated in the barren fig-tree that Jesus cursed. The fig-tree had leaves, and thus had a pretentious appearance of fruit-bearing. It said to the hungry passer-by, “There is fruit here.” But when the Saviour looked for fruit, “he found nothing but leaves.” What a striking example of a vain, fruitless life! “And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter forever.” “And in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig-tree dried up from the roots.” Mark 11:13, 14, 20.

“It was, indeed, the very type of a fair profession without performance, of the hypocrisy which has only leaves, and no fruit. Such a realized parable could not be passed in silence by One who drew a moral from every incident of life and nature. ‘Picture of boastful insincerity,’ said he, loud enough for the disciples to hear,—‘type of Israel and its leaders; pretentious, but bearing no fruit to God,—let no fruit grow on thee henceforward forever,’ and passed on. They were to learn that profession without performance found no favor with their Master.”—“Life and Words of Christ,” page 378.

We should not forget that it is the Holy Spirit who diffuses the life of Christ among the members of his body. The “love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost.” It is the Spirit that “giveth life.” 2 Cor. 3:6. “It is the Spirit that quickeneth.” John 6:63. The fruit, therefore, which is produced in the life is “the fruit of the Spirit.”

The apostle Paul, writing to the church at Galatia, mentions some of the fruit of the Spirit which will be seen in the life of the believer. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” Gal. 5:22, 23. This fruit cannot be produced in the life by merely making good resolutions nor by studying the rules of ethical culture, any more than sweet water can flow out of a bitter fountain or figs grow on a bramble-bush. There must be a new life, a new birth: “Except a man be born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” John 3:3, margin.

The apostle Peter gives us a list of Christian virtues: “And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.” 2 Peter 1:5-7. Then he adds that if these things be in us, we shall be neither “barren nor unfruitful.”

The graces here referred to are the fruit or outgrowth of the Spirit in the life. The apostle Paul begins with love;

Peter ends with this. The apostle Peter seems to dwell more on the process of growth, by which the fruit of the Spirit is brought to perfection in the life. The Christian life is a growth. “But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” As another has said, “Such is the process through which the Spirit brings us: blossom, berry, fruit, ripeness, vintage,—‘complete in Christ.’”

Again the apostle says, “For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” Rom. 14:17. Here the spiritual kingdom of God is defined. The principles of this kingdom are implanted and perfected in our lives, through the power of the Spirit of God. Here is found what the soul in its struggles with the forces of evil longs for,—righteousness, peace, and joy. How the heart of the Christian longs after purity, peace, and happiness. In every life there are starless nights; there are times when we are tossed on the billows of Adria, when neither sun, moon, nor stars in many days appear; when friends seem few and cold, and hope appears to mock us. There are landscapes with somber hues; there are times of bereavement and affliction, when we sit in the region and shadow of death and anxiously long for the breaking of the morning and the lifting of the clouds. But the Spirit of God brings peace and joy to the heart. It brings a peace whose tendrils twine around the everlasting Rock. “Peace is love reposing. It is love in the green pastures; it is love beside the still waters. It is that great calm which comes over the conscience when it sees the atonement sufficient and the Saviour willing.” It keeps the soul serene in the midst of poverty and distress.

The Spirit brings love into the heart. Love is a wonderful power. It brought the Saviour from heaven to die for an ungodly race. It has strengthened the martyrs to face the rack, the fagot, and the wild beasts in the arena. Weak and timid women have faced the Numidian lions in the Colosseum for the love of the Master. It strengthens the feeble mother to watch uncomplainingly through the long vigils of the night by the bedside of the sick child. At a great coal-mine disaster, where a number of miners were entombed, an aged and feeble man was seen approaching with a shovel. He began to dig at the mouth of the mine. When remonstrated with, he said, “Let me alone, I have two boys down in this mine.” Love in the heart of this aged father strengthened him to make a superhuman effort.

The peace which the Spirit brings into the heart is not a stagnant peace, where the malaria of doubt and discontent find a breeding-place. It is of a different kind. “O that thou hadst harkened unto my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea.” Isa. 48:18. It is the peace of motion. It flows on and on, like an Amazon, with its banks green, and bearing on its bosom the burdens and sorrows of humanity.

An arctic explorer is said to have been moved to tears by finding a solitary violet blooming beneath an iceberg. So with those in whom the Spirit abides. Even in the most unlikely places, amid poverty and sickness, in the slums of the great cities, amid papal corruption and apostasy, among the very icebergs of sin, through the power of an indwelling Spirit, there may bloom forth in us the beauty and perfume of a Christian life. It is our continual privilege to walk “in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost.” Acts 9:31.