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Understanding and Bearing Spiritual Fruit, Part 2

 

Last week I began this blog series by describing three different categories of spiritual fruit. First is the general category that primarily speaks to the nature of spiritual fruit. Second is a specific category of spiritual fruit that is internal to the believer and primarily connected to the believer’s own life. Third is the specific category of spiritual fruit that is external to the believer and is primarily connected to the lives of others.

Before we look at the second category, I want to remind you of the definition we developed after looking through passages about the nature of spiritual fruit.

Definition: Spiritual fruit is a God-glorifying, God-produced, recognizable life change that God has affected through a saved person’s divinely granted repentant wisdom and daily dying to self.

As stated last week, we are going to hone in on that part of the definition that speaks of “life change.” The first aspect of life change is our second category: that which is internal and primarily connected to the believer’s own life.

There are six main verses that speak to fruit as an internal reality in a Christian’s life.

Galatians 5:22–23 (NASB95) — 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

Ephesians 5:9 (NASB95) — 9 (for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth),

Philippians 1:11 (NASB95) — 11 having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

Hebrews 12:11 (NASB95) — 11 All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

Hebrews 13:15 (NASB95) — 15 Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name.

James 3:18 (NASB95) — 18 And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

Let us make a two observations about these passages:

1) God is the source of the fruit – The Spirit produces it. It comes from the Light which is of God. It comes through Jesus Christ. It comes as a result of God’s discipline. Four of the six passages show that God is bringing forth this fruit in us. This fits nicely into our initial definition.

2) Personal righteousness is the main theme – Four of the six passages define the fruit as righteousness. Therefore, this fruit is the conforming to the image of Christ. We are being made into His likeness. He is holy and we are becoming more and more holy. The other two passages give more precision to this righteousness. In Galatians it is defined by 9 features. In Hebrews 13 it is defined as a sacrifice of praise. The 9 features of Galatians and the praise of Hebrews 13 are simply specific ways of being like Christ.

Now we can add further clarity to the life change that is spoken of in our definition. This life change is personal Christlikeness. A person will begin to live in ways that are unnatural and countercultural. They will die to self; they will put others before themselves; they will love and endure and give and sing in ways that won’t be sustainable by the unbeliever. These changes will be recognizable because they will stand in such stark contrast to the world around us and they will match the life of Christ consistently. They will be Christ-exalting, which is at the heart of spiritual fruit.

While these Christ-like fruits will be directed to the world around them, what happens in the people of God and in the unbelievers around them is yet to be seen. That will be for next week.

Let us end with a refinement of our definition.

Spiritual fruit is a God-glorifying, God-produced, recognizable life change of growing internal Christlikeness that God has affected through a saved person’s divinely granted repentant wisdom and daily dying to self.

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