envyings, murders, drunkennesses, revels, and things like these; as to which I tell you beforehand, even as I also have said before, that they who do such things shall not inherit God's kingdom.
Paul ends his list of the works of the flesh with a warning he had already given the Galatians once before. So what is the warning for? Does it leave believers unsure of their standing, or does it show what the flesh is and where it ends up?
He closes the list with a sentence of exclusion, and points out that they have heard it from him before.
You have here human corruption and human violence. You have idolatry and witchcraft brought in. On the other hand there are divisions and sects, which point to the party-spirit that might be at work even among people who claim to be Christians. A child of God might slip into any of these evil things for a time. But the sentence on them is solemn: "I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God."
The verse sets envy and drunkenness beside offences everyone calls vile. That is not how people usually rank sins.
Who but the Spirit of God would have given the unholy list in this way? Who but He would have put wrath, quarrelling and the like in the same class as such notoriously vile offences as fornication, murders and drunkenness? Man would have sorted them by how serious they looked in his own eyes… But not so the Holy Spirit. He traces all to the one root. Murder or strife, sect-making (that is what "heresies" means), or rivalry, which can even appear among believers — all of it comes from the flesh. And the flesh is evil beyond cure, in the believer as much as in the unconverted sinner.
Two sins in this list — drunkenness and revelling, which the ESV calls "orgies" — are the ones society is quickest to excuse.
"Drunkenness" and "revellings" usually harm the person who indulges in them more than they harm anyone else, so ordinary moralists judge them leniently. Revellings, under slightly changed names, count among the accepted social customs of a society that calls itself Christian. Fashion, not the love and fear of God, decides how far this license may go, whether personal or social… But against these things the Spirit has perpetual war.
The list is not complete, and the closing phrase is no filler. It covers every sin the apostle did not name.
The apostle closes his list of things that are "obvious" with the sweeping phrase "and things like these." Hidden in it lies an ambush of countless other "passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul." The Spirit of grace urges God's children, as strangers and exiles, to keep away from them. They all share one character, because they all contradict the will of God and go against the leading of the Spirit. The varieties of self-pleasing are as endless as the differences of face and form among people… Only those who are born of God can inherit the kingdom of God, and so they not only rejoice in His goodness but also, in spite of their natural selves, watch His ways and copy them.
The verse speaks of those who do such things — a settled practice, not a single fall.
Here the apostle disowns those who persist in an evil course… The truest believer may fall into the gravest sins when he stops watching himself. But you could not say he lives in them; they do not mark out his life. The Spirit of God works on the believer's conscience, so he owns and confesses his sin, and he receives forgiveness and cleansing. Such statements are not meant to stir up doubts in the hearts of saints. They are meant to test and sift what people claim to be.
So the warning does not hang a threat over the Christian. It works by contrast.
Unbelievers practise such things: it is their life, their character. What a shame, then, if even a little of a believer's conduct looks like the conduct of someone bound for eternal punishment! Paul is not threatening the believer with this. He is showing him how wretchedly inconsistent it is to act as the world acts, when his own character and destiny are so far from the world's.
That leaves the practical question: how is the flesh held in check?
The remedy for the working of the flesh is not in trying to regulate it by law. It is in freedom from the flesh, by walking in the Spirit.
- One root. Envy, temper and party-spirit spring from the same source as murder and drunkenness. That source is the flesh, and it is evil beyond cure in believer and unbeliever alike.
- One open list. "Things like these" leaves no loophole. Every kind of self-pleasing goes against God's will and against the Spirit's leading.
- One repeated warning. Paul had said it before and says it again. The solemn sentence tests what people claim; it is not there to unsettle believers.
- One dividing line. A true believer may fall into these sins. He confesses them, and God cleanses him. His life is not marked by them — and that is what "those who do such things" means.
- One remedy. The answer to the flesh is not a stricter rule. Freedom comes by walking in the Spirit.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, fidelity,
Paul has just listed the works of the flesh; now he turns to what the Spirit produces in a believer. That change of word — fruit instead of works — sets up the whole passage. It raises a practical question: is a good life something we make, or something that grows?
Commentators point to the difference between noisy activity and quiet growth.
Notice the contrast between the "works" and the "fruit." The "works" are easy to understand. Their noise fills the earth. You can see their confusion and damage on every side. "Fruit," on the other hand, grows silently, even in nature. In summer, no one in the orchards is bothered by the noise of ripening fruit. The wonder of its growth takes place without a sound. So it is with the fruit of the Spirit. Notice that it says "fruit," not "fruits." These lovely moral features are thought of as one bunch. There are nine of them, but they all grow from one stem — the Spirit of God.
The word "works" carries the sense of straining; "fruit" does not.
"Works" mean effort. A person without God's Spirit understands that, because effort is what his life in this world is made of. But there is no effort in the thought of "fruit." No amount of trying would ever get fruit from a tree. If the tree is in the right climate, healthy and watered, it will bear fruit.
The order is not random. Love heads the list, and the rest are treated as its outgrowth.
If we turn to Galatians 5:22, we find the first fruit of the Spirit is love. All the other fruits grow out of that one. If love is missing, the rest is only artificial fruit tied onto a tree — it never grew there... The next on the list is joy. Our joy will always match our love. This is an unfailing principle. And so it is with the next, peace. If, in all we do and say and think, we are moved by love, we shall enjoy a peace which nothing can disturb.
The first three named are a condition of soul, and the rest depend on them.
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and so on… Notice that the first of these fruits are love, joy, peace. The Spirit does produce the practical fruits that show the life of Christ to other people. But the inward fruits come first — the ones that face God. They are the state of soul the others grow out of.
This is why happiness in God changes how we take insults from others.
If I am fully happy in God, I do not mind when someone insults me; I take it patiently. I am fully happy, and my soul rests in these blessed affections. So nothing else has power to pull me away.
Read the list as a portrait. It describes a person.
But what is this list? It is a beautiful description of Christ as He walked through this world in lowliness. So if such fruit is seen in believers, it will result in the reproduction of Christ in His people. Christ Himself has gone from this world. But God intends the character of Christ to still show in those who belong to Him. Christ in person has gone to the Father's house. Christ in character continues in His people on earth.
Gifts and public service are given to some. This fruit is not limited that way.
We are not all gifted, or called to be teachers and preachers, or to undertake great works. But "the fruit of the Spirit" is open to every believer, from the youngest to the oldest. It is the one thing all true service needs.
As for how it comes, writers point away from effort and toward time spent with Christ.
The Spirit of God works to reproduce in us the likeness of the One we give our attention to. It is not a question so much of trusting Him as studying Him; it is a matter of love rather than of faith. As we love Him, we come to resemble Him. So the Spirit produces in our lives love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
The closing phrase answers the argument about the law head-on. Law can command love, but it cannot grow it.
But all these are the fruits of the Spirit; and he adds, "against such things there is no law." When did law ever produce these? So the law will never condemn those who walk in these things… If you are producing these fruits of the Spirit, there is no condemnation against them.
Those who press law on Christians face a further problem.
By the law they can never produce fruit like this. And even if someone could keep the law perfectly, the result would still not compare to the beauty and worth of the fruit of the Spirit.
- One stem — it is fruit, not fruits: nine features hanging together as one bunch, all drawing from the Spirit of God.
- One root — love stands first, and joy and peace follow. Without love, the rest is fruit tied onto a tree that never grew there.
- Inward first — the state of soul that faces God comes first, and the qualities others see follow. Being happy in God is what makes an insult bearable.
- One likeness — the list is a portrait of Christ. He has gone to the Father, and His character is meant to continue in His people.
- No effort, no law — fruit grows quietly out of time spent with Christ. Law has nothing to say against it, and never had power to produce it.
meekness, self-control against such things there is no law.
The list of the Spirit's fruit ends with two quiet qualities: gentleness and self-control. Then comes a verdict that answers the teachers who were pushing the Galatians back under law: no law stands against such things.
The flesh has "works." The Spirit has "fruit" — and the singular matters.
Notice the contrast between the "works" and the "fruit." It is easy to understand the "works." The earth is filled with the noise of them. Their confusion and disruption are visible on every side. "Fruit," on the other hand, is of silent growth, even in nature. In summer time, among the orchards no one is driven to distraction by the noise of maturing fruit. The wonder of its growth takes place without a sound. So it is with the fruit of the Spirit. You notice it is "fruit," not "fruits." That is because these lovely moral features are thought of as one bunch: nine in number, but all growing from one stem — the Spirit of God.
Older translations read "meekness, temperance." Both words point inward, to a curb on what we are by nature.
Then he gets down to what deals more with one another: "meekness, temperance." These suppose a bridle put on the evil nature — the self-control which the Holy Spirit works in the soul for the Lord's sake. We are clearly set in this world to be a letter of Christ, so that we should not give a false character to Him whose name we bear.
One of these qualities gives up its rights. The other wins a victory inside.
Gentleness (or meekness) is the quality that submits to personal humiliation, if need be. It does not demand our personal "rights" as we see them. Self-control is a great inner conquest. Proverbs 16:32 reminds us: "He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city." In contrast, "Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down, without walls" (Proverbs 25:28).
Self-control also guards what we know. Knowledge without it swells the head.
Temperance is needed in our knowledge. In Galatians 5:23, this same word is translated "self-control." Knowledge without self-control may leave us puffed up with a sense of self-importance, as it did the Corinthian believers.
God will not condemn what He Himself has produced.
It is not God's way to seek to produce holiness in the flesh through the law. The flesh is not subject to the law, and cannot be. God gives a new life in Christ, and the Holy Spirit, to produce fruits which are acceptable to Him. Against these fruits there is no divine law. God cannot condemn the fruits of His own Spirit.
Those who press law as the rule of life must admit two things.
Those who love to teach the law must admit that there is no law against the nine lovely fruits we have just been considering. Further, they must admit that they can never bring forth such fruit as these by the law. And even if one could keep the law perfectly, the result still could not compare to the beauty and preciousness of the fruit of the Spirit.
The one who is not under law is the one who fulfils it.
If I am walking after the law, I do not fulfil it; if I am walking after the Spirit, I do. The same teaching appears in Galatians 5. If we walk according to the Spirit, there are good fruits: "against such there is no law." On the contrary, the law justifies the fruits of the Spirit. But the Spirit never justifies the ways of any man who makes the law his rule of life.
Read the nine together and a familiar figure appears.
What is this but a beautiful description of Christ as He passed through this world in humiliation? So when such fruit appears in believers, it reproduces Christ in His people. Christ Himself has gone from this scene. But God intends that the character of Christ should still be seen in those who are Christ's.
- One stem. Nine qualities, one fruit. It grows quietly from one stem, the Spirit. Effort does not assemble it.
- One bridle. Gentleness gives up its rights. Self-control rules its own spirit. Both look inward, where the flesh is loudest.
- One verdict. No law condemns this, because God will not condemn the fruit of His own Spirit.
- One impossibility. The law never produced these things. Even perfect law-keeping could not match their beauty.
- One portrait. The full list is Christ's own character, and the Spirit reproduces it in His people.