The Fruit of the Holy Spirit - What is love?

Let us begin, then, and see from the different epistles how it is the summum bonum - the supreme good. In Romans, where we have the gospel of God presented, God's love is made known in order to produce love in us; and accordingly, when we come to chapter 13:8, we read, "Owe no man anything, but to love one another." It is here put in a very striking way, as what we owe to every man. Are we daily discharging this debt? In 1 Corinthians 13 we get a fuller unfolding of love. Much has been said upon this wonderful chapter, and no attempt is made to expound it here. The passage in Romans is more individual and general, but here it is shown to be the one thing that is needed to make things work smoothly amongst the children of God. Love is our measure, and without it we are nothing. There is one very peculiar and striking thing about it. The description is not so much of what love does, as what it does not do, showing that the very essence of love is self-abnegation and self-effacement. How easy comparatively it is to engage in active and even arduous service rather than to suffer, and yet the very first thing mentioned is, "Love suffereth long, and is kind." How little we like to suffer at the hands of others, and how prone we are to retaliate. Oh, how this humbles us, "Love suffereth long, and is kind!" Measured by this standard, how small our love is, and, consequently, how small we are!

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 that is lacking, the rest are only like artificial fruit tied on a tree - it never grew there. Where there is love there is no effort. The next on the list is joy. Our joy will ever be in proportion to 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 actuated by love, we shall enjoy a peace which nothing can disturb. This does not imply a servile agreement with everybody and everything; love may sometimes have to stand almost alone, because there is so little of it in the world; but should this trying position be experienced, the mind will be in perfect peace, if only love is allowed to govern. And this will bring in, too, next long-suffering. Love will often be misunderstood. Men, and even Christians, are so accustomed to be directed by motives of self-interest and personal advantage, they misinterpret and misjudge the disinterestedness of love. And so there is need of long-suffering. This will lead to gentleness. If we confound gentleness with weakness we make a serious mistake. The great need of the hour is Christians who are gentle. It is love, and not social status, makes the true gentle man. It has been said of one of low degree that he was qualified to enter any society, and the reason was very simple - he loved everything, and "love doth not behave itself unseemly." "Goodness": love always seeks the welfare, and not the harm, of others. "Faith": love believeth all things. And then follow "meekness, temperance," and the apostle adds, "Against such there is no law." You cannot put love under law; it is its own law. It worketh no ill, only good. And "love is of God."

There is a remarkable point too, if we pay attention to it, in chapter 5, which shows the character of this power that works in us. We have in verses 19, 22, the contrast marked between “the works of the flesh” and “the fruit of the Spirit.” Why are the words different? “Works” suppose effort; the natural man understands this; it expresses his life in the world; but there is no effort connected with the thought of “fruit.” No amount of trying would ever get fruit from a tree. If it is in a suitable climate and in a good state and watered, it must bring forth fruit.

Consider too “the fruit” mentioned in verse 22. Would you confide your heart to a person who says, I am trying to love you as much as I can? Would you not feel instinctively there was something wrong? Real love is so engrossed with its object, that it is only tried with the feeling of its own insufficiency: there is no effort, no difficulty about it; it is the natural outflow of what exists within, and only seeks a vent in order to show itself, though never for its own sake. In the same way is it not clear that one who says, I am trying to get joy, or I am trying to get peace, is only painfully manifesting that he has not got it? All these fruits, different and varied as they may be, and admitting of growth and culture, are produced without effort the moment a soul is really subject to the Spirit of God, led of the Spirit and indwelt by Him. But, as with the healthy tree, there must be, for the development and abundance of fruit, the suited climate and nourishment. The vital power is the Holy Ghost; the meat and drink in Christ (John 6); the climate is the grace of God (Rom. 6:14); the ground we are rooted in, His love (Eph. 3:17; John 15). We are first “born of the Spirit,” as the Lord says to Nicodemus, that is, made children through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; then we are called to “walk in the Spirit.”

What a contrast is the Spirit's fruit! "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law" (vers. 22-23). These are not called "works" implying effort; but fruit, the natural result of life. The Holy Spirit is a living power in the Christian: here we have the blessed and varied result of His operations. "Love" is God's own nature and is rightly placed first. Everything else pales before this. It is that which will abide when not only prophecies, tongues, and knowledge are no more, but when faith and hope have given place to sight and realisation (1 Cor. 13:8-13). "Joy" and "peace" follow naturally. As our souls abide in the divine nature, so we are happy and calm. Things that would otherwise disturb and ruffle our hearts pass by and leave us quite unmoved. Then long-suffering, gentleness, and goodness in all our dealings with others fall into their blessed place. Wrongs are quietly borne, vindictiveness is not allowed; but on the contrary the grace which shone out always in the Perfect One is displayed to His glory. For evil, positive goodness is shown, which is ever God's way. Turning inwards again, "faith, meekness and temperance" develop themselves, enabling us to walk trustfully with God, imparting that lowly brokenness of spirit which God values, and enabling us to keep all our members well under control. What can the law say to such? It was assuredly never made for men walking in the Spirit as thus.

Love comes first in the list; for as we have seen above, love fills to the full all the law. Love to God, and love to my neighbor; love to the poor perishing world around me, and love to my brethren. This love is the first of the fruits of the Spirit. But we must read 1 Corinthians 13 if we would know more what love means. Do we not see there a description of the love of Christ? To whom else can it truly apply?

Next we come, not to a definition of love, but to its qualities as in this world, specified for our instruction. It is what Christ was here, active as well as suffering in love above evil. "Love is long-suffering, is kind; love is not emulous, is not vainglorious, is not puffed up, doth not behave unseemly, seeks not its own things, is not easily provoked, reckons not the evil, rejoices not over iniquity, but rejoices with the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." (Vers. 4-7.) Patience in the midst of trial is the first-mentioned attribute of love, which even shows positive kindness instead of harbouring a vindictive thought. Again, as it does not indulge in envy or jealousy of another, so there is no self-display (or, as some think, forwardness), nor the arrogance whence it springs. Hence indecorum, or rude behaviour, is incompatible with love, as it is marked by disinterestedness and slowness to anger, and by readiness to forget the wrong that is done.

“Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and everyone that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.” This love is pure, unfeigned, unselfish, divine; not sentimentalism, not mere natural affection, but the active warm energy of the nature of God. The children of God are to exercise it toward one another, for it is the very essence of the nature that is communicated to them by new birth. If this love is present, it is a proof of being born of God: therefore the love itself is a far higher thing than all those things that might pass for love among men; for every man loves something in some kind of a way, but the apostle will not count this as love at all, unless it is that in which the very nature of God is active. “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.” If this love is absent, then the knowledge of God is absent, for love is His very nature: “God is love.” Blessed resting place for the renewed soul!

Coming now to the passage I have read, you will see that three words in verse 8 are the foundation of all that follows. All the rest clusters around the statement — the blessed statement — that GOD is LOVE. This is the setting forth of what God is in His own nature; He is also light, it is true, but this is said relatively to darkness — "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." (1 John 1:5) We also say that God is righteous, that is righteous in His actings and ways, but when the word of God speaks of what He is absolutely in His nature, one word describes it, and that word is LOVE. If we enter into this, we shall have no difficulty in understanding that "love is of God," for in truth it could not be found elsewhere in the universe. I do not deny, in any wise, that much natural affection may be seen in fallen man, that, husbands and wives, parents and children may be knit together very closely by it; but we are now speaking of divine love, what only, in fact, is really love; and this we say proceeds alone from the heart of God because it is nowhere else found. Love, then, is of God, and consequently the love that fills our hearts tonight has come down into them, through the Lord Jesus Christ, from that blessed and sovereign source. We had therefore never known love otherwise; and this indeed is what the apostle says, "Every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love." It is thus an absolute necessity to be born of God before we can love, and know God.

Now we are to contemplate more closely the features that characterize love. First comes a very positive feature. It suffers long (or, has long patience) and is kind. Could anything surpass the long patience and kindness of God's dealings with rebellious man? No. Well, God is love. And in the measure in which we manifest the divine nature, we shall manifest long patience and kindness towards men generally, as well as towards our brethren.

This one positive feature is followed by negative features. Love is marked by the total absence of certain hideous deformities of character and behaviour, which are perfectly natural to us as men in the flesh. Paul strings them together. Here they are: (1) Envy of others: (2) Vaunting oneself, or vainglory, or as it has been translated, being "insolent and rash:" (3) Being puffed up or inflated with one's own importance: (4) Unseemly behaviour which follows hard on the heels of an inflated mind: (5) Self-seeking: (6) Touchiness, easily taking offence and provoked to anger: (7) Thinking evil, that is, quick to impute evil to others: (8) Rejoicing in iniquity, that is, glad to be able to point out iniquity in others, and to denounce it. The string that runs right through these eight things is, love of self.

But what is love? Verses 4 to 7 show how it expresses itself. It suffers long, and in suffering still remains kind. It "envieth not," for it is honestly glad that another is favoured. Nor does it vaunt itself: unseemly advertising of oneself is not love for others. "Is not puffed up." However one may be used of God, if love is the motive, he will not be thinking of his own importance, but still of the need of others. Its conduct is not unseemly, not offensive to any sense of decency. It does not seek its own, for it is an outflowing stream. Nor is it easily provoked, because not occupied with its personal feelings. And it does not suppose evil, apart, of course from manifest evidence. It rejoices not in evil, but in the truth: being genuinely ungrudging. Believing all things is being not suspicious without clear reason; then even when things seem to the contrary, love continues to hope all things. And finally it endures all things: it does not give up.

Now, love, as we remembered before, is the very opposite of self. It forgets itself, to think only of its object. And just as light cannot be hidden, but manifests itself towards others, so is love. It wants and seeks an object, to make it as happy as it is itself. It cannot be shut up within itself, but goes out towards its object, and spends itself upon it, yea, gives itself for it.