A life beyond amazing - Lesson 2
Various interpretations have been given about the meaning of this threefold structure of threes. Three, of course, is the number of the divine Trinity, signifying in this case the perfect unity and loving reciprocity that has existed from all eternity among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Lightfoot suggested the following categorization of the nine graces: the first three comprising habits of the Christian mind, the second reflecting social intercourse and neighborly concern, and the third exhibiting the principles that guide a Christian’s conduct. More simply still, J. Stott has described this list as a cluster of nine Christian graces that portray the believer’s attitude to God, to other people, and to himself. While these are all helpful ways of analyzing this description of the kind of ethical character produced in those who walk according to the Spirit, we should not press any of these subdivisions too far. Each of the nine qualities flows into one another, mutually enriching and reinforcing the process of sanctification in the life of the believer.
The concept of fruitfulness is well attested in Paul’s other writings as well as throughout the Old Testament. Israel, for example, is frequently referred to as the “vineyard” of the Lord (cf. Isa 5:2–4; Hos 14:6). Likewise the man who delights in the law of the Lord and walks in his way is compared to “a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season” (Ps 1:3). As we saw earlier, Paul deliberately contrasted the fruit (singular) of the Spirit with the works (plural) of the flesh. The former results from God’s supernatural reshaping and transforming of human life, whereas the latter are contrived and manufactured out of the old sinful nature. Again, we should sit back and contemplate the beauty of this image rather than overinterpreting and analyzing it to death as W. Perkins came close to doing in his allegorical reading of this passage: “And by this, much is signified: namely, that the church is the garden of God, that teachers are planters and setters, that believers are trees of righteousness, but the Spirit of God is the sap and life of them, and good works and virtues are the fruits which they bear.” Here, then, are the evidences of a Spirit-filled life.
Love (agapē). “Love” is one of the most frequently used words in Paul’s vocabulary, the noun agapē occurring seventy-five times, and the verb agapaō, “to show love,” thirty-four times in his writings. It is significant that love heads the list of these nine graces of the Christian life. Paul might well have placed a period after love and moved on into the conclusion of his letter, for love is not merely “first among equals” in this listing but rather the source and fountain from which all of the other graces flow. Before love is the fruit of the Spirit in the life of the believer, it is the underlying disposition and motivating force in election, creation, incarnation and atonement. As C. S. Lewis put it so well, “God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that he may love and perfect them. He creates the universe, already foreseen—or should we say ‘seeing’? there are no tenses in God—the buzzing cloud of flies about the cross, the flayed back pressed against the uneven stake, the nails driven through the mesial nerves, the repeated incipient suffocation as the body droops, the repeated torture of back and arms as it is time after time, for breath’s sake hitched up.… This is the diagram of love Himself, the inventor of all loves.”97
Love as a characteristic of the Christian life is consequent upon God’s unfathomable love and infinite mercy toward us. For Paul this was foundational to everything he had said and would yet say in Galatians—“I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (2:20). The result of the transforming, sanctifying ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives is just this: that we are enabled to love one another with the same kind of love that God loves us. Paul profiled this kind of love in 1 Cor 13; it is a love that “seeks not its own.”
Only twice in Paul’s letters did he speak explicitly of the believer’s love for God (Rom 8:28; 2 Thess 3:5), although everything he said about the call to devotion, worship, and service presupposes the upward movement of such love. However, Paul’s emphasis here in Galatians as elsewhere was on the Christian’s love for his fellow human beings. While the horizon of the love of neighbor is by no means restricted to fellow believers, it is supremely important that Christians learn to live together in love. When Christians forget this, then two horrible consequences invariably follow: the worship of the church is disrupted as the gifts of the Spirit are placed in invidious competition with the fruit of the Spirit, as happened at Corinth; the witness of the church is damaged as unbelievers stumble and fall over the obvious lack of love within the body of Christ.
Various interpretations have been given about the meaning of this threefold structure of threes. Three, of course, is the number of the divine Trinity, signifying in this case the perfect unity and loving reciprocity that has existed from all eternity among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Lightfoot suggested the following categorization of the nine graces: the first three comprising habits of the Christian mind, the second reflecting social intercourse and neighborly concern, and the third exhibiting the principles that guide a Christian’s conduct. More simply still, J. Stott has described this list as a cluster of nine Christian graces that portray the believer’s attitude to God, to other people, and to himself. While these are all helpful ways of analyzing this description of the kind of ethical character produced in those who walk according to the Spirit, we should not press any of these subdivisions too far. Each of the nine qualities flows into one another, mutually enriching and reinforcing the process of sanctification in the life of the believer.
The concept of fruitfulness is well attested in Paul’s other writings as well as throughout the Old Testament. Israel, for example, is frequently referred to as the “vineyard” of the Lord (cf. Isa 5:2–4; Hos 14:6). Likewise the man who delights in the law of the Lord and walks in his way is compared to “a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season” (Ps 1:3). As we saw earlier, Paul deliberately contrasted the fruit (singular) of the Spirit with the works (plural) of the flesh. The former results from God’s supernatural reshaping and transforming of human life, whereas the latter are contrived and manufactured out of the old sinful nature. Again, we should sit back and contemplate the beauty of this image rather than overinterpreting and analyzing it to death as W. Perkins came close to doing in his allegorical reading of this passage: “And by this, much is signified: namely, that the church is the garden of God, that teachers are planters and setters, that believers are trees of righteousness, but the Spirit of God is the sap and life of them, and good works and virtues are the fruits which they bear.” Here, then, are the evidences of a Spirit-filled life.
Love (agapē). “Love” is one of the most frequently used words in Paul’s vocabulary, the noun agapē occurring seventy-five times, and the verb agapaō, “to show love,” thirty-four times in his writings. It is significant that love heads the list of these nine graces of the Christian life. Paul might well have placed a period after love and moved on into the conclusion of his letter, for love is not merely “first among equals” in this listing but rather the source and fountain from which all of the other graces flow. Before love is the fruit of the Spirit in the life of the believer, it is the underlying disposition and motivating force in election, creation, incarnation and atonement. As C. S. Lewis put it so well, “God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that he may love and perfect them. He creates the universe, already foreseen—or should we say ‘seeing’? there are no tenses in God—the buzzing cloud of flies about the cross, the flayed back pressed against the uneven stake, the nails driven through the mesial nerves, the repeated incipient suffocation as the body droops, the repeated torture of back and arms as it is time after time, for breath’s sake hitched up.… This is the diagram of love Himself, the inventor of all loves.”97
Love as a characteristic of the Christian life is consequent upon God’s unfathomable love and infinite mercy toward us. For Paul this was foundational to everything he had said and would yet say in Galatians—“I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (2:20). The result of the transforming, sanctifying ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives is just this: that we are enabled to love one another with the same kind of love that God loves us. Paul profiled this kind of love in 1 Cor 13; it is a love that “seeks not its own.”
Only twice in Paul’s letters did he speak explicitly of the believer’s love for God (Rom 8:28; 2 Thess 3:5), although everything he said about the call to devotion, worship, and service presupposes the upward movement of such love. However, Paul’s emphasis here in Galatians as elsewhere was on the Christian’s love for his fellow human beings. While the horizon of the love of neighbor is by no means restricted to fellow believers, it is supremely important that Christians learn to live together in love. When Christians forget this, then two horrible consequences invariably follow: the worship of the church is disrupted as the gifts of the Spirit are placed in invidious competition with the fruit of the Spirit, as happened at Corinth; the witness of the church is damaged as unbelievers stumble and fall over the obvious lack of love within the body of Christ.
Joy (chara). Paul repeatedly stressed the divine origin of joy, encouraging believers to rejoice “in the Lord” (Phil 3:1; 4:4), “rejoice in God” (Rom 5:11), and to realize that the kingdom of God is not “a matter of eating and drinking, but