What is the fruit of the Spirit?
Works are a product of the flesh and are never acceptable to God to earn your salvation. Our problem as human beings is that we lack righteousness. "All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags" in God's eyes, Isaiah 64:6. And yet, God requires righteousness in order for us to be saved.
Since God could never accept our human righteousness, God became flesh, John 1:14, 1 Timothy 3:16, when Jesus was born of the virgin Mary, Galatians 4:4, Matthew 1:18, 23, 25. He went to the cross and suffered all of God's wrath against our sins. His perfect sacrifice was accepted by God, 1 John 2:2. We know this because God raised Jesus from the dead, Romans 8:11, Acts 17:31. God freely gives us His righteousness when we receive the gift of God which is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord, Romans 4:5-6, 5:17, 6:23. This is the Bible doctrine of justification by faith.
Fruit is a product of the indwelling Holy Spirit and is one evidence you are born again. If your life doesn't exhibit the fruit of the Spirit, you need to examine whether you're just a religious lost person or a backslidden saved person.
The term "flesh" refers not just to the body but also to the old nature, the part of us that is not saved or born again. When you trusted Jesus Christ, (1) your soul got saved, Romans 10:13, (2) your spirit got born again, John 3:3-8, and (3) nothing happened to your flesh, Galatians 2:20. Your saved soul and born again spirit dwell in your fleshly body and that causes a struggle between your two natures. Spiritual growth and blessing depends on which nature you feed, your flesh or your spirit. In any case, your body of flesh will not be redeemed until the rapture, 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, 1 Corinthians 15:51-54, 2 Corinthians 5:1-6.
Since God could never accept our human righteousness, God became flesh, John 1:14, 1 Timothy 3:16, when Jesus was born of the virgin Mary, Galatians 4:4, Matthew 1:18, 23, 25. He went to the cross and suffered all of God's wrath against our sins. His perfect sacrifice was accepted by God, 1 John 2:2. We know this because God raised Jesus from the dead, Romans 8:11, Acts 17:31. God freely gives us His righteousness when we receive the gift of God which is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord, Romans 4:5-6, 5:17, 6:23. This is the Bible doctrine of justification by faith.
Fruit is a product of the indwelling Holy Spirit and is one evidence you are born again. If your life doesn't exhibit the fruit of the Spirit, you need to examine whether you're just a religious lost person or a backslidden saved person.
The term "flesh" refers not just to the body but also to the old nature, the part of us that is not saved or born again. When you trusted Jesus Christ, (1) your soul got saved, Romans 10:13, (2) your spirit got born again, John 3:3-8, and (3) nothing happened to your flesh, Galatians 2:20. Your saved soul and born again spirit dwell in your fleshly body and that causes a struggle between your two natures. Spiritual growth and blessing depends on which nature you feed, your flesh or your spirit. In any case, your body of flesh will not be redeemed until the rapture, 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, 1 Corinthians 15:51-54, 2 Corinthians 5:1-6.
The apostle Paul listed nine characteristics that must be growing in our lives if we are to call ourselves Christians.
Galatians 5:22-23 lists nine character traits as the “fruit of the Spirit”:
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Verse 23 concludes with, “Against such there is no law.” These characteristics are totally in harmony with the full spiritual intent of God’s holy and beneficial law, and every human government would be happy to have citizens exhibiting these traits.
Growing in the fruit of the Spirit is expected of those who have decided to turn to God. These characteristics aren’t suggestions or possibilities; they are aspects of the mind of God. We are to grow to think and act more like God does, and the fruit of the Spirit helps outline the path of a Christian. King Solomon told us in Ecclesiastes 1:9 - "There is nothing new under the sun."
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Yet many who claim to be Christian don’t display these fruits very well. It takes more than saying you are a Christian; it takes the Holy Spirit to produce the fruit of the Spirit. Those who have been baptized and received the Holy Spirit should be demonstrating these traits more every day.
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Galatians 5:19-21 King James Version
19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
Sins of the flesh
These four sins in this list are sexual sins, Adultery, Fornication, Uncleanness and Lasciviousness that refer to illicit sex, sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery. The first two terms encompasses all kinds of immoral sexual relationships. The next two terms refer to sexual perversion.... "the sexual life of the Graeco-Roman world in NT times was a lawless chaos" (Barclay 1962:24), we only need to observe the chaos in our own world to understand the conditions in Paul's day. In fact, a good case could be made that in the two millennia since the Roman Empire, our generation comes closer than any previous one to the blatant prevalence of sexual perversions that was characteristic then. And a study of the fall of the Roman Empire suggests that any society that tolerates the unchecked promotion of such perversions will inevitably fall apart from the rottenness within.
Adultery |
Fornication |
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It means sexual relations with someone to whom you are not married and is generally translated, adultery, a married person stepping outside the marriage for sex, thus breaking the marriage vow, Matthew 15:19, Mark 7:21, John 8:3, Galatians 5:19. Jesus taught that you can commit adultery without ever having sex. If you lust after someone in your heart, according to Jesus, that is adultery, Matthew 5:27-28
UncleannessFrom the Greek word, akatharsia, Akatharsia often describes the moral and physical uncleanness of shrine prostitution - the sexual worship of false gods. Paul references this in 1 Corinthians 6:13, where he warns: "Now the body is not for fornication but for the Lord." The Jewish scholars who translated the Hebrew Tanakh (our Old Testament) into the Greek Septuagint around 200 BC, used the akathartos stem to translate Hebrew words describing idolatry. This was the common understanding of akatharsia in the first century AD. Thus, when Paul writes his epistles, he uses the commonly understood meaning of akatharsian and akatharsia in Romans 1:24, 6:19, Galatians 5:19 and 1 Thessalonians 4:7, to describe the uncleanness of idolatry and pagan worship. In ancient secular usage akatharsia also described a rotting corpse. Romans 1:24 uses akatharsia to describe idol worshipers or shrine prostitutes who dishonor their own bodies between themselves. Paul repeats the Greek word akatharsia in Romans 6:19, describing shrine prostitutes who got saved. He encourages them to yield their bodies to God's service with the same enthusiasm they yielded their bodies to serving the fertility goddess.
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From the Greek word, porneia. Porneia carries a broader meaning than moicheia, referring to almost any kind of sexual sin. It is often translated, fornication yet includes adultery, Matthew 5:32. The sin of fornication in the Bible often indicates shrine prostitution, Acts 15:29 & Revelation 2:21, 9:21. It can also include street prostitution, 1 Corinthians 6:13, sexual intercourse by single people outside the bounds of a committed partnership, 1 Corinthians 7:2, and spiritual fornication or worshiping false gods, Revelation 17:2, 4, 18:3, 19:2
Lasciviousness From the Greek word, aselgia, It means public sexual excess, shameless lust, noisy partying.
Lasciviousness which can also mean noisy drunken partying of a sexual nature. As appalled as we are at modern sexual immorality, we should remember that sexual immorality in the first century AD was as bad or worse. The bawdiness of sexual life in the first century Greco-Roman world was celebrated in plays and novels as well as on pottery and in tile mosaics on floors, walls, ceilings and building facades. Illicit sexuality in New Testament times included same sex activity whose sole purpose was to serve the fertility goddess.
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Sins of Superstition
The second class of sins are those which concern religious heresy—idolatry and sorcery, or witchcraft. The word ‘idolatry’ is to be understood here in its literal sense, the worship of false deities, as well as a greedy person as in Ephesians 5:5, a passage which is, however, strikingly parallel to this. Comp. Colossians 3:5; 1 Corinthians 5:11. The connexion with ‘sorceries’, as in Revelation 21:8, seems to limit the meaning to the superstitious worship of the heathen.
The word rendered ‘witchcraft’ originally meant ‘the use of drugs’, then, in a bad sense, ‘poisoning’. Those who ‘used curious arts’ (Acts 19:19) combined demonology or witchcraft with the use of drugs as philtres. For an illustration of this compare the well-known 5th Epode of Horace.
The word rendered ‘witchcraft’ originally meant ‘the use of drugs’, then, in a bad sense, ‘poisoning’. Those who ‘used curious arts’ (Acts 19:19) combined demonology or witchcraft with the use of drugs as philtres. For an illustration of this compare the well-known 5th Epode of Horace.
IdolatryFrom Paul's teaching on idolatry in his other letters we learn that idolatry is not merely worshiping the image of a god but also participating in the temple feasts (1 Cor 10:7, 14) and even being greedy for possessions (Col 3:5). False religion is the worship of other gods (whether images in temples or in shopping malls) and dependence on other powers (whether the power of drugs or of occult practices). The forms of false religion in Paul's day differ from the forms of our day, but we can still see its pervasive influence today.
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Witchcraft/Sorcery/Magic It would seem that practices of this kind were especially common in Asia Minor. In Acts 19:19 we read that at Ephesus, “many of them which used curious arts brought their books together and burned them before all men;” and there is other evidence to the same effect. Witchcraft is a translation of a Greek word from which our English word pharmacy is derived. The Greek word could have the positive meaning of dispensing drugs, but its more common meaning was the use of drugs in sorcery and witchcraft and to poison people.
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Sins of Temper
The next nine are those which are directly opposed to love of our neighbour or Christian charity; acts of the sinful nature which cause social conflict. Some terms are roughly synonymous, such as jealousy and envy. It seems that Paul added more terms under this category of social conflict because this was the area of greatest need in the Galatian churches. The attitudes and actions that destroy personal relationships were the most evident manifestation of the sinful nature in those churches. We can see reflections of this problem of social conflicts in verses 15 and 26 as well: Christians were "biting and devouring each other" and "provoking and envying each other." The Galatian churches were divided into bitterly antagonistic factions. The rest of the letter indicates that these conflicts were caused by the false teachers' campaign to enforce the observance of the law in the churches. The curse on "all who rely upon observing the law" (3:10) was already being experienced in the tragic breakdown of relationships between Christians. There were those Galatians who were guilty of sexual immorality and yet consider themselves "safe," since they had performed the "works of the law" by getting circumcised (5:2) and observing special days (4:10). Paul then turns to these "lawkeeping" Christians and gives them a long list of flagrant acts of the sinful nature which they had committed. The list is weighted, however, in the direction of the major problem of divisions caused by ambitious, angry people. Their preoccupation with keeping the law may have blinded them to their own sinful nature. It is something like the story of the woman caught in adultery (Jn 8:1-11). The teachers of the law were ready to stone her. But Jesus said that only those without sin could stone her. Then he began to write on the ground. What he wrote we don't know. But those teachers of the law were convicted of their own sin and left her.
When Paul confronts law teachers who are ready to stone lawbreakers, he writes out a list of acts and attitudes that are generated by the desires of their sinful nature. They can find no safety in their selective observance of the law. They too are enslaved to sin. Only Christ can set them free; only the Spirit can keep them free.
When Paul confronts law teachers who are ready to stone lawbreakers, he writes out a list of acts and attitudes that are generated by the desires of their sinful nature. They can find no safety in their selective observance of the law. They too are enslaved to sin. Only Christ can set them free; only the Spirit can keep them free.
Hatred /EnmitiesIntense dislike and ill-will.the state or feeling of being actively opposed or hostile to someone or something.
Jealousies/EmulationsAmbitious or envious rivalry; ambition or endeavor to equal or excel others (as in achievement)
Selfish Ambitions/Strifevigorous or bitter conflict, discord, or antagonism:
a quarrel, struggle, or clash: armed strife. competition or rivalry: Heresies/FactionsTranslation of the words mean a divisive person, a fool, anyone who enslaves you or exploits you or takes advantage of you or exalts himself or strikes you in the face, false prophets, false teachers, false prophet or dreamer inciting rebellion, false prophet who says, "Let us follow other gods"
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Discord/Variancethe fact or quality of being different, divergent, or inconsistent. The state or fact of disagreeing or quarreling.
Wraths /Fits of rage: strong vengeful anger or indignation
: retributory punishment for an offense or a crime : divine chastisement Dissensions/SeditionsEnvy/JealousyMurder |
Sins of Excesses
Paul concludes his list with two terms that refer to the wild drinking parties held in honor of pagan gods, particularly the god Bacchus. Drunkenness and orgies were part of pagan culture; they still are. And the church has never been immune to these acts of the sinful nature.
Drunkenness |
Revelries/Orgies |