Is the Fruit of the Spirit a Gift?

This post interacts with a recent article published by The Friends of Israel ministry entitled “Stop Praying for Patience: Changing Our Perspective on the Fruit of the Spirit.”

I don’t normally do this sort of thing, but I happened to click on the above essay by Sarah Fern, and as I have been teaching intensively on The Fruit of the Spirit at the Church I pastor I thought I would see what Mrs Fern had to say. It has to be said that this is a confused piece, and it needed to pass under the nose of an editor. Mrs Fern does say okay things like “Let’s stop asking for more patience and start asking for less of us and more of Him.” Although even here she presents an either/or when a both/and is better.

But it is one thing in particular that I want to take issue with. The author reports that she heard her pastor once say,

“This fruit is a gift given at salvation. It is not something you are able to work to obtain.”

Towards the end of her piece she echoes this sentiment with this:

“We receive the gift of the fruit of the Spirit at salvation, but we cannot pick and choose which fruit we will work to improve upon.”

There are several problems with this view. We might divide them into exegetical, theological, and existential.

Exegetical Problems

In the first place, Galatians 5 nowhere states that the Fruit of the Spirit is a gift. In the context the Apostle tells us that what really avails is “faith working through love.” (Gal. 5:6). This repeats the idea behind Galatians 2:20 when he said that “the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

Notice how faith “works.” In Galatians 2:20 the reality of being “crucified with Christ” stands behind Paul’s life of faith in Christ. This faith isn’t automatic – not in our daily sanctification – it has to be exercised. Likewise in Galatians 5:6, faith has to be active.

A little further on, Paul tells the Galatian Christians, “I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” (Gal. 5:16). This is an imperative. If we do not walk in the Spirit we assuredly will start fulfilling “the lust of the flesh.” If we yield to the Spirit (cf. Rom. 6:13) He will produce good fruit in our lives, and we will not “do the things that [we] wish” (Gal. 5:17c).

The “works of the flesh” in Galatians 5:19-21 are thoughts or behaviors that we as Christians still have more than a passing familiarity with, as did Christians in Paul’s day (see Gal. 5:15, 26 cf. Gal. 4:16; 1 Cor. 5:1-2; Phil. 1:15-16; 1 Thess. 4:1-8). There is no switch we can flick to turn on the Spirit’s power and access the Fruit of righteousness. No, the Christian life is a life of death to self (1 Cor. 15:31; 2 Cor. 4:7-12; Rom. 12:1-2), so that we can live in the power of the resurrection (Rom. 6:2-5, 11-14; Gal. 2:20a).

So when we get to the Fruit of the Spirit section (Gal. 5:22-23) we are not to think of these characteristics as automatically given to the Christian when he believes. Rather, they are what is produced in us by the Spirit when we “walk in the Spirit” (Gal. 5:25), having been “filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18). The fact of the matter is Paul does not tell us the Fruit of the the Spirit is a gift.

Theological Problems

Theologically speaking, if we make the claim that the Fruit of the Spirit is a gift we are comparing it to other gifts of the Spirit such as those listed in 1 Corinthians 12:4-10 or Romans 12:6-8. These gifts were mostly for the early Church before the completion and widespread availability of the NT Canon. The gifts could be “used” seemingly anytime, sometimes in a way that was contrary to the Spirit’s intention (1 Cor. 14:6-9, 16, 19, 23, 40). Now if the Fruit of the Spirit is a gift like these are then surely we can exercise this gift whenever we choose to? In other words, we can choose to live in the exercise of this gift from morning to night and no longer need we worry about sanctification!

This is, of course, ridiculous. Sanctification is an ongoing, and often back-and-forth process, and is hard work for us because we still have sin-cursed bodies and five senses very much attuned to “the things that are in the world” (1 Jn. 2:15). We also have the old nature wanting to get the upper hand over our renewed nature. Paul is clear about this in the latter part of Romans 7. He sums it up like this:

I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. – Romans 7:21-25 (My emphasis).

Serving God’s law with the mind requires “bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5b). That is something that doesn’t just happen when we become children of God.

This brings me to 2 Corinthians 4:7-11 and the essence of living by the Spirit. The Apostle declares,

For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. – 2 Corinthians 4:11.

Here we have one of the principle texts on sanctification. Notice that it does not involve switching on a gift. No, it demands that we die to ourselves; that we “present [our] bodies a living sacrifice” as Paul puts it in Romans 12:1. To quote Richard B. Gaffin,

“The dying of Jesus” is the existence-form that shapes the manifestation of his life in Paul. In the sense that suffering “the dying of Jesus” manifests the resurrection of life in Jesus… – “The Usefulness of the Cross,” WTJ 41:2 (Spring 1979), 234.

As Charles Ryrie puts it somewhat uncompromisingly,

If the Spirit controls one’s life, then the fruit of the Spirit will be displayed, and this is Christlikeness. – Charles C. Ryrie, Balancing the Christian Life, 116.

And John W. Sanderson adds,

In principle, Christians “have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts” (Gal. 5:24), but there is a day-by-day process by means of which we should overcome these evil tendencies… – The Fruit of the Spirit, 49.

Fern writes some good remarks about why Paul opens Galatians in the no-nonsense way he does, but she also includes the following statement:

“The doctrine of sanctification—the work of the Holy Spirit, where we are moment by moment becoming holy until we are with the Lord in heaven—was being attacked, and Paul was not having it.” (My emphasis).

The trouble is that sanctification cannot be described as us “moment by moment becoming holy.” This is not taught in the NT and is contradicted by it: “You ran well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?” (Gal. 5:7).

This brings us to the last issue:

Existential Problems

In one of his books Lutheran author Chad Bird writes that he has no acquaintance with the notion of the victorious Christian life. Rather, our Christian walk is a series of ups and downs, obedience and disobedience, wisdom and stupidity, with more of the negatives than the positives. I have counseled believers for 30 years and one thing I know is that the Fruit of the Spirit seldom puts in an appearance, and only then once we get out of the way. Here I have to take issue with Ryrie and his notion of a completely yielded life to God which then and only then produces the Fruit of the Spirit, and all of it at once! If that is so then I can confidently declare I have never seen anyone evidence the Fruit.

But again, if it is a gift why is it not plainly on view all the time in our churches? In our marriages? In our hospitality?

No, the Fruit of the Spirit is not a gift. Rather it is the product of the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives as we strive to walk in the Spirit and not fulfill the lusts of the Flesh. If it is to be produced in our lives we must be prepared to do the the often hard and dirty work of warring against the world, the flesh, and the devil every day. We must put ourselves on the alter, as it were, and offer our worthless lives to the One who is worthy (Rom. 12:1-2). We must “be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord” (1 Cor. 15:58). We must not faint (Gal. 6:9). And we must be at it daily!