The Fruit of the Spirit: All Nine, and Where They Come From

What is the fruit of the spirit in Galatians 5:22–23?

"But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law."Galatians 5:22–23 (KJV)

Paul gives a list of nine, and in the King James Version they are love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance. He closes with the sentence that against such there is no law, which means there is nothing in the law that stands against a life that looks like this.

You will notice that I wrote spirit with a lowercase s in the verse. Most translations capitalize it, and the Holy Spirit is certainly the one who grows this fruit, but in my book New Creation, Old Habits I teach that it is the fruit of your born-again spirit, and the rest of this page explains why that distinction matters so much for your everyday life.

Is the fruit of the spirit the Holy Spirit's or yours?

Both are true, and the book is careful to keep them in their places. Your born-again spirit is not divine and is not God, while the Holy Spirit is God, your Teacher, and the way the Father lives in you and with your spirit. So when I say the fruit belongs to your spirit, I do not mean you grow it apart from Him, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us (Romans 5:5).

What I do mean is that this is not fruit hanging on the Holy Spirit as though you had to borrow it from Him. It grows out of the new nature He put inside you, and it is what you should expect to experience as a born-again believer. That changes the question you ask yourself, because you stop asking how to produce patience or joy by effort and start asking how to let what is already in your spirit flow out. I explain the difference between the two spirits more fully on the page about spirit, soul, and body.

How is the fruit of the spirit different from the feelings of the soul?

Most of us were never told that the spirit has its own emotions. Your soul is your mind, your will, and your emotions, and your spirit has its own mind, its own will, and its own feelings, which are not the same as the feelings of the soul. Living from your spirit does not mean you hate your soul or pretend its emotions are not there, but that you learn to recognize the emotions that come from your spirit and let them lead.

The book sets four soul feelings beside four kinds of fruit. The soul has happiness, which rises and falls with circumstances, while the spirit has joy, which comes from somewhere circumstances cannot reach. The soul has phileo love, the affectionate love of friendship and family, while the spirit has agape, the unconditional love of God. The soul has contentment, which depends on things being settled, while the spirit has peace, which holds even when nothing is settled, and the soul has friendliness, which is agreeable, while the spirit has kindness, which is selfless.

None of the soul's feelings are evil, because happiness, friendship, and contentment are good things. The problem comes when you mistake them for the fruit of your spirit, since then you spend your life chasing soul feelings and wondering why you never seem to bear spiritual fruit.

What is agape, the first fruit of the spirit?

Love is the first fruit in Paul's list, and the book uses the Greek word agape for the unconditional love of God. You cannot get agape from the soul, because the soul learned from the old man, and the old man was self-seeking. Even the love of a mother for her baby, one of the most beautiful loves on earth, usually has some self-attachment woven into it, and that is phileo.

The encouraging part is that you do not have to manufacture agape or grow into a small portion of it at a time, because your spirit already has agape, since His Spirit, who is agape, lives in you. It is the spirit of Christ within you, and the spirit of Christ has all of it, so the issue is never whether agape is in you but whether it is flowing out, from your spirit, through your soul, and into the people around you.

The book describes an order to this. With God I come to receive as a son, and with other people I give from what I have received, without making their response the price of my love. When you come into His presence with your phileo love, because you need something or want relief, He accepts it, and as you keep soaking in His presence He keeps turning it into agape.

What is the difference between gentleness, kindness, and being friendly?

The King James calls this fruit gentleness, but the Greek word behind it, chrēstotēs, is the same word the King James translates as kindness in other places, and it means a goodness toward people that is for their sake and not your own. Your soul can be agreeable and friendly toward someone, but your spirit can act with a selfless kindness that treats a person well regardless of how you feel about them or what judgments are rising in you.

Soulish friendliness almost always wants something back, because it wants to be seen a certain way or to get something out of the exchange. Spiritual kindness has nothing to gain, and it treats someone well simply because you love them no matter what. The next time you are nice to someone, it is a useful test to ask honestly whether you are being friendly to get something or kind for their sake.

Why don't I feel the fruit of the spirit if it is already in my spirit?

The book answers that your soul can still experience fear, sadness, temptation, insecurity, and wounded emotional responses, and some of those are real wounds rather than untrained feelings. You will always have your soul and its emotions, and they do not have to be what you act on, but acting on the fruit of your spirit is far easier when the wounds are not so deep. Forgiveness heals those roots, prayer heals them, and deep, intimate time with the Holy Spirit heals them, because only He can reach that deep.

Paul gives the goal in one sentence: "Walk in the spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh" (Galatians 5:16). The idea is to become so practiced at walking in the spirit that it becomes what you live by on autopilot, in joy that circumstances cannot take and in a love that keeps no invoice. As for fear, John says that perfect love casteth out fear (1 John 4:18), and the more agape flows from your spirit, the less room fear has to rule your soul.

One last honest note about what the book covers. It works through love, joy, peace, and kindness in detail, and it names the rest of the nine as Paul gives them, so I have stayed with what the book teaches rather than adding to it. The assessment below can show you which area of your inner life to start with.

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Keep reading

• Spirit, Soul, and Body: What the Bible Says About the Three Parts of You
• Renewing Your Mind: What It Means and How It Happens
• New Creation in Christ: What Actually Changed in You
• Praying in Tongues Benefits: What Scripture and This Book Teach