Chapter # 5 Paragraph # 4 Study # 10
June 16, 2013
Dayton, Texas
(274)
1769 Translation:
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
24 And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.
25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
26 Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.
1901 ASV Translation:
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
23 meekness, self-control; against such there is no law.
24 And they that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts thereof.
25 If we live by the Spirit, by the Spirit let us also walk.
26 Let us not become vainglorious, provoking one another, envying one another.
- I. The "Fruit" of the Spirit.
- A. Calling it "fruit".
- B. The organization of the "fruit".
- C. The characteristics of the "fruit" (singular).
- 1. In respect to the inner man.
- a. "Love"
- b. "Joy"
- 1) This is the term that is used to describe the central core issue of "Life". The presence of "joy" makes Heaven Heaven and the absence of it makes Hell Hell.
- 2) In Paul's instructive description of the Kingdom of God in Romans 14:17, "joy" is the final development. Righteousness automatically leads to peace when all are so occupied because conflict only comes by unrighteousness. Peace automatically leads to joy as the emotional state of everyone who is "at peace" across the spectrum of issues that "peace" addresses.
- 3) It was for "joy" that Jesus endured the cross (Hebrews 12:2). Psalm 16:11 says that the "path" of "life" leads to the presence of God in which there is fulness of "joy".
- 4) The "promise" consists of "the joy of thy Lord" (Matthew 25:21). This dove-tails with John's summary of all of the promises of God in 1 John 2:25 as "eternal life".
- 5) A perusal of the uses of "cara" in the New Testament reveals the following...
- a) Cara is experienced by both believers and unbelievers as respects the Gospel.
- b) Cara is an emotional response to circumstances, reported or experienced, bounced off of "values". In other words, "joy" is tied to events. The key issue here is the interaction between "values" and "circumstances" [Note John 16:20 and 3 John 4].
- c) Cara is often a future expectation that tempers present distressful realities (James 1:2 and Hebrews 12:2).
- d) Hebrews 12:11 pointedly says that, at times, there will be little to no "joy".
- e) But 1 Peter 1:6 claims the possibility of "great rejoicing" in the midst of the reality of "heaviness" caused by "manifold temptations" [Note also Hebrews 10:34]. The key to this reality seems to be the focus of attention that captures the person when in a situation where multiple issues are going on and some of them are of one kind (valuable) and others of the other kind (worthless).
- f) As an element of the "fruit of the Spirit", cara is not some unattached miracle of the Spirit that trumps terrible present realities. As a response to circumstances, the cara of God depends upon the twin issues that are directly "of the Spirit": the answers to the questions, "What is valuable?" and "What is true?" [Love and Faith] (1 Peter 1:8 and Philippians 1:25).
- g) 1 John 1:4 strongly implies that "joy" results from the believing reception of truth (true doctrine). Romans 15:13 declares that "joy" arises out of "believing" and Philippians 1:25 does the same thing.
- h) Summary Conclusion: "Joy" is an aspect of the "fruit of the Spirit" in that it is the automatic, emotional reaction that occurs when a person's focus of "faith" is on "truth" in his/her circumstances in light of God's "love". Since the Spirit is He Who produces the values of "love" and the content of "truth" for faith, "joy" is "fruit" as an automatic effect of the combination of "circumstance, focus, love, and faith".
- c. "Peace"
- 1) This is the large "dividend" of "justification by faith" (Romans 5:1).
- 2) "Peace" is the absence of conflict and the presence of all things harmonious. It is the natural production of "justification" as "righteousness" automatically yields "peace" in every relationship touched by it.
- d. Theologically, "love", "joy", and "peace" all have settings in respect to the way God made man.
- 1) The question of "value" must be asked in respect to man, physical; man, emotional; and man, spiritual.
- 2) The experience of "joy" is relative to man's physical condition, his emotional condition, and his spiritual condition.
- 3) The mechanism of "joy" is "peace" and that reaches across the areas of conflict in respect to man. His physical body is "healthy" when there is peace between it and the environment it inhabits; his soul is "at peace" when there are no conflicts between it and the others who inhabit the same setting; and his spirit is "at peace" when his "value" is an established fact in his psyche.
- e. Theologically, "love" is the epicenter of all: there is no joy where misplaced values dominate; and there is no peace when values lead to conflict.