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The Fruit of the Spirit - Love

The Fruit of the Spirit - Love

Mike Willis

 

In Galatians 5, Paul contrasts the works of the flesh with the fruit of the Spirit. This is the beginning of a short study of the fruit of the Spirit, following the same order as the text: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23).

 

The Greek language has several words that can be translated by the English word “love” (erotic love, familial love, friendship love, and God’s love for mankind). The Greek word for this last kind of love is agapē. This Greek noun appears 116 times in 106 verses in the New Testament. The verb agapaō, translated “to love,” appears 143 times in 110 verses. It is the word used in John 3:16 to describe God’s love for the world.

 

Timothy George quoted C.S. Lewis in his comments on Galatians 5:22.

 

“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” (Galatians, The New American Commentary, 400).

 

Human love for one another is defined and rooted in the nature of God—His love that motivated Him to create a world for man to live in and man himself, giving him a companion to share his journey, the blessing of children, and then a Savior (His own Son) who experienced the torments of Calvary for our good, not His.

 

The first and greatest commandment is that man reciprocate to God the love that God has shown to him. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37).

 

The second greatest commandment is to extend that same agapē love toward his neighbor. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:39). The same kind of love that God extends to us, we are commanded to show toward Him and to our neighbors. If one is commanded to love his neighbors, with whom he may have little in common except a common boundary line, how much more should he show love for his friends and those with whom he worships (1 Thess. 4:9)!

 

Jesus gave the parable of the Good Samaritan to define the meaning of “love your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:25-37) to a lawyer who questioned Him. Jesus said that a certain man went on a journey and was robbed, beaten, and left for dead by a group of thieves. A priest and Levite walked by this injured man and did not stop to help. A Samaritan was walking down the road from Jerusalem to Jericho outside the province of Samaria, when he found a man who had been robbed, beaten, and left to die. He stopped and helped the man, putting him on his own donkey and taking him to an inn. The good Samaritan paid for his room at the inn and instructed the inn’s owner to take care of him. If he spent more, the Samaritan promised that he would reimburse him. Having finished the story, Jesus asked, “Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” The lawyer replied, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus replied, “You go, and do likewise.”

 

A man should show love to his wife and children just as he wishes for himself (Eph. 5:33). I have never met a man who beat himself, but I have heard of men who abused their wife, leaving them bruised and hurting physically, on top of the emotional sorrow of living in such a horrible relationship.

 

We come now to one of the hardest commandments that love demands. Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:43-45).

 

This commandment proves without a shadow of doubt that love is not merely an emotion. It is a deliberate act of one’s will. I know this is so, because Jesus commanded that one love his enemies. I am specifically commanded to forgive those who have sinned against me: “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matt. 6:14-15). One cannot obey this command by acting on his emotions. It requires a deliberate act of one’s will, to suppress one’s feelings of vengeance and hatred, in order to forgive those who have sinned against him.

 

Here is the kicker: A Christian should overcome his sinful emotions and show active love, even to his enemies. I am not saying that this easy. The fact is that it is difficult to do and you will struggle to be genuine in expressing love toward that person. But this is what love demands, what God commands that we should do to those who have sinned against us.