Sinclair B. Ferguson

Although earlier on in this chapter, he'd spoken about the works, plural, of the flesh, not just the work of the flesh.

And I rather think that he's suggesting that all of these qualities belong together.

They're meant to grow on the same tree, as it were.

You can't really develop one of them fully without having all of them.

At the same time, I wonder if the reason he calls them fruit is because they take time to grow and they need to be nourished.

It's interesting, I think, isn't it, that he uses a horticultural metaphor here, not a mechanical one.

These qualities can't be artificially produced.

They need to be developed in us by God's grace.

When I think of these words in Galatians chapter 5, I often am reminded of two comments made by two rather remarkable Christian ministers.

The first is a comment made by the great 18th century Anglican minister Charo Simeon of Cambridge.

And he made it about a young man whose name was Henry Martin, who became a very great missionary and translator of the Scriptures.

He was a brilliant young man.

He was the outstanding mathematics graduate of his time in the University of Cambridge.

And he became a missionary and died as a young man.

But Charo Simeon, who befriended him, once commented that what struck him about Henry Martin was not just how tall he had grown spiritually, but how the fruit of the Spirit in his life seemed to be perfectly proportioned.

I think that's a beautiful description of a Christian, don't you?

someone in whom all the graces of God, the fruit of the Spirit, are growing in a wonderfully balanced way, and at the end of the day showing that all of these fruit grow on the same tree.

The other comment that I often think of in connection with these words is something that my own minister as a student in Scotland, William Still, made.

I remember he said that the growing Christian is someone who has learned to do the natural thing spiritually and the spiritual thing naturally.

I think that's a very good way of thinking about the fruit of the Spirit, isn't it?