THE FRUIT OF LOVE

Galatians 5:13-26

I. AFTER HAMMERING AWAY AT THE IMPOTENCE OF THE LAW AND THE DAMNABILITY OF OUR WORKS FOR JUSTIFICATION, PAUL NOW MAKES A CONNECTION BETWEEN FAITH, WORKS AND LOVE AS THE FULFILLMENT OF THE LAW!

A. The book of Galatians is a book of antitheses/polar opposites:

Ø circumcised/uncircumcised (2:7; 5:2,3,6; 6:15)

Ø Law/Grace (2:21; 5:4)

Ø Faith/works (Gal.2:16; 3:11-12; cf. Rom.3:21-22; 3:28; 4:4-5; 4:13-14; 9:30-32; 10:5-6; Eph.2:8-9; Phil.3:9).

Ø blessing/curse (3:3-14)

Ø son/slave (4:1-20)

Ø liberty/bondage (2:4; 5:1)

Ø Spirit/flesh (3:3; 4:29; 5:13-26)

B. After censuring law, works and commandments, Paul says that these are the things that count! (Paul was really censuring the Judaizers’ heretical views about law, works and commandments).

1. After establishing such a sharp antithesis between faith and works Paul writes, “neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love” (Galatians 5:6).

2. After establishing such a sharp antithesis between law and grace Paul summarizes the law as love for neighbor (Galatians 5:14).

II. THE STANDARD OF LOVE

A. Society has standards for just about everything: time, measurement, education, restaurants, science, engineering, medicine, etc.

B. A standard of love is lacking in our society. Christianity has a standard for the most important thing, which is love.

C. What Scripture calls the deeds of the flesh (immorality, impurity, sensuality…) the world calls love!

III. BECAUSE SOCIETY HAS NO STANDARD OF LOVE, ITS UNDERSTANDING OF LOVE IS QUITE THE OPPOSITE FROM SCRIPTURE. INDEED, SOCIETY ENDS UP DE-HUMANIZING PEOPLE IN ITS TWISTED VIEW OF LOVE

A. Society talks about homosexuals, lesbians, adulterers or unmarried people “making love.” Biblically speaking, they are not making love. Rather, they are acting like animals.

B. Darwin was right!

1. Mankind (Fallen) does have many similarities to the animal kingdom!! Indeed, the Scriptures affirm this:

a. “a wild donkey accustomed to the desert” (Jeremiah 2:24; cf. Hosea 8:9)

b. “Outside are the dogs” (Revelation 22:15; cf. Deut.23:18)

2. The Scriptures don’t teach biological evolution but behavioral de-evolution. Mankind hasn’t gotten progressively better, but has progressively degenerated to the level of animal (and in some cases this is an offense to animals!).

C. The “love” and “making love” that we are bombarded with in movies, TV, advertising and music has nothing to do with the fruit of the Spirit.

D. We are made (remade) in the image of God and not in the image of animals. Therefore we are to behave as God has commanded and not as animals behave (1 John 4:10-11).

E. Our standard of love is the example of God the Father giving His Son to die for our sins (John 3:16).

“Love is not defined by simplistic abstinence from drinking, dancing, makeup, movies, card-playing, and the like. It was envy that required the cross, not lipstick; it was covetousness that demanded atonement, not poker; it was pride that called forth the need for propitiation, not the cinema” (R.C. Sproul, The Mystery of the Holy Spirit).

F. Our standard of love is the relationship of Jesus Christ to His bride the church (cf. Romans 8:38-39; Ephesians 1:3-4).

IV. THE LAW OF LOVE AND THE LAW OF NATURAL SELECTION

A. God is love and the overarching principle of history is His love for His people.

B. The world’s view is that history is indifferent and blind!

C. Only through faith in Jesus Christ can you find the divine strength to help you keep the Law of love and to bear the fruit of love. Jesus Christ is the standard of love! (John 13:34)

V. LOVE AND MARRIAGE (cf. Song of Solomon 8:6)

“I believe natural selection represents a truly hideous sum total of misery. When you look at something like a bounding lion, a sprinting cheetah, and the antelopes they are bounding and sprinting after, you're seeing the end product of a long, vicious arms race. All along the route of that arms race lie the corpses of the antelopes that didn't make it, and the lions and cheetahs that starved to death. So it is a process of vicious misery that has given rise to the immense beauty, elegance, and diversity that we see in the world today. Nature is beautiful. Even a cheetah as a killing machine is beautiful. But the process that gave rise to it is, indeed, nature red in tooth and claw...” (Richard Dawkins, “The Dissent of Darwin: The World of Richard Dawkins”)

A. Biblical love results from the fact that we are being re-made after the image of Jesus Christ. Natural love is the result of our being made from the dust of the earth in the image of God, and yet that image has been seriously marred by sin.

Jaron Lanier: It's not just a conflict between creationists and Darwinists. There's a large group of people who simply are uncomfortable with accepting evolution because it leads to what they perceive as a moral vacuum, in which their best impulses have no basis in nature.
Richard Dawkins: All I can say is, That's just tough. We have to face up to the truth.

(“The Dissent of Darwin: The World of Richard Dawkins”)

B. On a natural level there are similarities between a Christian and non-Christian marriage. But the heart and soul of a truly Christian marriage is different because the attraction between the two is not merely hormonal, but the selfless and sacrificial love of Jesus Christ (Ephesians 5:22,25).

VI. LOVE AND PARENTING

A. Every two days in this nation, under the banner of “freedom,” more American women kill their own children than the American casualties in Iraq.

“Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold.” (Matthew 24:12 )

B. The natural affection that many parents have for their born children is not the same as the fruit of the Spirit.

C. There are many parents who provide well for their children! But providing for your family isn’t necessarily biblical love. Indeed, there are many examples in the animal kingdom of parents providing for their young!

From all this it is evident that the light found within the regenerate is of an entirely different nature than the light within the unregenerate. It therefore necessarily follows that the virtuousness of the converted and unconverted is also of a distinctly different nature. This is evident for the following reasons:

First, these virtues proceed from different causes. Natural virtue is the result of natural light and relates to the law innate in nature (Rom. 2:14–15). Spiritual virtue, however, is the result of the recreating and regenerating power of the Holy Spirit by means of the Word, and thus the result of spiritual light, life, and a spiritual conception of God (cf. John 3:5; 2 Cor. 5:17). “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works” (Eph. 2:10); “Of His own will begat He us with the Word of truth” (James 1:18); “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:18). They are “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4); “Christ liveth in me” (Gal. 2:20). This life, which proceeds from being a partaker of the divine nature, flows out of union with Christ and is thus of an entirely different sort from that which proceeds from the natural man.

Secondly, spiritual virtues proceed from faith which receives Christ, the life of the soul, and unites the soul to Him as such. “But without faith it is impossible to please Him” (Heb. 11:6); “...faith which worketh by love” (Gal. 5:6); “But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into Him in all things, which is the Head, even Christ, from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love” (Eph. 4:15–16). This is also confirmed in John 15:4, “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in Me.” The virtuousness of the regenerate proceeds from union with Christ. This, however, cannot be said of the unconverted, for they are without Christ. There is thus a very essential difference between them.

Thirdly, the unconverted, however great all their virtues may be, are said to be “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1); believers, however, are spiritually alive (Eph. 2:5). All that stirs within a dead body is essentially different from that which proceeds from a living body. This is also true for the virtuousness of the converted and the unconverted.

Fourthly, the spiritual virtues proceeding from union with God in Christ, and thus from faith and spiritual life, are performed in love for God, in the fear of God, and in obedience to God as their Father, and thus with the heart of a child. None but those who believe can truly love God, for “faith worketh by love” (Gal. 5:6). Whatever does not proceed from love is of no value (1 Cor. 13:1–2). Love is the fountain of virtue, and the contents of the law (Matt. 22:37). Believers are the saints who fear the Lord (Psa. 34:10). “The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life, to depart from the snares of death” (Prov. 14:27). They serve God as obedient children—and not as a God who is strange to them and from whom they are separated. They, in faith, serve Him as their God and Father in Christ, be this faith weak or strong. “As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: but as He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation” (1 Pet. 1:14–15). Since the unconverted are not united to Christ, without whom no one can come to God, their activity also does not proceed from this union, and is thus not motivated by love for God, the fear of God, nor obedience to God. From all this it is as clear as the noonday sun that the virtuousness of the converted is of a mold entirely different from that of the unconverted, and they are thus entirely different in essence. Therefore, both light and virtuousness in the converted and unconverted do not merely differ in degree, but their essential nature is different (Wilhelmus à Brakel [1635-1711]; The Christian's Reasonable Service, “The Difference Between a Natural and Spiritual Disposition”; 2:212).

QUESTIONS FOR SABBATH DISCUSSION & MEDITATION

Take what you have learned this morning and make it into a prayer. Pray that your faith in Jesus would make you fruitful in your service of Jesus Christ and in your relationship with all people.

God saved us for the purpose of ________________.

“How can we be fruitful?”

How is the fruit of love different from the love of the world?

What is a standard? Why is it that only Christianity has a standard for love?

What does it say about human families when termite families are more integrated than human families?

“One of the most profound and defining attributes of the termite family is that it is built on monogamy. Termites are faithful. They are probably the most monogamous group of animals on earth. The evolutionary outcome of this commitment to monogamy is a large and integrated family. As far as biologists know, termite colonies are the most sophisticated families ever to evolve in the universe. Human families are not nearly as advanced.” (http://www.utoronto.ca/forest/termite/iso1.htm)

How does your love for your spouse differ from that of an animal’s faithfulness to its mate?

How does your care for your children differ from that of an animal’s care for its young?