Now and again I have to remind myself that when Paul made a list of the fruits of the Spirit, he wasn't closing the door on other suggestions. It's also true that the nine fruits of the Spirit are not a varied list but a cluster; they are the fruit, singular and collective, of the Spirit's work of transforming and conforming each Christian to the image of Christ. Paul's carefully compiled list is intended as a counter-balance and contrast to the 'works of the flesh' as given in Galatians 5. That long list is one mean catalogue of so much that makes human behaviour evil, wicked, and cruel. In contrast to human nature at its unaided worst, there is the grace-enabled fruit of the Spirit:
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law."
The fruit of the Spirit doesn't grow by gritted teeth, self-denial, and the moral hard work of self-help virtue. Fruit, including spiritual fruit, is the natural outcome of the life of the Spirit expressed in the character and freedom of the children of God. The fruit of the Spirit is evidence of grace, and it grows by the constant work of cultivation, pruning, nourishment and irrigation which are the horticultural equivalents of the Spirit at work in producing the fruit of Christlikeness in our souls.
But still, whether or not Paul was being exhaustive in the list of fruit as evidence, there is a case for at least one other characteristic fruit of the heart and mind touched and transformed by grace, led and nurtured by the Holy Spirit. In Romans 5.1-5 Paul reflects on the genealogy of hope – where it comes from, what it does, what sustains it. It's worth following the whole thought process:
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
If the fruit of the Spirit is evidence of the work of God in our lives by the Spirit, then hope that arises from suffering, perseverance and character formation is likewise transformative. Hope is not unthinking optimism, worked-up positive thinking, or denial on steroids. Hope is a way of looking at the world through redeemed eyes, with a clear sight of the cross and its meaning, the resurrection and its effects, and a steady gaze at the glory of God in Jesus Christ.
No wonder Paul nearer the end of the letter to those Christians at Rome put all this into a prayer: "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." (Rom. 15.13) Hope is a fundamental shift in our worldview; Christians are called to live out a theology of hope, founded on God's love, and expressed in a faith that looks backward with gratitude and forward and outward at a world where the glory of God has been revealed in Christ, and in which the glory of God will be consummated in the new creation and fullness of redemption in Christ.
This kind of thinking is both fruit and gift. Indeed the fruit of the Spirit grows in us because, "God's love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us." So when Paul prays to the God of hope, that those Roman Christians in all the ups and downs of their lives in the imperial city may be filled with joy and peace as they trust in God, and that they may overflow with hope, his prayer falls upon our own times with the same extravagant confidence in God.
These are not easy times we are living in. Much that seemed secure, dependable and stabilising has been shaken. So have we. How do we stay hopeful and resilient in such fluctuating times? What inner attitudes and responses best equip us to live faithfully at a time when our faith in the status quo is decidedly undermined by events? Perhaps a regular reading and re-appropriation of these two texts will give us our bearings, and remind us whose we are, and the realities which undergird our faith. To overflow with hope, in a culture of denial or despair, is to 'shine like stars in a dark universe', as Paul put it to the Philippian believers.
The fruit of the Spirit is…hope, and hope is the echo in our hearts of the God of hope who has come to us in Jesus Christ, the revelation of the glory of God.
The fruit of the Spirit is hope, and hope does not disappoint because God has poured his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, God's gift to us.
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