“Fruit” is the Christian character, the thing that spills out from all who have the spirit of God delivered to them in their baptism.
Paraenesis is defined as “exhortation, moral instruction.” It is what we hear in the second half of Paul’s epistles. That appears to be the overarching message of the Galatians 5 pericope, replete with a catalogue of sins. And likely the bit that is most familiar, for those who went to Sunday School or had to memorize parts of the Bible, is the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, and peace and so forth.
Indeed, Paul is exhorting his people to live as Christians, to live in step with the Spirit (Galatians 5:16, 25). Preaching the Word like that means exhorting your people too. Sounds obvious, does it not? So, how do we urge, encourage, inspire, and exhort? Pay attention to this because it is not patently obvious. Christian living has its roots in Christ. Christ needs to be delivered to people in order for them to live in Christ. They cannot simply be harangued with instruction about how to live with their neighbor in society. That is law preaching, but empty of Christ. They also cannot simply be beaten with the stick of behavior, with a reminder that when they get it wrong, Jesus died to forgive them. That is law preaching too, and just as empty of Christ (what pulpit referees and doctrine umpires in my circles call “gospel reductionism,” which is the same as “law reductionism,” which is just fancy phrases for the simpler expression, “bad preaching”). Both of those angles get at a bad outcome because they are aiming wrong. The point of the pulpit is not to teach about correct behavior. It is to teach of Christ. The point of the pulpit is not somehow to teach law, gospel, then law again. It is to peel back the occlusions of human pride and ignorance to demonstrate how desperately they need a savior, and then it is to deliver that savior. The goal is to kill with the Law and to raise with the Gospel.
“Oh, but I’m preaching the Third Use of the Law.” No, you are not. When you are preaching the Law, you are preaching the Law. You do not have any control over which “use” you are preaching. The Holy Spirit will use whatever you say to convict, instruct, or restrain, but it will always kill, always accuse. You are called to preach Law and Gospel. You do not get to preach the pedagogical or political or normative use of the Law in your proclamation, you just get to preach the Law. God’s Word will affect what the Law does when it reaches various ears. I refrain in this limited space from slicing the baloney thinner than that (there is a lot of fruitful theological ink spilled on this) but take the caution preacher: Any Law preaching is Law preaching, and you do not have your hand on the leash for which “use” your hearer will hear, in spite of your most salutary intentions. Trying to do it will backfire, a tragic irony for this text in particular, which begins (Galatians 5:1) by warning the hearer not to let anyone (and he is talking preachers!) subject them once again to a life under the Law!
You are called to preach Law and Gospel. You do not get to preach the pedagogical or political or normative use of the Law in your proclamation, you just get to preach the Law.
So, back to the initial question: How do we inspire, encourage, and exhort our people to Christian living, since that is what Paul is doing in the text? What is it which will motivate a sinner to turn from sin, and wicked people to do good? The answer is ever, always, and only: Turn ’em into saints. It is the only way. This happens through the experience of death and resurrection, the Word that kills, and the Word that makes alive. Turn ’em into saints, because saints exist as those who live in Christ, the Gospel having raised them to new life in Him. Some theologians say it this way: The Law never motivates to good works, only the Gospel does that. The Law can curb, the Law can convict, and the Law can instruct, and it will always kill, but it can never turn a sinner into a saint. It can never raise the dead. It can never motivate the Psalm 19 and 119 paean to torah[1] that is the faithful cry of God’s child. The Law does not do that. It is alien to the Law. It is powerless to do so, in fact (Romans 8:3). The only thing that motivates is not law. It is gospel, baby. Only and ever the full, pure, ninety-two octane flood of Christ for your hearer.
Incidentally, speaking of Romans 8:3, that is a great intertext for this Galatians 5 pericope. Read Romans 8:1-17 in order to get at what “walking in step with the Spirit” is for Paul. That exercise will bear fruit.
Fruit! Let us chat about that too. A poor and potentially satanic sermon is one that encourages people to do love, joy, and peace as Christian virtues, as works they produce from their heart, and that they are directed to meditate on and measure. Ever see a tree putting forth observable effort, labor, work, to squeeze out its fruit? Have you ever observed a fruit bearing plant straining, grunting, wringing, and finally birthing a plum or a peach or a pineapple? No, that is not how fruit is born (though it might produce a hemorrhoid).
Here is another thing you want to avoid, the WWJD way. Jesus loved like this, joyed like that, peaced in this way, and so forth. Now, go and do thou likewise. No, that’s just moral exampling your people to death. The preacher’s job here is not to direct people in ways of gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control, a la that “Third Use of the Law instruction time” thing I mentioned above, a “you can do it” encouragement or challenge. By the way, always beware the wiseacre who thinks sermons should always “challenge” their hearer. This generally comes from a source of condescension or a patronizing attitude at best, but it is pietism up and down, an anxiety about Christian behavior that imagines pulpit time is best served telling people to do, do, do.
No, the preacher’s primary job is to deliver the Christ who indeed fulfills the Law for us, making us saints! But more than that, he delivers Jesus’ Spirit to His saints to bear such fruit. God is in charge of all this. He is the one who does, does, does! Jesus’ own preaching on trees and fruit and people and works (Matthew 7:16) reminds us of that. It is a natural identifier. These are indeed Christian virtues! But the Christian life and the works of the Christian are always and only byproducts of the work of Christ, of which His sheep are blissfully unconscious at the end (refer to Matthew 25:37-39). Unfortunately, looking at Jesus as if He is a moral teacher makes people approaching this text think that love, joy, and peace and so forth are meritorious works, worthy of telling people to do as Christian behavior. This is a wrongheaded approach. Do not do that. Christ is not a guru. He is God’s Son and Savior of the world.
The fruit of the Spirit is neither a thing Christians are directed to measure and inspect in one’s neighbor or oneself, nor merit God’s pleasure by attempting. It has already been attempted and accomplished by the Christ! It has already been credited to His coheirs. Therefore, you can identify them as good trees by the good fruit that has been accomplished in them “extra nos” or “extra se,” outside of themselves. Works of the flesh have a law against them (Galatians 5:17, 21). Fruit of the Spirit, against this there is no law (Gal 5:18, 23), and notice the vocab is different: Works vs. Fruit, and plural vs. singular (worth some thinking and study!). There is a law, but not against the one who stands in Christ’s righteousness. Standing there, standing in Christ, standing in the freedom for which Christ has set them free, the Christian bears His Spirit’s fruit. Step outside of that, and you are not in step with the Spirit, but rather the flesh. And we can identify what the works of the flesh are. It is a good caution for every saint, who is here reminded how we never get rid of the flesh, but are called to resist it, for in so resisting, we are preserving the gift of Christ’s freedom.
There is a law, but not against the one who stands in Christ’s righteousness.
After all, the point of the Law preaching of Paul is to keep them in their liberty (Galatians 5:1). It is the same as saying, “No, do not put those shackles back on. Stop yearning for that yoke, slavering and salivating for your former slavery. Can you not see how it keeps you from doing what you want to do (Galatians 5:17)?” That is what the catalogue of sin is, the reminder of the shackles. The catalogue of fruit is a spotlight on the benefits of gospel freedom. Paul is saying, “Look what the Spirit is bearing in you, with the freedom to spread roots, branches, respirate, and live in a well-lighted and well-irrigated place.” How can the result be anything but the “’asher ’ish,” the blessed man of Psalm 1, whose delight is in the “torah Yahweh?” Like a tree, planted by streams of water, bearing fruit in its season, its leaf does not wither!
Finally, a caution: Civil liberty is different than Gospel liberty. Confusion of Law and Gospel is serious. Confusion of kingdoms is just as serious. You have people in your pew who are older and younger veterans, patriots who lean on either side of the aisle, folks who are faithful Christians but also lovers of their country, and this is wonderful. But your people will be ill-served by a preacher who unwittingly ties proclamation to the backdrop of patriotic songs and Lee Greenwood’s “Proud to Be an American” and “God Bless the USA” lyrics, especially given the patriotic holiday we are going to be celebrating in America the week this sermon is delivered. Guard against giving your hearer a picture of an “American Jesus” who is the well coifed action hero with biceps and M-16’s, with stars and stripes waving behind him as a bald-eagle soars overhead through the fireworks, proclaiming “faith and freedom” because of Galatians 5:1. That is an easy mistake to make. I know. I have seen the billboards dotting the American road-trip highways. But it fuses things together that need to be kept apart.
Freedom in the Gospel is not the freedom we are dealing with in the civil sphere. It is freedom in the conscience, freedom from the wrath of God, freedom from sin, and freedom from the guilt of sin. It is freedom from the Law! It cannot frighten us anymore. When sin, death, the Devil, and the Law frighten and tempt to despair, the instruction, the invitation, and the proclamation of the freedom Christ has won for us needs to be placed before us front and center. To mix a bunch of metaphors, it is freedom from the shackles that bind, from the strictures, legalism, the noose that keeps the tree from bearing fruit. That freedom is brought about and delivered by Christ who became a slave so you might be free, who became death so you might become life, who was planted in the ground like a kernel of wheat so He (and you) might rise again. We stand in Christ’s righteousness, not our own, in Christ’s death, not our own, in Christ’s life, not our own (Galatians 2:20-21; 5:24-25). If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed (John 8:36).
Notice, preacher, how this is nothing but the Gospel! And this is what the Apostle thinks is so precious that it should be guarded, set in front of our minds. See to it that you do not let anyone take it away! And see how it naturally develops fruit, it naturally bears what the tree conceives; love, joy, peace and so forth. Also notice, theologian, that this is the ground upon which theologians are confident that the Gospel is the only thing which motivates Christian life (Are you disabused of the notion of “preaching the Third Use of the Law” yet?).
Consider an outline like this:
Fruit is not meant to be detected and inspected, poked and prodded, measured for mass and magnitude. It is meant to be eaten and enjoyed.
- The Law confronts us when we measure good works in others (it leads us to a false comfort about ourselves and ungenerous perception of neighbor; or in other words, chief of sinners though I be, at least that bozo is worse than me).
- The Law confronts us when we measure good works in ourselves (it leads us to despair because we cannot measure up; we do not measure with the holy measure of God either).
- The Christ fulfills what the Law demands by doing good works (He has done all things well; the work of Christ for salvation).
- The Christ fulfills the demands of the Law vicariously (in other words, for you) by imputing (counting as yours) His works, on your behalf.
- Faith does not meditate on how much fruit I produce as in how many good works I do (Matthew 25:37-39). Faith does not measure it in others or in yourself. Faith receives Christ’s work as a gift. Trust the promise of Christ (abide in Him) and you are a tree in His vineyard (Psalm 1; John 15; Galatians 5).
Identity in Christ means the Spirit’s fruit is a natural result of who you are in Christ. Your willingness and ability to serve your neighbor is not a precondition of God’s favor, but a byproduct of His grace. “Fruit” is the Christian character, the thing that spills out from all who have the spirit of God delivered to them in their baptism. It is not a precondition. It is a byproduct. It is a reflection of the overflowing measure of grace that is been poured out on you in Christ.
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Additional Resources:
Craft of Preaching-Check out 1517’s resources on Galatians 5:1, 13-25.
Concordia Theology-Various helps from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO to assist you preaching Galatians 5:1, 13-25.
Lectionary Kick-Start-Check out this fantastic podcast from Craft of Preaching authors Peter Nafzger and David Schmitt as they dig into the texts for this Sunday!
The Pastor’s Workshop-Check out all the great preaching resources from our friends at the Pastor’s Workshop!
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[1] “Paean” is a Greek term for a joyful song of thankfulness or praise and “torah” is Hebrew for not just the Law, but all the teachings of the Lord God.
