A
TREE that bears fruit is worthwhile. It gives something
useful. It gives us something to eat which is healthy and
refreshing. Such a tree is also vital for producing more
trees after its own kind. Fruitless trees would be the end
of 'tree-kind' as we know it.
Fruit-laden
trees are a feast for the eyes as well as the stomach. How
amazing an orange grove looks in full fruit!—and what about
the pastel whites and pinks that precede a bumper crop of
apples! Fruit looks good, it tastes good, and it does you
good.
All
these points were established back in Genesis chapters 1
and 2, when "the Lord God planted a garden eastward
in Eden" for the first man and woman and "Out
of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that
is pleasant to the sight, and good for food..."
(Gen.2:9).
On
the other hand, a fruit tree that bears no fruit is worthless.
Especially if you depend on it for your food or livelihood.
You might as well dig it up and plant something useful in
its place. There's no point having it. You don't have to
be an expert gardener to know this is all sound horticultural
commonsense. Good husbandry dictates that, having first
done what you could for the unfruitful tree—tended it, given
it more time—if it still produced little or no fruit, you
would have to do the sensible thing and remove it. Get yourself
a healthy tree. In fact Jesus told a parable along these
very lines.
The
parable of the fig tree in the vineyard
"A
certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and
he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. Then
he said unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these
three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and
find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground? And
he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year
also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it: And if it
bear fruit, well; and if not, then after that thou shalt
cut it down" (Luke 13:6-9).
It's
a parable about Israel. There's little doubt about that.
The fig tree is used as a symbol for the nation of Israel
(Matt.21:19; 24:32; Joel 1:7; Jer.24; Psalm 80:8-17 and
others). Jesus, as the dresser of the vineyard (as all the
prophets God sent to tend Israel before him had been), had
for three years of his ministry attempted to make some spiritual
impact on the nation. He met with very little success. There
was still no fruit to speak of. On each of those years the
Lord God, the owner of the vineyard of Israel, had looked
in to see what success His dresser was having, and he was
disappointed each time. Israel might as well be "cut
down" in the opinion of Heaven.
But
Jesus must have said in effect, "No. Let me make
one last special effort. I may yet be able to coax some
fruit from it in what time I have left."
The
fruit of the parable obviously represents the spiritual
fruit Christ was hoping to encourage from Israel.
Fruit,
naturally speaking, is the visible evidence and expression
of a tree's good health. The tree that comes to fruit has
done what it was meant to do. It has done what it was designed
by God to do. It has perfectly fulfilled its function. From
which we can tell how best to understand spiritual fruit.
Spiritual fruit is the visible evidence and expression of
a believer's good spiritual health. Likewise, the believer
who comes to spiritual fruit has done what he or she was
meant to do—what he or she was designed by God to do.
The
parable of the vine-dresser tells us Christ was looking
for a change of heart from the nation of Israel. He was
trying to convert them from the works of the flesh to the
fruit of the Spirit. He was working hard to turn the people
away from their dead, legalistic slavery to the Law of Moses,
which had made the Law a burden to them, towards a healthy
understanding of the love that was actually expressed through
the Law, and which would make it a joy for them to observe.
This new enlightenment would also help prepare the people
for the transfer that was soon coming from Law to grace—from
the Old Covenant through Moses to the New Covenant in Christ.
It's
almost certain that many of the people Jesus wanted to change
in this way had experienced the baptism of John three years
previously. And what was it that John told them on that
occasion?—"Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance"—spiritual
fruit. John also added, significantly, "And now also
the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every
tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and
cast into the fire" (Matt.3:10).
John's
warning
The
parable of Jesus is an unmistakable echo of what John had
said. "Fruits meet for repentance" had
so far not been forthcoming, and the axeman's hand had been
stayed long enough. "Cut it down," said
the owner of the vineyard. But Jesus' compassion for his
people, and his plea on their behalf, moved the Father to
wait a little longer.
Admittedly,
it's difficult to fit the parable precisely to the events
that occurred historically, because the "cutting down"
of Israel cannot truly be said to have happened until AD70,
when Rome finally lost patience with her and scattered her
across the globe. That's forty years later rather than the
extra one year's reprieve that the dresser of the vineyard
had petitioned for. But that's not really a problem. We
should see it rather as an example of the mercy of God.
We are told that "The effectual fervent prayer of a
righteous man availeth much" (Jas.5:16). Bearing in
mind who the righteous man was in this case, it's
no small wonder that Israel's reprieve lasted forty years!
How earnestly Jesus must have prayed for his people!
From
the natural to the personal
What
we're chiefly concerned about with regard to the parable
of the vine-dresser is that it shows us that the Scriptures
employ the cultivation of fruit to portray spiritual development.
Failure to produce fruit as lack of spiritual development.
In the parable it was applied nationally: the nation of
Israel was the tree. But, as other Scripture shows, the
symbol can also apply to individuals.
John
the Baptist likened the individuals approaching him for
baptism to trees which might be cut down if unfruitful.
Your spiritual development and mine is our "fruit"
in Scriptural terms. And John made it abundantly clear that
there simply have to be "fruits meet for repentance"
("in keeping with repentance" NIV), or we
trees will be good for nothing but to be cut down. In other
words, following baptism there has to be spiritual development,
a visible expression of our growing spiritual health. Our
characters must be transformed into characters which Christ
will approve.
But
this won't happen overnight! Which is one of the important
things that likening our spiritual development to the production
of fruit tells us. Fruit grows and ripens gradually. The
vine-dresser in the parable could hardly have said, "Let's
just wait another couple of days and see what happens."
Nothing would have happened. Quite reasonably, he had to
wait for the vine to go through its cycle of production.
The fruit would be ready, or not, in due season.
But
to be sure of fruit some day we must be active
now. It's not next year, or even next month when we must
make a start. The time to be developing our fruit is always
now. We'll be doing it all our lives until Christ
comes. Then there will be what he calls the harvest in many
parables: the gathering in of the fruit.
Spiritual
fruit is the same as physical fruit in that it doesn't appear
suddenly a few days before the harvest. Barren trees don't
suddenly explode with fruit a day or two before the apple-pickers
start rolling up their sleeves or cranking up their machinery.
This is one of the important reasons why the parallel is
made between the appearance of fruit on trees and our spiritual
development. It can't be done instantly. The tree can't
put it off until a few days before the harvest, and neither
can we. That's the message.
We
said at the start of this chapter that for a tree to produce
good fruit it must be healthy. So, in our turn, in order
to produce spiritual fruit we have to be spiritually healthy.
In nature, for a tree to be healthy three factors come into
play: good soil, sufficient sunlight, and, most important
of all, water. Water is the crucial element that
can often make up for poor soil and even sparse sunlight.
As this world is a spiritual desert, and a place of near
spiritual darkness until the Light of the World returns
(John 9:5), our only hope is good water! Without a good
water supply a tree is doomed. Which brings us to Psalm
1.
The spiritual
man or woman: a tree by a river
In Psalm
1 a picture of the perfect tree (meaning the true spiritual
man or woman) is provided for us. Here the godly person
is described in these terms:
"And
he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water,
that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf
also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper"
(Ps.1:3).
Jeremiah
paints a similar picture:
"For
he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that
spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see
when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall
not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease
from yielding fruit" (Jeremiah 17:8).
The
chief reason these trees are healthy, we are told, is because
they are planted by a good water supply. They spread their
roots along the river-bank, so even in a time of drought
they can find the hidden sustenance beneath the river-bed.
Now, if we take a look at the preceding verse in Psalm 1
and in Jeremiah 17, we learn exactly what makes the tree,
the man or woman of God, healthy and fruitful.
Delight
and meditation
In
the Psalm we are told it's because "his delight is
in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate
day and night." That's why he's like the fruitful
tree. And in Jeremiah we're told, "Blessed is the man
that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For
he shall be as a tree...."That's what makes him a fruitful
tree.
These
four items are what makes the man of God like a fruitful
tree. These four correspond to a good water supply nourishing
the tree. So it follows that our development of spiritual
fruit depends on these very things.
The
development of the fruit of the Spirit will only occur if
we are planted by the good, health-giving waters of delight
and meditation. Meaning, of course, that we must get our
roots down firmly into the water of life that is in God's
life-giving Word. Delight in it and meditate
upon it, in order to suck up trust and hope
from its depths to sustain us through this twentieth century
spiritual drought.
The
sort of meditation mentioned in Psalm 1 doesn't involve
emptying our minds, as in Eastern meditation where the idea
is to achieve a calm inner state by stilling the 'chattering
monkey', as the Easterns call the perpetual dialogue we
have going with ourselves inside our heads.
There
is some benefit to be had from that sort of mind-clearing
relaxation, but it's not what the Scriptures mean. The Hebrew
idea couldn't be more different. The word actually means
mutter! The Psalmist is telling us to fill our minds,
not empty them! To fill them, of course, with the Word of
God. Where spiritual development is concerned there is no
substitute for a good acquaintance with the Word. There
is no other way to cultivate "fruits meet for repentance."
No other way to develop the sort of characters Christ
will approve.
But
spiritual fruit will never result from a casual acquaintance
with the Word. As the Psalm says, it comes from meditating
upon it day and night: that is, filling our lives with it,
delighting in it. That doesn't mean, of course, that we
have to be actively reading every spare moment, almost permanently
holding an open Bible! That much study is impractical, and
would very likely make us mad—to borrow Festus' word
to Paul on the subject of too much study (Acts 26:24). But
the quality of our study, when we do it, needs to
be sufficiently good to give us something to chew over most
of the time so that it has constant influence on our lives.
That sort of quality only comes when we truly take delight
in reading the Word and take time to think over properly
what we read.
The
fruit of the Spirit grows from delighting and meditating
in the Word of God. This is why the fruit is said by Paul
to be "of the spirit". It comes from the
spirit Word. But that's the topic of the next chapter.
