NINE FRUITS OR ONE FRUIT?

IT’S not seriously important whether you believe the fruit of the Spirit is one or nine. I'm sure it will make little difference to the outcome whether you believe that love is the whole fruit, and that there are eight aspects of it (as I do), or whether you believe Paul describes nine separate fruits of the Spirit (in which case you will surely see them as complementary anyhow). Looking at the fruit either way, it still adds up to the whole spiritual personality.

But as I've touched on the subject a number of times, I really ought to give an explanation of why I believe as I do. The reason is partly the grammar of Galatians 5:22,23 and partly the inference of other Scripture.

It's just possible that you don't find grammar the most enthralling thing in the world. If syntax is not for you, then please don't get bogged down in this chapter. Pass quietly on to chapter seven. I understand perfectly, and there are no hard feelings.

Regrettably, I can't produce a single verse that says straightforwardly, "Love is the fruit of the Spirit." This chapter would be a lot easier if I could. It would be unnecessary! But I do feel there are enough pointers to it in the Scriptures to give the idea some respectability.

See what you think. If you disagree on having read this chapter, then I hope you'll nevertheless find the remainder of the book helpful in your quest to produce the Spirit's fruit. For, whether you believe the fruit is love, or that love is only a ninth part of it, the fruit of the Spirit remains unquestionably the vital ingredient in the truly Christian character. I say again what I said in the Preface that the fruit may well encompass all of what Christ will be looking for in us at his return.

One or nine?

The confusion over whether love is the whole fruit or only one of nine distinct fruits is due to the way the Apostle Paul describes it in Galatians 5. Here are the two verses again:

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law."

At first glance it looks as if the fruit is ninefold—that is, a single fruit made up of nine parts. A second look and you'll see it's also possible to take the meaning that there are nine separate fruits of the Spirit. But if the Apostle intended that, why did he say fruit (singular, it seems) and not fruits? (In fact, the grammar of verse 22 could well scupper both options. I'll come back to that shortly.)

To add to the confusion there is a third possibility to consider. This is the one I have already broached, and in which I have declared an interest. This is the view that the fruit of the Spirit is love (the first item on Paul's menu), and that the eight items following are various aspects of love. Though, perhaps, the least obvious of the choices, it does hold together reasonably well under scrutiny.

It may seem like quite a leap of the imagination (not to mention a downright liberty with the text) to say that the verse should be understood like this—

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, (comprising) joy, peace, longsuffering..."

—but there are some good reasons for putting the idea forward, not the least of which is that I believe it offers the most profitable line of enquiry from the available choices.

The Grammar: singular, plural, or collective singular?

The chief difficulty over verse 22 of Galatians 5 is that word fruit. Is it singular? Is it plural? Or is it a collective singular? The English word fruit can be any of these. I can say, "This apple is a fruit." I can say, "This apple and orange are fruit." I can also say, "This apple comes from a place where fruit grows." But more to the point the Greek word karpos, which is generally translated fruit in the New Testament, can also be any of these. The translators of the A.V. certainly thought so, because here are some examples which show the word in all three roles:

Singular "Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit [karpos] of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby" (Heb.12:11).

Plural "They say unto him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits [karpos] in their seasons" (Matt.21:41).

Collective singular "And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit [karpos]" (Jas.5:18).

In some versions (e.g. NEB and Moffatt) the translators have sidestepped the problem of the uncertain quantitative value of fruit in Galatians 5.22 by substituting the word harvest. But this doesn't solve the problem; it only submerges it. Karpos is still lurking there for anyone who goes back to the original Greek. And there is absolutely no justification for translating karpos as harvest. There is a perfectly serviceable Greek word for harvest Paul could have used if that's what he'd meant to say.

So, which of the three options did Paul intend? Singular, plural or collective singular? We have some detective work to do.

The plural is quite easy to dispose of because the verb linked with fruit in Galatians 5:22 is without a doubt singular. "The fruit of the Spirit is"—this is the Greek esty, and in the verse it denotes third person singular. Which rules out fruit being plural because, as we learned at school, the subject of a sentence (in our case the fruit of the Spirit) must agree with its verb "is" in number—meaning that if the subject is singular so is the verb, and vice versa. That rules out the plural for the fruit of the Spirit because the verb is unquestionably singular. Which leaves two alternatives.

Singular or collective?

Most commentators tell us confidently that fruit in Galatians 5:22 is singular and that consequently the fruit is ninefold. Love is therefore just one ninth of the whole fruit. But it needs pointing out that the singular of fruit is an extremely rare event in Scripture. There's only one other occasion where karpos can be said with absolute certainty to be singular. That's in Luke 1:42, where Elizabeth says to Mary: "Blessed is the fruit of thy womb." That has to be singular. It refers to Jesus.

It's really not surprising that the singular of fruit is so rare in Scripture when we consider how infrequently we use the singular version ourselves in everyday speech and writing. Check it for yourself. On almost every occasion we use the word, we use it in the collective sense—and so do the Scriptures. This gives me serious doubts about the commentators' assertions that fruit is singular in our verse. They may sometimes mean singular collective, perhaps, but they don't say so, not the ones I've read. As almost all of the uses of the word karpos in the New Testament are collective, I think it's reasonable to conclude that this is also the case in Galatians 5:22.

Having narrowed the field down to the collective function for the word fruit, where does that lead us in the interpretation of the verse? We're nearly there. We have but one more step before we reach a conclusion. (And not before time, do I hear?). Again it involves a choice. This time it's a choice between the two ways in which a collective singular can be used.

1 Fruit, collective—meaning lots of one kind of fruit, as when we say, for instance, the fruit of a tree (all apples, all pears etc.).

2 Fruit, collective—meaning lots of different fruits, as in 'the fruit of the ground' (anything and everything).

If we apply version 1 to our verse in Galatians we get the following awkward comparison:

The fruit of the tree is apples.

"The fruit of the Spirit is love(s?)..."

For this to work (which clearly it doesn't), love needs to be plural (!) and the other eight items are redundant. (I accept that this model is rather clumsy, because, strictly speaking, tree does not equate well with spirit. Spirit is more fittingly the catalyst, the agent by which the fruit is generated, and might better be equated with the rainfall and the soil nutrients which cause the tree to thrive, rather than the tree itself. But the model still serves adequately to show that choice 1 is not right.)

If choice 2 is wrong, we've come an awfully long way for nothing! Let's see how it works out when we compare it with our verse:

(a) The fruit of the ground is (say) cereal, nuts, fruit, vegetables, herbs and so on.

(b) "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering" and so on.

That's more like it. Except for one thing. All the fruit in example (a) is plural, but qualities such as joy and peace don't have plurals in the accepted sense (unless you count the joys of Spring!) So the model is almost correct, but not quite. What if we make a slight adjustment to it, making the joy and peace equivalents singular, like this? —

(a) The fruit of the ground is cereal: wheat, rye, barley, maize, rice.

Now we have a result that matches our verse. And we notice that now all the items which follow cereal are items which are collectively cereal. Putting it into this form lines it up with our verse perfectly. And this is how I propose Galatians 5:22,23 should read with regard to love. The items following it are collectively love. Also bear in mind that the original Greek is not punctuated. So I would not be presuming too much if I were to add a dash (or colon) after love in the verse to set off the list of items.

I accept that any purist grammarians reading this might tear their hair out at my rude logic. But in my defence let it be said that while reading some of them on subjects like collectives, I've been close to tearing my hair out at times! And I can ill afford it.

If the reasoning seems a little contrived to get the end result I wanted, then I have to put up my hand as guilty. I have to admit that there is a little contrivance. But the element of bias that runs through the reasoning is not because I wanted to force an interpretation of my own on the verses, regardless. It's there because I have been trying to discover how the verses could be saying, grammatically, what other Scripture suggests they ought to be saying. And chief among that other Scripture is 1 Corinthians 13.

The Love chapter

The idea that there are eight aspects of love described in Galatians 5 does seem to be supported by Paul's more detailed description of love in 1 Corinthians 13. In that well-known 'love chapter' Paul sets out sixteen ways in which love can be expressed. They equate very well with the eight aspects of love, as you'll see from the table below. The temptation to make two expressions of love equal one aspect of love has not been resisted, as it strongly suggests itself.

Love (agape) Charity

Perhaps I haven't allocated them all precisely right. It could be argued that "envieth not" is a part of peace, or even faith, because a lack of envy denotes a certain peaceful satisfaction with one's own lot in life. It also betokens a modicum of faith that one has, and will continue to have, enough of whatever one sees as needful for one's life. "Not easily provoked" might better belong with meekness perhaps. But these little niggling doubts over exactly where to place some of the expressions of love don't detract from the general impression that the aspects of love of Galatians 5 mesh together more than coincidentally well with the broader description of love in 1 Corinthians 13.

In fact, there's more to it than meets the eye, because some of the reasons for the connections I've made aren't obvious at a glance. The link between longsuffering and "not easily provoked", for instance, is better understood when you realise that provoked is a Greek word meaning excited. A longsuffering person is someone who doesn't easily get angry, as we'll see in Chapter 9. And the link between gentleness (kindness) and "envieth not" makes more sense when you know that envieth in the Greek is a word that connects with zeal. Zeal isn't always a good thing; it depends how it's directed. The man or woman with gentleness (kindness) will consider the feelings of others and not trample all over them with inappropriate zeal.

For a slightly different line up between Galatians 5 and 1 Corinthians 13 you might like to look at the chapter headed Love: The fruit of the Spirit in The Genius of Discipleship by Dennis Gillett. He gives his own brief reasons for how he connects the two lists.

There was one thing, however, that troubled me over the alignment of Galatians 5 and 1 Corinthians 13. At the close of 1 Corinthians 13 Paul writes of faith, hope and love as though they are quite separate things. If it's true that love is the eightfold fruit of the Spirit, then surely faith is a part of love, not separate from it. How can he write of faith, hope and love as though each stands alone? Well, I don't believe he does.

In verse 13, Paul writes: "And now abideth faith, hope, charity [agape], these three; but the greatest of these is charity." These three things that abide are in contrast to the three things of verse 8 which won't abide. "Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away." So in contrast to these three things which shall fail, and which may be representative of the whole range of the Spirit gifts, there are three things which will abide—faith, hope and love.

It might be said that faith has supplanted the gift of prophecy in our day; that the hope of the true gospel alone has replaced the gift of tongues as a means of convincing the outsider that we are of God; and that "the word of knowledge" (Chapter 12.8) by which gift spiritual insights were gained, has been exchanged for delight and meditation in the Word of knowledge, by which love (the greatest of spiritual insights!) is nurtured.

And love is the "greatest" among faith, hope and love because it contains the other two and will go beyond them and outlive them in the Kingdom of God. For believers in the Kingdom the elements of faith and hope, as we know them now, will disappear from love. Faith will give place to sight, and hope to realisation. Therefore love is the all-important thing to develop now. Faith and hope on their own will not carry us into the Kingdom. These things will vanish at the Kingdom's door, leaving us empty-handed (or with oil-less lamps, more appropriately) if they're all we have. We see people around us who exhibit great faith and hope in their beliefs. But without agape, without the full fruit of the Spirit nurtured through delight and meditation in the Word of God, they will fall hugely short of what Christ is looking for. Let's not be carried away by a great show of faith and hope in Jesus that may appear to be love, but which is only a small part of it—and ultimately an unnecessary part! The real criterion is—how close to the Word are we? Real closeness produces love—the full fruit of the Spirit.

2 Peter 1

The Apostle Peter had much to say about agape among believers, and I believe he also connected it with the fruit of the Spirit in 2 Pet.1. Peter could not put agape more highly: "Above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity [agape] shall cover the multitude of sins" (1 Pet. 4:8). "Love one another with a pure heart fervently" (1 Pet.1:22). "Love the brotherhood" (1 Pet.2:17). To Paul love was "the greatest", and to Peter it is "above all things".

In 2 Pet.1:5-7, the apostle mentions what appear to be seven steps through which agape is reached:

"giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity."

What made me suspect that here was another version of the fruit of the Spirit was what Peter wrote immediately afterwards in verse 8: "If these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful [akarpas] in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." If you lack these things you'll be unfruitful is another way of saying that if you have them, you will have fruit. This sent me rushing to a concordance to compare the original Greek words, to see if Peter's seven 'steps' are seven of Paul's aspects of agape. What a find that would be! What confirmation! But, alas, they are not the same. Well, some are, but most aren't.

But surely Peter must have had Paul's fruit of the Spirit in mind when he wrote those seven 'steps' and spoke of them, in effect, as fruit. He even mentions the writings of "our beloved brother Paul" at the close of his letter! So why doesn't Peter's list tally more closely with Paul's? I'm open to suggestions, of course. But maybe Peter is describing the best progression to love. I know there is a resistance to the idea that these items in 2 Peter 1 are meant to be taken as steps. But why not take them at face value? Could not the Spirit be giving us a clue as to the best order in which to develop the fruit of the Spirit?—that our delight and meditation would more effectively lead us to agape if centered upon these subjects and in this order?

If it is a progression, one thing upon another until the full agape is reached, then the Evangelical plunge straight into agape is very suspect. And we need not be troubled, either, about knowledge coming after faith and virtue. The case of Cornelius demonstrates it well. He was certainly showing faith and virtue before he came to a knowledge of the Truth. And personally I can recall (as you may) having faith in God and trying to live a virtuous life before starting formal instruction in the Word—certainly before finishing it. One might argue that we need a certain amount of faith and virtue in place to prompt a desire for real knowledge of Bible truth. The verses in 2 Peter 1 certainly read like a progression that we can't short-cut. To reach agape follow the instructions.

As with 1 Corinthians 13, I've lined up the fruit of the Spirit with 2 Peter 1, and here is the result:

Again, perhaps I haven't allocated them perfectly. But having tried all manner of computations, and bearing in mind the nuances of the Greek, this seems to be the best placement of the words. You may be wondering, as I did for a while, why Peter has only seven items on his list while Paul has eight. Joy, or its equivalent, is missing on Peter's list. I found that it does occur in 2 Peter 1, but the translators have obscured it. Peter didn't overlook it. He came to it later.

In verses 5-7 of 2 Peter 1 the words "add to" appear in connection with the steps towards love. The single Greek word translated "add to" is not common in Scripture, but one other place it does occur is in the eleventh verse of 2 Peter 1. We don't notice it because there it's translated "ministered unto."

"Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall: For so an entrance shall be ministered unto [added to] you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." (2 Peter 1:10,11)

Entrance into the kingdom of God is the final item 'added to' in Peter's list, and this surely equates with joy. Peter's final step is the joy of the kingdom, which we shall all reach by progressing through all the steps he mentions. Though let's keep it in mind that Paul points out in his list of the fruit of the Spirit that we must achieve joy now also as part of the fruit. The full realization of joy is future in Christ's Kingdom, but we need to carry the joy of that prospect with us right now.

Can it really be a progression?

The great drawback I see to Peter's list being a progression is the difficulty of knowing when to move on to the next item in the list. Each item is overlaid on top of another and we don't move on from each one to the next, leaving it behind: it stays with us. It seems to me a practical impossibility to know when you have enough virtue to add knowledge, or enough knowledge to add temperance. How will you ever know if you're ready for the next step? It's this objection (not usually the objection offered) that to me casts doubt on the 'step' idea.

It seems presumptuous to say, "I now have enough godliness so I'll move on to brotherly kindness." This would seem to kill any idea of a progression up the ladder of love. Perhaps we are more correct to see all the additions as contemporary rather than sequential: that we should be always in the process of adding all the things in Peter's list to our faith, not trying to move from one to another. This would be more in keeping with Paul's listing of the fruit of the Spirit, where no sequence is, or seems to be, prescribed. All the aspects of the fruit are nurtured simultaneously, it would appear, by delight and meditation in the Spirit Word.

Other appearances of the fruit

In addition to 1 Corinthians and 2 Peter being reflections of the fruit of the Spirit, I believe a good case could also be made for Colossians 3:12-16 (the items Paul tells us to put on), and Romans 12 generally, and 1 Timothy 6:11,12. But perhaps I can leave you to mull over these for yourself, rather than give more examples here. And let me say again that if you don't go along with the idea of the fruit of the Spirit being love with eight aspects, then I'm not insisting you do. Whether you do or don't, it should really make no difference to your attitude to most of what is covered in this book. At least, I hope not. To me the idea does have a certain fitness about it, especially when I consider that the eight-fold fruit of the Spirit characterizes the New Man in Christ, and the number eight in Bible numerology signifies a new beginning (the eight souls in the ark; the eighth day of the week on which Christ rose being the first day of a new week; and there are eight individual resurrections recorded in Scripture—see Bullinger's Number in Scripture).