‘If I do not have love’, Paul wrote to the Christians in Corinth, ‘I am nothing’ (1 Corinthians 13.2). He did not view its acquisition as an optional activity but the bedrock foundation of the Christian life — an absolute necessity. Not surprisingly, when he is describing what the transforming power of the Holy Spirit will look like in practice, he lists a string of qualities which each depend on and flow out of the greatest characteristic of godliness — love.
Chief manifestation
Take a moment to think about this pen-portrait of the growing Christian, from Galatians 5.22-23. ‘The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.’ At first, this might look like a string of pearls, or a collection of different qualities needing to be added separately to our character. But the best way to understand the verse is perhaps to recognise ‘the fruit of the Spirit is love’ — and the way that love will manifest itself is in the joy, peace, patience and so on, which are its expression in our daily lives and relationships, first with God, then with one another in God’s family and with the watching world.
Fruit is produced from the life within. You don’t have to buy it in a shop and then tie it on to the tree in your garden. Fruit is the proof of the nature and state of the tree. ‘No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognised by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thorn bushes, or grapes from briers’, Jesus said (Luke 6.43-44). So, where the Holy Spirit is bringing the life of God into our human personalities, his characteristics will be produced in our attitudes and behaviour. And God is love, so that the chief manifestation of our new life in Christ is that we make progress in our love of God, with all our faculties, and our love for our neighbour as for ourselves. Without this love, whatever gifts or experiences we may have, or even the sacrifices we might make, will count as one big zero, in God’s eyes (1Corinthians 13.1-3). It is that important!
Heart of the gospel
At this point, our natural reaction is to look within ourselves to try to generate warm feelings towards others, whom we may not actually like, and to persuade ourselves that these temporary best moments are what the Bible means by ‘love’. Yet this can hardly be an adequate description of the love which is the very nature of God, the Trinity. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit co-exist in a dynamic unity which is defined as love. God does not simply love; God is love, which is why he always acts in love. It is the fruit of his nature.
This, of course, lies at the very heart of the gospel. Love is defined for us, with sparkling and immensely challenging clarity in the New Testament. ‘This is how God showed his love among us. He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins’ (I John 4.9-10). Love is demonstrated when the other person matters more to me than my own comfort, or prejudice, or preference. The essence of divine love is giving, in a self-sacrificial way, even ultimately to the point of Jesus’s death on the cross. ‘We love him because he first loved us’ (v.19). That is where the dynamic for change is located. Love is always giving, forgiving, and emptying its hands in benefit to others, whatever our resources are.
Our local churches are intended to be the locus of this divinely counter-cultural love in action, overflowing into our communities. It was my joy recently to visit a medium-sized, but gradually growing congregation, where week by week new people are coming to church and staying, primarily because of the demonstrable love between the Christians, which reaches out to them. Christian love is the ‘ultimate apologetic’, as Francis Schaeffer said, and this is the unarguable proof of the gospel’s truth to the watching world. Wherever there is pride, snobbery and coldness of heart, a critical and contentious spirit — and sadly there are plenty of examples in many congregations — whatever doctrinal orthodoxy and development programmes there may be, if there is no love, there is nothing. Nothing of eternal value, nothing to bring glory to God. By contrast, when Jesus is truly Lord and his Spirit energises our faith and discipleship, the fruit will inevitably begin to appear, individually and corporately. For love never fails.
David Jackman is the past President of the Proclamation Trust.
