Our world is not attracted by slick salesmen of the gospel.
What it is impressed by are the free samples. It has its own marketers in droves; but a life that exemplifies in practice the virtues and values of the Lord Jesus is the strongest of all magnets to the faith. That is why we are looking at the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5.22-23, over these months. They form a character study of Christ himself and he wants to see these qualities increasingly replicated in the everyday lives of his redeemed people.
Two aspects of the fruit
This month we are putting together numbers five and six of the list of nine fruit, since they are very closely related. They are ‘kindness’ and ‘goodness’, as both the NIV and ESV translate them. Perhaps the best way to grasp their connection is to understand goodness as a foundational moral quality, and then kindness as the expression of goodness in action, particularly in terms of our relationships with other people. Kindness demonstrates its existence by means of deeds of mercy, compassion and tenderness, empathising with and encouraging others, by putting oneself in their shoes and feeling with and for them.
God is kind, Romans 2.4 reminds us, by which Paul means that he does not rush to condemn us, but is tolerant and patient, in order to lead us towards repentance. This is, of course, the product of his love, and so the apostle also reminds the Corinthians that ‘love is kind’ (1 Corinthians 13.4), since God himself is love. The idea is linked to the virtuous, upright character of God; but this is experienced not in judgment, as well it might be, but in benevolent activity, in constant mercy and eager readiness to help and sustain. Paul often links it with God’s patience (2 Corinthians 6.6), but even more closely to the Lord Jesus himself. So he refers to Christ’s incarnation as the appearance of ‘the kindness and love of God, our Saviour’ (Titus 3.4) and stresses that God’s kindness is seen in the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed ‘to us in Christ Jesus’ (Ephesians 2.7).
Sharing Jesus’s character
It is no wonder then that Jesus himself uses this very word in his glorious invitation at the end of Matthew 11, in verses 28 to 30. ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened’. In verse 30 he says: ‘For my yoke is easy and my burden is light’. My yoke is kind. It fits well. You will not chafe under it, because it is light. And that is because of the character of the one who made it and calls us to take it, ‘for I am gentle (kind) and humble in heart’ (v.29). So, there are plenty of New Testament examples for us to see what this quality involves. Jesus calls us to be yoked to him, in sharing his compassionate kindness to a world that knows all too little of it and cannot resource it. Only God can produce unfailing kindness in human lives, because it is the fruit of his Spirit.
The reason is because only God is good (Mark 10.18). This word has connotations of beauty, nobility, freedom from defects and so worthy of praise. Once again, this is a core ingredient of the character of God, which is to be lived out in us and through
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us, because as his people, we are being changed into his likeness.
‘The fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth’ (Ephesians 5.9). So Peter tells his readers to ‘make every effort to add to your faith goodness’ (2 Peter 1.5), since God has called us to himself ‘by his own glory and goodness’ (v.3), that is in the gospel. When we first believe the good news, we are given a good conscience (1 Timothy 1.19) and we are called to do good works (Ephesians 2.10). Indeed, doing good is the great characteristic of God’s redeemed people, not only within the sphere of the church, but equally ‘to all people’ (Galatians 6.10).
One moderates the other
Goodness involves a quality of moral courage, of which the clearest example in Jesus’s ministry is perhaps his cleansing of the temple, where he did what was right, taking his stand against the forces of rebellion and distortion, irrespective of what reactions that might provoke. The two together influence and moderate one another. Without goodness, kindness could become too soft and pliable, lacking the courage to confront where there is sin and evil. But without kindness, goodness may harden into a mechanistic application of moral righteousness lacking the relational ingredients of compassion, empathy and generosity of spirit. Each needs the other.
Together, they present a likeness to Christ which unites a love of truth and righteousness with a love for all others, in our common humanity, with all its frailty and vulnerability. Like the Spirit-endowed servant of Isaiah 42.1-4, ‘a bruised reed he will not break and a smouldering wick he will not snuff out’, but ‘in faithfulness he will bring forth justice’. Only the Holy Spirit can give us that character balance, which is his distinctive fruit. Yet he lives within us, to enable us more and more to be like Jesus. So, let’s ask him and trust him to make us free samples of God’s love.
