The fruit of the Spirit in the life of Christ 

Christ’s love

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5.22-23)

We saw in an earlier post that in his humanity Jesus exhibited all of this fruit and did so to perfection. If we wish, then, to see it in all its beauty and glory there is no better place to go than to the records of Jesus’ life on earth.

Our task in this post (and a later one) is to gaze at Christ’s love. The fruit of the Spirit in his earthly life was love. It is a huge topic! More can be said about Christ’s love than about any other kind of fruit that he bore. Exhaustiveness is impossible. We can only touch on a few points. Our focus will be on the objects of his love and some of the ways in which his love was shown to them.

Jesus loved his parents                             

Jesus loved his mother Mary. So too Joseph who, though he wasn’t Jesus’ natural father, was nevertheless a father to him. We may say indeed that given the perfection of Jesus’ nature no child, no son, ever loved his parents more than Jesus did.

We see it in his submission to them. Part of what it means for children to obey the fifth commandment, “Honour your father and your mother” (Ex.20:12), is to be submissive to their authority. Doing what their parents tell them to do. Not doing what their parents forbid them to do. That is how Jesus lived when he was a child. Luke tells that after his visit to Jerusalem at the age of twelve, “he went down with” his parents “to Nazareth and was submissive to them” (Ch.2:51).

It tells us that he loved them. And nor is that difficult to see. Both in the Bible and in holy living love and God’s law are friends, not enemies; inseparable companions in fact. God’s law is love’s guide, for example. In the lives of those who are walking in the Spirit love flows in certain channels or directions. It is the law of God that cuts these channels; that sets these directions. We love as God’s law directs us to love. Law-keeping, too, is an evidence of love. It is love’s proof. Here is someone who says that they love God. Do they? If they do, they will keep his commandments. Furthermore, love is the very thing that God’s law commands. The Bible sums up the whole demand of God, both with regard to himself and our fellow men, in one word: love. We are to love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and strength and mind, and our neighbour as ourselves. If we do so we will have kept the whole law.

It is in the light of this marriage between law and love that we are to interpret the submissiveness of Christ to his parents. It is an outflow of his love both for God and for them. And in the life of every child and young person who has been truly born again love will take the same direction. Under its impulse they will want to and endeavour to live in obedience to their parents’ will.

For a second glimpse of Jesus’ love we fast-forward to the end of his life and to the provision that he made for his mother as he suffered on the cross. John tells us that “near the cross of Jesus stood his mother…When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby” – a reference to John himself – “he said to his mother, ‘Dear woman, here is your son’, and to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother’. From that time on, this disciple took her into his home” (John 19.25-27 NIV). Mary, it is generally supposed, was a widow and Jesus was her eldest son. It was going to be impossible for him to provide a home for her and look after her in her latter years. So he did what he could. He entrusted her to the care of the Apostle John. We may be sure that there was more in that than a concern for Mary’s physical needs. Of all the Twelve Jesus loved John the most. There was a bond between them that was peculiarly close. John, he knew, would care for his mother’s spiritual needs as well. And what makes Jesus’ action especially beautiful is that it happened on the cross. Though he was in physical agony and was bearing the sin of the world his loving heart went out to his mother and moved him to make this provision for her.

Like Jesus’ loving submissiveness this too has its parallels. There comes a point where honouring our parents no longer means obeying them. It passes into a duty of care, especially as they get older. What that looks like in practice will differ from family to family and will change over time. But if there is love it will happen. And if the love is more than natural love, if it is genuinely the fruit of the Spirit, it will manifest itself in a care for their spiritual needs as well as for their physical and mental needs. If our parents are unbelievers we will continue to do what we can to lead them to Christ. And if they are believers it will be our endeavour to help them in their walk with God.

Jesus loved his friends        

 We move on in the second place to Jesus’ friends. And by his friends I mean his followers; the men and women who believed in him and loved him. Jesus loved them.

He showed it by serving them. On one occasion he said to them, “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve” (Mark 10:45). On another he said, “I am among you as the one who serves” (Luke 22:27). Jesus’ life was one of service. He served his fellow Jews; he also served those who were his disciples and friends. And on the eve of his death that service was explicitly linked with his love for them. John tells us, “when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (John 13:1). Or, as the New International Version renders it, “he showed them the full extent of his love”. How did he do so? In the first instance by washing their feet. He “rose from supper”, says John, “laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it round his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him” (vs.4-5). His love for his friends was manifested in humble service.

So it will manifest itself in our own lives as Jesus’ followers. His new commandment is that we love one another as he has loved us. What does that mean in practical terms? It means serving one another after the pattern he has set for us. The fruit of the Spirit is love. And if it is truly there both in our hearts and in our churches it will become visible in the humility and selflessness with which we help and care for one another.

Another way in which Jesus showed his love for his friends was by teaching them. The same night on which he washed their feet he said to them, “You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants” – i.e. merely servants – “for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:14-15). What the Father taught him he, in turn, had taught them. That was how he showed his love for them. And through the twin gifts of the Bible and the Holy Spirit it is how he shows his love still. Think of what Jesus’ teaching does for us when it comes to us with power – how it sets us free, how it sanctifies us, how it equips us for service, how through it we come to know him better, how it gives us life and hope and joy and peace. Why are we blessed with such teaching? Jesus’ love for us! He is treating us as his friends. He is making known to us what the Father has first made known to him, and doing so in such a way that our own lives and the lives of others are immeasurably enriched.

Finally, Jesus showed his love by dying for his friends. “Greater love has no one than this”, he could say, “that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15.13). On Calvary it is the very thing he did himself. And the same apostle who recorded his words gives us the inspired application of them: “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk” – i.e. only in word or talk – “but in deed and truth” (1 John 3:16-18). So Jesus loved us. So we are to love one another.