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Gen. 1:26; 2:8-9; Rev. 2:7; 22:1-2; 2 Pet. 1:1, 3, 8-11; Gal. 5:16, 22-23; John 15:5, 16
I. Life bears fruit
II. The fruit of Christian virtues
III. The fruit of saved persons regenerated with the divine life
IV. Bearing two kinds of fruit for a rich entrance into the coming kingdom
If you have seen the points from the previous lessons and practice accordingly, you will have much experience of life and growth in life. Many people claim to be in life. Are they really in life? Are they experiencing life every day? Are they full-grown in life? How can you tell if you and others are people of life? We do not want to see you deceived by anyone, especially yourself in this matter.
Every life bears fruits or results. If you plant an apple tree, apples will be produced. A pear tree will bear pears. Every life brings forth fruit by its life power according to its life shape. What about the life of God? According to the first sixteen lessons, the life of God is God Himself. It is divine, eternal, and indestructible. It is the highest and most wonderful life in the universe. It must bear divine, eternal, indestructible, the highest, and the most wonderful fruit. Is this your case?
In this lesson [we want to see the truth of the two kinds of fruit out of the divine life. According to the revelation of the Scriptures, there is a divine principle set up by God as His design, as His economy. This design is that God wants to dispense Himself into us human beings to live in us as our life. This divine life is a producing life, producing two kinds of fruit. God’s intention for man is revealed in the first two chapters of Genesis. God created man according to His image with the intention that man could be His vessel to contain and express Him (1:26). God Himself wanted to be man’s contents. He brought man to the tree of life in Genesis 2 because He had the desire to be within man as man’s life (vv. 8-9). This unique tree of life, which was seen at the beginning of the Bible, is also seen at its conclusion in Revelation 22. It signifies God Himself as life to us.]
[In Revelation 2:7 the Lord said, “To him who overcomes, to him I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’’ According to the entire book of Revelation, the paradise of God in 2:7 is the New Jerusalem (3:12; 21:2, 10; 22:1-2, 14, 19), of which the church is a foretaste today. The paradise of God is today’s church and tomorrow’s New Jerusalem. Today we are the church, and in the future the church will be the New Jerusalem. Today’s church life is God’s paradise. In the church life, we have some taste that we are in the paradise of God. At times we may be arguing or speaking corrupt things. But while we are meeting together, singing, praising, and praying, we have the feeling that we are in paradise. Sometimes in the church meetings we are in a kind of ecstasy. When I look at the faces of the saints in a meeting, nearly every face is smiling. This is because we are happy in the paradise of God. This world is a terrible place. Even many of the unbelievers agree with this. In today’s human society, one does not have the taste of paradise; instead, one may have the taste of hell. But when we are in the church life, we are in paradise. The paradise of God is located in the local churches! To be in the church life is to live a life in paradise. Eventually the consummation of the church life in the age to come and in eternity will be the New Jerusalem. In the New Jerusalem is the tree of life growing in the river of water of life for our eating and drinking. That will be our enjoyment in eternity. Even today we have the privilege of eating the tree of life and of “drinking at the Fountain that never runs dry’’ (see Hymns, #322). In the church life, we are in the paradise of God enjoying Christ as the tree of life.
Today, Christ as the embodiment of God is our tree of life, and this tree of life is growing in us. The Lord Jesus told a parable of a sower going out to sow the seed (Mark 4:1-20). He is both the sower and the seed of life. He sows Himself as the seed of life into us, the earth. We are the earth that grows Christ. On the day we were regenerated, Christ was sown into our being. Our very being is the earth that contains Christ and grows Christ. We have received the divine life, and this very productive divine life is growing within us. We have to grow Christ.]
[According to the Bible and according to our experience, this life produces two categories of fruit. Second Peter 1 and Galatians 5 show the first category. The first category of fruit is the category of Christian virtues. Second Peter tells us that we all have been “allotted like precious faith’’ (1:1).] [God has allotted Himself to be our portion within us as our faith. Then if we are diligent to supply virtue to faith, knowledge to virtue, self-control to knowledge, endurance to self-control, godliness to endurance, and brotherly love to godliness, we will reach God Himself as the very substance of the divine love. The issue of faith as the seed of life growing within us to its full development is that God and we become one entity. Divinity is mingled with humanity to constitute us into God-men.
All of these virtues in 2 Peter 1 are a kind of fruit (2 Pet. 1:8). If we express these virtues day after day, this means that we are very fruitful. Day after day in our daily walk we should bear such fruit. Otherwise, people will not be able to see faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, endurance, godliness, brotherly love, or the divine love in us. Then we will be barren, unfruitful, in these virtues. If we live by taking Christ as our life, we will bear the fruit of Christian virtues day after day. The virtues in 2 Peter 1 are actually God’s attributes. God is faith, God is love, and God is all of our Christian virtues. God’s attributes, or characteristics, become our supply in different aspects. When these divine attributes are expressed through us and by us in our daily walk, they become our virtues. These Christian virtues have been filled up with God’s attributes. The divine attributes expressed in our human virtues are the Christian virtues, which are the fruit in our character.
Galatians 5 is another portion of the Word that tells us about this kind of fruit. Verse 16 says that we have to walk by the Spirit so that we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. The Spirit and the flesh are fighting against each other all day long. If we walk by the Spirit, we will bear the fruit of the Spirit, such as love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, and self-control (vv. 22-23). The fruit of the Spirit is also the divine virtues.
In Galatians 5 Paul talked from another angle about the same thing as Peter did. In 2 Peter the divine power, the life power, has given us all things relating to life and godliness (1:3). This divine power is just God Himself, the divine Being, the divine life. Every kind of life has its own power. God is divine, and His life is divine. He is almighty and all-powerful, and He is now within us as our life. Paul did not mention anything about the power of the divine life in Galatians 5, but he referred us to the very Holy Spirit. He said that it is by the Spirit that we can produce the fruit of Christian virtues.
On the one hand, the divine life as power gives us the energy to carry out all the beauties of the divine life, the virtues. On the other hand, it is the Holy Spirit by whom we can bear all the spiritual fruit. Actually, the Holy Spirit is the divine power. The Holy Spirit refers to a Person. The divine power is a kind of energy. The Person is the energy. We have to walk by the Holy Spirit as a Person. When we walk by this Person, He becomes our energy, the divine power. When we eat a good breakfast, this breakfast becomes the energy within us to energize us during the day, giving us the strength to do things. We Christians have a divine energy within us that energizes us all day long. This energy is actually a Person, the very Triune God consummated to be the all-inclusive Spirit within us. By this Person we can live a life full of virtues, which are the fruit that we bear every day.]
[If we are such fruit-bearing believers in the Christian virtues, the second category of fruit will be borne by us. This second category of fruit is mentioned in John 15. The Lord said that He is the vine tree and we are the branches (v. 5). The branches of the vine tree do not merely bear the fruit of the Christian virtues. The fruit borne by the branches in John 15 denotes the saved persons regenerated with the divine life through the dispensing of the branches (v. 16b). This is proved by the requirement that the bearer of this fruit should “go forth’’ (v. 16a). To bear ethical and moral virtues as fruit does not require us to go forth. But to bear the fruit of persons regenerated through our dispensing of the divine life requires us to go forth to contact and reach people. We Christians should bear both the fruit of virtues and the fruit of regenerated persons.
If a fruit tree in an orchard does not bear any fruit, the farmer will want to cut it down. There is no beauty in a fruit tree that does not bear fruit. How would a branch of a vine look without any grapes on it? A branch with clusters of grapes on it looks beautiful. We need to bear not only the fruit of virtues as the beauties of the divine life but also the fruit of solid persons.
If you are not a person that bears the first category of fruit, the fruit of virtues, you will not be prevailing in the gospel regardless of what way you use. Your preaching can only be prevailing when you bear the fruit of virtues. You must be a person that lives by the divine power within you, walking by and with a Holy Person, the Holy Spirit. You must be a person living by Christ as your life and walking with the Holy Spirit as your companion to bear much fruit of virtues. Then when you speak Christ in the preaching of the gospel, the second category of fruit will be there, the fruit of persons. If you live in the flesh and the natural life during the day, you will be a “flat tire’’ in the evening and will not have the standing before God’s enemy to preach the gospel. If you are a Christian that lives by Christ and walks with the Spirit, you will be full of virtues, full of beauties. Then when you go to touch sinners, all the demons will be afraid of you. This is why the gospel in the mouths of the apostles was prevailing. The word of the apostles was weighty. The same word spoken by us may be light and vain. Thus, we have to be persons bearing the fruit of the Christian virtues, which are the very expression of the divine attributes. Then we are qualified and empowered to speak Christ. The word out of our mouths will be a power to save people. The preaching of the gospel depends upon the person rather than the way. If you are not the right person, it does not matter what way you take. That way will be empty.]
[We all need to rise up to have a new start. We need to forget the past, look to the Lord, and tell Him, “Lord, I am here. I want to have a new start. I want to forget about everything in the past, even the past history of my Christian life and church life. Lord, I realize that You are the divine power within me, energizing me all day long. Lord, as the Spirit You are my companion living with me. I want to live by You and to walk with You. I want to forget about everything related to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, involving matters of right or wrong and yes or no. I want to have a clean, purified, and absolutely new start with You.’’ We need such a divine beginning. In simplicity we should take Christ as our divine power, energizing within us, and take Him as the life-giving Spirit, the very companion with whom we should walk all day. Then we will bear the fruit of virtues, expressing the divine attributes to be empowered, energized, and qualified to speak Christ as the gospel to others. Our speaking will be powerful and weighty. Week after week we will see the fruit of solid persons added to the fruit of our virtues. We will bear not only the fruit of the attributes of God as our virtues but also the fruit of saved, solid persons added to our virtues. We will be full of fruit in two categories: the category of virtues and the category of solid persons. We need the fruit in these two categories to afford us a rich, bountiful entrance into the coming kingdom. Many students in a school graduate, but only a few graduate with a prize or a reward. If we are faithful to bear these two kinds of fruit in this age, we will have a new church life, and we will enjoy the Lord as our reward in the coming kingdom age.]
