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Scripture Reading: Gal. 5:16-26; 2 Pet. 1:3-11; John 15:16
In this chapter 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.
The human life created by God is mysterious. No one can completely understand our human life. How much more mysterious the divine life is! Because the life of God is so mysterious, God gave us a picture of this life. A picture is better than a thousand words. Immediately after God created man, He brought him to a tree called the tree of life. An apple tree or a peach tree may seemingly be easy to understand, but what about the tree of life? One Bible teacher said that the tree of life was something in the past that has nothing to do with us today. But the tree of life is not something merely in the past. If the tree of life did not have anything to do with us today, we would be altogether in a miserable situation. Thank the Lord that we can enjoy Him as the tree of life today.
The Gospel of John shows us the tree of life, illustrating Christ. If we are going to understand the tree of life in Genesis 2, we have to come to the Gospel of John. This book has twenty-one chapters that give a full, detailed explanation of the tree of life being the very embodiment of God, which is Christ. In John 15 Christ told us that He is the vine tree. The Lord Jesus also told us in the Gospel of John, “I am...the life” (14:6). He is the vine tree and the life—the tree of life. I believe that the tree of life in Genesis 2 was a vine tree. It was not like a pine tree growing upward and high toward the heavens. If Jesus were such a high and tall tree, His fruit would not be available to us. But Jesus is a vine tree who is so available for man to eat and to enjoy. In Revelation 22 the one tree of life growing on the two sides of the river signifies that the tree of life is a vine tree spreading and proceeding along the flow of the water of life (vv. 1-2).
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 by 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” (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). The Lord 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 faith equally precious” (1:1). Our faith has become our lot from God, a divine lot within us. Most of us understand faith as our believing ability. But we must go further to see that the very faith within us is the Triune God. The Triune God within us becomes the believing ability. Without God within us, there is no way for us to believe. We have been graced by God to believe into Him. We were sinners wandering in the world, and we had no intention of seeking after God. But one day we heard the good news of the gospel and believed into Christ. Formerly, we may have thought that it was foolish to be a Christian. But now we think that Jesus is wonderful. Now we are “fools because of Christ” (1 Cor. 4:10). The Triune God put Himself into us to become our believing ability and also the very object in which we believe. He is the believing ability, and He is the One in whom we believe. Thank Him for the lot of faith we have received!
Some time after being saved, we may have regretted our decision to be a Christian. We may have tried to leave Christ. When we say that we will leave Christ, Someone within us will say, “You may try to leave Me, but I will not leave you.” Wherever you go, the Lord will be there. You may say that you do not want Him. But He will say, “I want you.” You may say that you do not need Him. But He will say, “I need you.” After being saved, many of us regretted that we had received the Lord. You may not like to be a Christian, but the Lord likes it. Our destiny is not up to us but up to Him. Our destiny is under His sovereignty. It was our destiny for the Triune God to come into us to become our allotted faith. The Triune God lives in us to be our believing ability and our believing object.
Second Peter 1:3-11 shows that we must add all diligence to supply something in this faith that we have received. In faith we must supply virtue (v. 5). Virtues are the beauties of the divine life. Human beings have some amount of physical beauty. But before we were saved, was our behavior beautiful? We may be handsome or beautiful in our physical appearance, but what about our behavior? When we lose our temper, we may look like a demon. There may be many ugly things in our behavior. But after we were saved, to some extent, we spontaneously became gentle, mild, meek, and humble. Those who knew us may have said, “Why are you so happy? What happened to you?” What happened to us was that Jesus came into us. Because He came into us, there was spontaneously an amount of beauty in our behavior in our daily life. We have the God-allotted portion of faith within us, and we have the beauties expressed in our daily life. These expressed beauties are virtues.
In virtue we should supply knowledge (v. 5). On the one hand, we are fools because of Christ. On the other hand, we are quite knowledgeable. We know where we came from, where we are, and where we are going. The unbelievers do not know these things. Virtue needs the bountiful supply of the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord (vv. 2-3, 8).
Then in knowledge we need to supply self-control (v. 6). Some of the saints become very excited in the church meetings. It is all right for us to get excited in the meetings, but when we get too excited, we need to learn to control ourselves. The young people have to sympathize with the older saints, who may not be able to bear so much shouting. They must learn to control themselves. Self-control is the exercise of control over one’s self in its passions, desires, and habits. This needs to be supplied and developed in knowledge for the proper growth in life.
Then in self-control we have to supply endurance (v. 6). Self-control and endurance go together as “twin brothers.” If we have self-control, we surely have endurance. Without self-control we can never endure anything. Self-control is to deal with ourselves; endurance is to bear with others and with circumstances.
In endurance we need to supply godliness (v. 6). Godliness is God expressed. It is a living that is like God and expresses God. When we exercise control over our self and bear with others and with circumstances, godliness needs to be developed in our spiritual life so that we may be like God and express Him.
In godliness, the expression of God, we need to supply brotherly love (v. 7). Then in this brotherly love, we should supply love, the divine love, the nobler and higher love (v. 7). This love is much higher, stronger, and greater than brotherly love. At this point in the growth in life, we are fully with God, in God, and have God Himself as our love.
Faith may be considered as the seed of life, and this nobler love may be considered as the fruit of the seed of life in its full development (v. 8). Faith is God, and love is also God. 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 these virtues in 2 Peter 1 are a kind of fruit (v. 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 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 if we walk by the Spirit, we shall by no means 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, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, and self-control (vv. 22-23). The fruit of the Spirit is also the divine virtues.
In Galatians 5 Paul talks from another angle about the same thing that Peter does. In 2 Peter the divine power, the life power, has granted to 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 does not mention anything about the power of the divine life in Galatians 5, but he refers us to the very Holy Spirit. Paul says 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 bear the fruit merely 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 who 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 be prevailing only when you bear the fruit of virtues. You must be a person who 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 who 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 us within, 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.
