Galatians 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, (23) gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.”
In the above quoted passage of scripture the apostle Paul lists the fruit of the spirit. The fruit that he speaks about in this passage is the fruit of the born-again spirit and not the fruit of the Holy Spirit; for our Lord Jesus has taught us that we are the branches and that He is the vine, and that it is the branch that will bear fruit as it abides in the vine (John 15:5). And so we see that this list of fruit reveals the nature of the born-again spirit, and it is this fruit that is clearly evident in the lives of mature believers. The reason for that is because their spirits have become strong and so this fruit is displayed through their lives in abundance. Sadly this fruit is not clearly evident in the lives of baby believers however, and the reason for that is because they are still weak in spirit and so they are unable to display the fruit of the spirit in abundance as they should. But rather baby believers will still display behaviour that is similar to those in the world i.e. anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language, etc (Colossians 3:8).
2 Peter 3:15-16 “and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation--as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, (16) as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.”
In the above quoted passage of scripture the apostle Peter highlights the contrast between carnal and spiritual believers in the understanding of God’s word. Notice that even the apostle Peter declared that some of the spiritual truths taught by the apostle Paul were hard to understand; clearly Peter himself took some time to understand some of that which Paul taught. Paul himself, in writing to the saints in Jerusalem, said that he found it hard to explain certain truths to them because of their lack of spiritual maturity (Hebrews 5:11). In the above passage Peter goes on to say that because some carnal believers don’t have spiritual understanding and yet think they do, they end up twisting and distorting the truths in God’s word, which ultimately has the effect of creating destruction not only in their own lives, but also in the lives of those who listen to them. Sadly there are too many carnal believers in the church today who are deceived into thinking that they are spiritual, and through their “teaching” have caused much harm in the church. Nevertheless there are those who are spiritually mature and are thus able to rightly divide the word of truth, and it is these ministers who are indeed a blessing to the body of Christ.
Romans 8:5-6 “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. (6) For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.”
Another contrast between mature believers and babes in Christ is observed in their ability to walk in the spirit. For as the apostle Paul teaches us in the above quoted passage of scripture, mature believers walk in the spirit because they have become spiritually minded, while babes in Christ still walk in the flesh because they are still carnally minded. As we have already established, to live according to the spirit is one and the same thing as being led by the spirit. And so we see that believers that find it relatively easy to follow the leading of their spirits can be classified as mature believers, whereas believers that struggle in this area are clearly still babes in Christ.
Michael E.B. Maher
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