1. Negatively. “Ye have not chosen Me.” This is true, both in regard to election unto salvation and election unto office. Christ no more chooses us because we have first chosen Him, than He loves us because we have first loved Him. He makes His universal offer of mercy; we close with it, and are elected. He says, “Whom shall I send?” We have to say, “Here am I; send me.” “Choose ye this day whom ye will serve” was addressed to the chosen people.
2. Positively. The Divine choice which originates our discipleship
(1) Is not arbitrary. Those are chosen for salvation who evince the qualifications for receiving salvation. “Chosen … through belief of the truth.” In regard to office, the apostles were the choice men of their race, as is seen in their after careers. Christ chose for His work Peter and Paul, rather than Caiaphas or Gamaliel, because they were immeasurably better men. Appearances and circumstances go for nothing, as is seen in God’s choice of David. So today Christ chooses with reference to fitness. There were more brilliant men at Oxford; but when God wanted a man for Africa He went to a factory and chose Livingstone.
2. May he frustrated. Judas was chosen, and the traitor had elements about him which would have made him a prince amongst the apostles. Election is not indelible in regard either to nations or individuals. Israel was chosen because of unique racial qualities, but was rejected because those qualities were abused. England has been chosen; may she be faithful. As for us, however distinguished the office we hold, let us not be high-minded, but fear. “Let him that thinketh he standeth,” etc.
II. ITS VALIDATION. “Ordained you.”
1. Designation for the work. This is a Divine prerogative. Sometimes it is voiced by the appointment of the Church. Sometimes, alas! not. No human authority, however august, can validate an appointment that has not been ratified in heaven. Let all Church officers note this. Often the clearest Divine designation is apparent where there has been no human sanction.
2. Qualification. Whom Christ ordains He qualifies. This may be independent of human qualifications, or it may include them. There are posts for which Christ ordains a man where they would be in the way.
There are others where they are imperative. In the latter case He works in us the desire to amass learning, eloquence, etc., and sanctifies these and other gifts to the accomplishment of His purposes.
III. ITS WORKS.
1. “That ye should go and bring forth fruit” in two senses.
(1) In the graces of personal character; because these are often the means of successful evangelism, and without them a man in the highest office is but a “sounding brass,” etc.
(2) In conversions to God. This is the grand outcome of all spiritual ministries.
2. “That your fruit should remain.”
(1) Of what value are the “fruits of the Spirit” unless permanent? Of what value is faith if tomorrow we are unbelieving? Of love if it alternates with hatred? Of joy if it is drowned in despondency? etc.
(2) Of what value to a Church are converts unless they “remain”? The curse of modern times is great ingatherings, followed by great failings away.
IV. ITS PRIVILEGE. Prayer
1. Keeps alive our sense of the Divine choice, and maintains our position as chosen ones.
2. Augments our personal and official qualifications. “Without Me ye can do nothing.” “I can do all things through Christ,” etc.
3. Ensures abiding success in our work. (J. W. Burn.)
That ye should go and bring forth fruit
The fruit
1. Fruitfulness is the great end of God’s ordinances in the vegetable kingdom. It is the focus into which all the various secondary purposes of nature are concentrated. And is it not so in the kingdom of grace? For the fruitfulness of those who love God the whole material system of the earth is upheld; and the whole spiritual world exists and revolves on its axis, that the harvest of spiritual life may be produced in the Church and in the believer.
2. But while fruitfulness is the great end of vegetable life, there are some plants in which this quality is of more importance than in others. It is necessary that every plant should bring forth fruit in order to propagate itself; but, besides this, some plants confer benefits upon the rest of creation by means of their fruit. Like the cow, which produces more milk than its progeny needs; and the bee, which stores a larger quantity of honey than it requires; the vine produces a fruit whose exceptional excess of nourishness is intended for the use of man. Fruit is not so important to the vine itself as it is to man. We grow some plans in order to produce seed; but we can perpetuate the vine by slips, and, therefore, we grow it solely to supply man’s wants.
3. Apart from its fruit, the vine is, indeed, a beautiful plant; but this is subordinate to the one great purpose of producing grapes: and did it cease to produce fruit it would be condemned as a failure. It was for the sake of the fruit of salvation--the redemption of a fallen world--that God cultivated His own Son by the sufferings which He endured. And as with the Vine Himself, so with the branches. The Husbandman of souls grafts these branches in the Vine for the special purpose of producing spiritual fruit; and if this result does not follow, no mere natural beauty or grace will compensate. And so Christ speaks as if in the bringing forth of fruit was summed up all duty and privilege. God’s glory is the chief end of man; but “Herein is My Father glorified that ye bear much fruit.” God requires of us to believe in Christ; but faith is the root of fruitfulness. Faith and fruit are not distinct; but, on the contrary, the same thing at different periods of existence; just as the fruit of autumn is the seed of spring, and vice versa. God desires our highest happiness; but our highest happiness is indissolubly linked together with our fruitfulness. No man can have a continual feast of gladness who is barren and unfruitful. And here we come to the great outstanding question
I. WHAT IS THE REAL SIGNIFICANCE OF FRUIT?
1. The fruit of a plant is simply an arrested and metamorphosed branch. The bud of a plant which, under the ordinary laws of vegetation, would have elongated into a leafy branch, remains, in a special case, shortened, and develops finally, according to some regular law, blossom and fruit instead. Its further growth is thus stayed; it has attained the end of its existence; its life terminates with the ripe fruit that drops off to the ground. In producing blossom and fruit, therefore, a branch sacrifices itself, yields up its own individual vegetative life for the sake of another life that is to spring from it, and to perpetuate the species. Every annual plant dies when it has produced blossom and fruit every individual branch in a tree which corresponds with an annual plant also dies when it has blossomed and fruited. Fruit trees are the most short-lived of all trees; and cultivated fruit trees are less vigorous in growth, and do not last so long as the wild varieties. Producing larger and more abundant fruit than is natural, they necessarily so much the more exhaust their vital energies. Every blossom is a Passion flower. The sign of the cross, which superstitious eyes saw in one mystical flower, the enlightened eye sees in every blossom that opens to the summer sun. The great spiritual principle which every blossom shadows forth is--self-sacrifice. And is it not most instructive to notice that it is in this self-sacrifice of the plant that all its beauty comes out and culminates?
2. And is it not so in the kingdom of grace? Christian fruit is an arrestment and transformation of the branch in the True Vine. Instead of growing for its own ends, it produces the blossoms of holiness and the fruits of righteousness for the glory of God and the good of men. The Christian life begins in self-sacrifice. We can bring forth no fruit that is pleasing to God until, besought by His mercies, we yield ourselves a living sacrifice to Him. And in this self-sacrifice all the beauty of the Christian life comes out and culminates. The life that lives for another, in so doing bursts into flower, and shows its brightest hues, and yields its sweetest fragrance. All given to Christ is received back a hundredfold. Have we not seen the glory of self-sacrifice ennobling even the aspect of the countenance, the expression of the eye, the carriage of the form, making the plainest and homliest face beautiful and heroic?
II. IT IS FRUIT AND NOT WORKS THAT THE BELIEVER PRODUCES.
1. Work and fruit are contrasted in a very striking manner at the close of Gal_5:1-26;--“the works of the flesh”--“the fruit of the Spirit.” This contrast is very instructive. Works bear upon them the curse of Adam. They are wrought in the sweat of the brow and in the sweat of the soul. All that a natural man does comes under the category of works. And even in the case of believers, some things which they do are works, because they are the result of a legal and servile spirit. Such works are only like those of a manufacturer, which display his skill and power, but do not reveal character. You cannot tell what kind of a man he is who makes your furniture from his productions. You may be able to say that he is a clever workman, but not that he is a wise, a good, or an upright man. But fruit, on the other hand, is the spontaneous natural manifestation of the life within. The soul that has the life and the love of Christ in it cannot help producing fruit. Fruit is the free, unrestrained outpouring of a heart at peace with God, filled with the love of Christ, and stimulated by the presence, and power of the Holy Spirit. The curse is removed from it. It brings back the pure and innocent conditions of Eden. The whole man is displayed in it, as the whole life of the tree is gathered into and manifested in its fruit. By their fruit we know believers as well as trees.
2. It is fruit that Christ wants, not works; because it is the free will offering of a heart of love, not the constrained service of fear or of law, and because He studies the individual character and regulates His discipline according to individual requirements. If works were what He desired, He could order Christians in the mass to do them, caring nothing for any one of them in particular. But, in order to produce fruit, His sap must flow to, His personal influence must reach, the smallest twig, the humblest individual that yields it.
3. How significant in the light of this idea is the reward promised--“a crown of life.” It is not an arbitrary reward from without, but the fruit of their own efforts--a living crown, the crown of their own life. It is with us as it is with some mountains whose deepest or primary formations appear on the summit, which are not mere masses laid in dead weight upon the surface of the earth, but the protrusion of their own energies. So we are crowned with the deepest and most essential part of our own life. Our highest summit is our deepest foundation. Our crown of life is that which we ourselves have formed, and which passes through our own being. Heaven is the fruit of what we have sown, the living crown of the life that we have lived.
III. IT IS FRUIT AND NOT FRUITS, WHICH THE BRANCH IN THE TRUE VINE PRODUCES. The “fruit” of the Spirit is not so many apples growing on separate twigs and having no organic connection except as produced by the same tree. It is a bunch of grapes, all growing from one stalk and united to each other in the closest manner. Each grace is, as it were, a separate berry, connected with the others by organic ties, and forming a complete cluster. It should be the Christian’s endeavour, therefore, that the whole cluster should appear--each grape full formed and in due proportion to the rest.
IV. IT IS HEAVENLY, AND NOT EARTHLY, FRUIT THAT THE HUSBANDMAN DEMANDS.
1. The fruits of Egypt were melons and cucumbers, grown close to the earth; while its vegetables were leeks, onions, and garlic, which are not fruits at all, but roots. It is such low earth-born fruits that the natural man produces, and for which alone he has a relish. All his tendencies and labours are earthward. The cucumber and the melon are climbing plants by nature; they have tendrils to raise them up among the trees, but they are cultivated on the ground, and therefore their tendrils are useless. So every man has tendrils of hopes and aspirations that were meant to raise him above the world, but he perverts them from their proper purpose, and they run among earthly things utterly wasted. In marked contrast with the earth-borne fruits of Egypt were the fruits of the Holy Land. It is a mountainous country, on which everything is lifted above the world. The people went literally, as well as spiritually, up from Egypt to Palestine, up to God’s house. Its fruits were grown on trees, raised up from the ground and ripening in the pure air and bright sunshine of heaven. Believers are risen with Christ. They are not merely elevated a little, but are raised to being fruits in the sky.
V. THE FRUIT OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE IS PERMANENT. “That your fruit should remain.”
1. In spring, when the blossoms have withered and fallen off, a large proportion of these blossoms leave behind young fruits that have actually set. These fruits grow fur a few weeks, acquire shape, become tinted with colour, cheat the eye with the hope of a rich harvest of ripe and full-formed fruit in autumn. But, alas! ere long, they wither and fall. And is it not so with the fruits which unsanctified man produces? They are beautiful in blossom; they minister to his self-glorification and enjoyment; they delude him with fair promises; but they never come to maturity and abide. They are fruits that set, but do not ripen. On every brow we see care planting his wrinkles--bare, wintry branches, whose stem is rooted in the heart, from which have fallen, one after another, the fairest fruits of life, and which, through future springs and summers, will bear no more leaves or fruit.
2. But in contrast with all the passing and perishing fruits of earth, we have the abiding fruits of righteousness. It is the glorious distinction of the fruit which Christ enables us to produce that it endures. How literally were these words fulfilled in the case of the disciples themselves! Of all the works of all the men who were living eighteen hundred years ago, what is remaining now? But twelve poor uneducated peasants went forth, and where is the fruit of their labours? Look around! And what is thus true of the glorious fruit of the disciples, is also true of the humblest fruit of the humblest Christian. What has been done for God cannot be lost or forgotten. As the Tree upon which the Christian is grafted as a branch is the Tree of Life, so the fruit that he brings forth when nourished by its sap is “fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.”
VI. IN THE GRAPE THERE ARE TWO PARTS, THAT SERVE TWO PURPOSES--there is a fleshy, or succulent part, and there are the seeds embedded in the core, or interior.
1. The fleshy part is for nourishment; the seeds are intended to perpetuate the plant. And so every fruit of the Spirit contains these two parts--holiness and usefulness. Personal holiness is the succulent nourishing portion, delighting God and man; and embedded in it is the seed of usefulness. An earnest desire to extend the blessings of the gospel is an invariable result of their true enjoyment. What the soul has received it would communicate.
2. There are cases in nature in which the fruit swells and becomes, to all appearance, perfect, while no seeds are produced. Seedless oranges and grapes are often met with. And is there not good cause to fear that too much of what is called Christian fruit contains no seed with the embryo spark of life in it, although it may seem fair and perfectly formed? What should go to develop the seed of righteousness for others is diverted to the production of greater self-righteousness and self-indulgence. Many Christians are satisfied with enjoying themselves spiritual blessings which they ought to communicate to others. They are pampered in the selfish use of privileges and means of grace. Moreover, it is necessary that the fruit should have pulp as well as seed; that the perpetuating principle of righteousness should be imbedded in all that is lovely, and amiable, and of good report. The fruits of some Christians are harsh and hard as the wild hips on the hedges--all seed and no luscious pulp. They are zealous in recommending religion to others, while they do not exhibit the amenities of it themselves. (H. Macmillan, D. D.)
Fruit bearing
The wonder of fruit growing. What nature does, men and women and children are to do. Lives are to be fruitful lives. This what those of the apostles were. Results of their labours. The fruit remains. Different kinds of moral and spiritual fruit.
I. THOSE HARMFUL OR USELESS.
1. Crab apples and sour cherries, emblems of crabbed tempers, sour looks, and general disagreeableness. Cross temper. Sour temper. Sharp temper. Spiteful temper. Surly temper. Fretful temper.
2. Poison berries. Fair seeming, but death within. Selfishness. Hatred. Falsehood. Revenge. Hypocrisy. False friendship.
3. Hips and haws. Disorder. Idleness. Procrastination.
II. GOOD FRUITS. Don’t grow by accident. Faith the root. Cultivated.
1. Loving obedience and goodness at home.
2. Kindness, brightness, cheerfulness.
3. Prayerfulness.
4. Consecration.
5. Attendance on means of grace.
6. Work for others. Such fruits remain in their effects, influence, and blessedness. Those that he planted in the house of the Lord, etc. (Preacher’s Monthly.)
Continuance the test of religious profession
1. There are few things which, as we grow older, impress us more deeply than the transitoriness of thoughts and feelings. Places and persons that we once thought we never could forget, as years go on are all but quite forgotten; and so with feelings. And there is no respect in which this is more sadly felt than in the case of pious feelings and holy resolutions. We often think sadly of those whose goodness was like the morning cloud and the early dew. We sometimes fear lest we have been deluding ourselves with the belief that we were better and safer than we ever have been, and mourn for the soul-refreshing views, the earnest purpose, the warm affections, of the days when we first believed in Christ.
2. No doubt, by the make of our being, as we grow older, we grow less capable of emotion. Religion in the soul, after all, is a matter of fixed choice and resolution, of principle rather than of feeling. And yet it remains a great and true principle, that in the matter of Christian faith and feelings, that which lasts longest is best. This, indeed, is true of most things. The worth of anything depends much upon its durability. It is not the gaudy annual we value most, but the stedfast forest tree. The slight triumphal arch, run up in a day, may flout the sober-looking buildings near it; but they remain after it is gone. The fairest profession, the most earnest labours, the most ardent affection for a time, will not suffice. That only is the true fruit of the Spirit, which does not wear out with advancing time. The text hints to us that it is even a harder thing to keep up a consistent Christian profession--year after year, through temptations, through troubles--than to make it, however fairly, at the first.
I. IT IS ONLY BY OUR FRUIT REMAINING THAT WE ARE WARRANTED IN BELIEVING THAT IT IS THE RIGHT FRUIT. The only satisfactory proof, either to ourselves or to others, that our Christian faith, and hope, and charity, are the true fruits of the Spirit is that they last. In religion, the fruit which “remains” is the only fruit. Anything else is a pretender. Herein is a point of difference between worldly and spiritual things. It would not be just to say that things which wear out have no value. Who shall say that the flower which blooms in the morning and withers before the sunset is not a fair and kind gift of the Creator? Who shall affirm that the summer sunset is not beautiful, though even while we gaze upon it its hues are fading? Who shall deny that there is something precious in the lightsome glee of childhood, even though in a little while that cheerful face is sure to be shadowed by the cares of manhood? Indeed, the beauty and value of many things in this world are increased by the shortness of the time for which they last. But it is not thus with Christian grace. If it be not a grace which will last forever, it is no grace at all. A man may show every appearance of being a true disciple; but if his zeal wanes and expires, if the throne of grace is deserted, the Bible neglected, and the little task of Christian philanthropy abandoned, how much reason there is then to fear lest the man was deceiving himself with a name to live while he was dead--that he was mistaking the transient warmth of mere human emotion for the gracious working of the Holy Spirit of God!
II. “FRUIT WHICH REMAINS” IS THE ONLY KIND OF CHRISTIAN PROFESSION WHICH WILL RECOMMEND RELIGION TO THOSE WHO ARE NOT CHRISTIANS. Men judge of religion by the conduct and character of its professors. And just as a humble, consistent believer is a letter of recommendation of Christianity to all who know him, just so is the inconsistent believer’s life a something to make them doubt whether religion be a real thing, and not a mere matter of profession and pretence. No one but God can tell how much harm is done by the Christian who, in his newborn zeal, disdains the quiet faith of old disciples who have long walked consistently, but whose zeal passes like the morning cloud and the early dew. Oh! far better the modest fruit of the Spirit, which makes little show at first, but which remains year after year. Conclusion: The same power which implanted the better life within must keep it alive day by day; the continual working of the Spirit must foster the fruits of the Spirit; and that Spirit is to be had for the asking in fervent, humble prayer. Let us watch against the first symptoms of declension in religion; remember that spiritual decline begins in the closet; guard against that worldly spirit which is always ready to creep over us; seek to walk by faith, and not by sight; be diligent in the use of all the appointed means of grace, and vigilant in guarding against every approach of temptation; and seek to have our loins girt and our lamps burning, as those who do not know how soon or suddenly the Bridegroom may come. (A. K. H. Boyd, D. D.)
Religious permanence
Think of the Speaker Himself! He is near unto His end. Will He indeed remain? Listen to the angry roar of the multitude, “Away with Him!” If an artist of that age had been asked to put on fresco the permanent, would he have chosen “the Christ”? He might have selected the emperor, or Jerusalem’s marble temple; but he would scarcely have selected the Saviour when He was led as a lamb to the slaughter. But our Lord Himself? Did He not know the secret of permanence? Full well we know His thoughts. “I, if I be lifted up will draw all men unto Me.” “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away.” The same spiritual permanence He would see in all His professed disciples. Let them but abide in Him, and then the branch would be as the vine I Fruit is to remain
I. IN PRINCIPLE. Religion is founded on the permanence of the moral nature. It lays hold on the eternally right and true within us. Religion without principle is but a Jonah’s gourd. There may be beauty in our life, but there must be strength, or the beauty itself will be but the hectic flush of consumption. Think of a divine teacher who had to suit his thesis of virtue to education or country! No! His virtue was Sinai etherealized and glorified, but it was the same virtue. Christ has made morality living and real. His principles will live on in every age. None can displace them until men have denied the conscience within them. His words still are spirit, still are life. Thus, then, if we are Christians, we shall be firm and strong in moral principle. Ours will be no sentimental life.
II. IN INFLUENCE. We are so to live that others may gather fruit from our lives when we are gone. We say Milton lives, and Baxter, and Pascal. True. The lustre of noble words and beautiful deeds lingers on, yea, even brightens with time. But the humblest life also lives on in the future years. The permanent influence is not that of the mere orator, thinker, or theologian. Brilliant epochs do not make lives. It is easy to fulfil special tasks, to enter upon some memorable struggle with all eyes fixed upon us. It is difficult in daily life, amid the distraction of little things, to be faithful, patient, earnest unto the end.
III. IN FEELING. The emotional nature is not to be crushed, or even relegated to an inferior place. No life is beautiful that is a stranger to tenderness or tears. But unless the heart keeps alive affection, all else will suffer; for we were made to love, and our influence will cease if that dies out. Why should emotion be a transient thing, to be apologized for or treated with affected criticism as unmanly? Christ was moved with compassion. Feeling should be permanent. Why not? We need not exhaust it by stimulants, nor mortgage the emotion of tomorrow by drawing upon its exchequer today. Within us all there ought to be a nature which the Divine memories of the gospel always touch with tenderness.
IV. IN ACTIVE ENDEAVOUR. As flowers retire into themselves at eventide, so too often do men and women. There is lassitude or languor not born of physical weakness, but of mental ennui, which too often comes in the evening of life. It is a characteristic of a true Christian faith that it vivifies all eras of life. For there can be no preserved sanctities of service where there is no delight in the dear old ways, no true fountains of joy in God. When men lose interest, you cannot quicken their energy. Appeal will not do it, nor arguments, nor firmness of will. A regiment in which there are grey-headed soldiers is likely to have enduring men in it; and a Christian army in which the veterans do not tire is not only a beautiful spectacle, but constitutes a brave contingent for the war.
