22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
It is necessary to see these great words of Paul's in their context of the teaching of the epistle, before we study them in detail. It will help us to a fuller understanding of this if we remember that he has been expounding the theology of the Christian life. He has spoken of the nature of our new life in Christ. By the Holy Spirit we have been incorporated into Christ, and given a new status and a new position in Him. As believers we are 'in Christ'. Yet this new thing has to be lived out in the old order, and this, as we have seen, means that we are in the paradoxical position of being both 'free from sin' and yet 'subject to the conditions of sin'. Sin has not yet vanished from our lives, and it is this that explains the tension in the true believer's experience, as expressed in 17. But it is not an equal tension, the new life is incomparably greater than the old (cf Romans 5, 'much more'). Therefore there really is in fact the emergence of a new life, manifest and evident for all to see. It is recorded in Acts 11:23 that Barnabas saw the grace of God in Antioch. It is this visible manifestation that Paul refers to in these verses. The fruit of the Spirit is the evidence that something has really happened in our lives, something that cannot be controverted. We are not only liberated from sin, but unto Christlikeness, and where this liberation is real, it will never be without this unmistakable evidence of becoming increasingly conformed to the image of God's Son.