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.
There is a significant parallelism between Paul's teaching here and that in 1 Corinthians, where he was dealing with disorder and dissension in the fellowship, for which problem he challenged them with the message of the cross and, significantly enough, showed them that the highest and best grace of the Spirit - love (1 Corinthians 13) - is possible only when the message of the cross is received. It was because the Galatians had not obeyed this challenge that the difficulties mentioned in the epistle had arisen in the fellowship. Love is not possible, in individuals or in fellowships, where the discipline of the cross is refused. Now to go on. The 'oneness' of the ninefold fruit stresses the 'balanced' nature of the life in the Spirit - it is an 'all-round' wholeness, and the one grace does not appear without the other, any more than the flower can appear without its colour and its texture. This 'balance' is seen also in the threefold division that is often made in this cluster of Christian graces: the first three - love, joy, peace - speak, as someone has put it, of the life of the Spirit in its innermost secret, and refer to our relationship with God, and flow from it. They spring from communion with Him. The next three - longsuffering, gentleness, meekness - refer to the life of the Spirit in its manifestation towards men; while the last three - faith, meekness, temperance - refer to the life of the Spirit in relation to the difficulties of the world, and to ourselves. As such they parallel Paul's famous trilogy in Titus 2:12 - godly, righteous and sober living.