The singular fruit of that Spirit who is Unconditional-Love has many flavors

 

 

Please follow the BLOG Etiquette to stay on topic and pass the moderator’s check.  Bold, underlined text below = future links to the BLOG pages.

 

If you are interested in an exhaustive 60 page study on this topic with all bible references, language study, and historical proofs, contact me from the Contact Us page.

 

In the Greek of Galatians 5:22-23 from the previous BLOG, the words “joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness/trusting-relying-faith (a) gentleness self-control” are all adjectival-nouns further describing “the [singular] karpos fruit of the Spirit ongoingly is-defined-as/exists-as “Unconditional-Love.” And we know from the last BLOG that karpos “fruit” is not a by-product ‘outside of God’ but the actual essence or nature of the God the Father, Son, and Spirit!  That’s what the Greek scholars says and I agree!  In Greek, the “number” whether singular or plural of the subject, the verb, and direct object must match, and the word order shows emphasis and grammatical function.  Thus the [singular] karpos ‘fruit/essence/nature’ subject must match the verb “ongoingly is’ and first [singular] direct object, which is the word [singular] agape that means “undeserved, unearned, unmerited unconditional-love” that is very close in meaning to “unconditional-loving-favor-of-grace.”

 

It’s a crying shame that the Phillips bible translated karpos in the plural and then had the gall to call these “human fruits!”  The Easy-To-Read bible added “that the Spirit produces in a person’s life is . . .” The Amplified Bible adds the idea of “the result of His presence within us,” which they are assuming from the context, similar to the Contemporary English Version saying “God’s Spirit makes us . . .”  Similarly The Living Bible says: “when the Holy Spirit controls our lives He will produce this king of fruit in us.”  Well that’s just a sampling of how so many bibles turned a verse that was about the karpos nature/essence of the Spirit into a verse about Christian behavior, which we talked about in the last BLOG.  How can bibles add words that aren’t even in the text?  See Bible Info.  <Notes> a) the word pistis can mean either.  Faithfulness really is just “patient-enduring trusting-relying-faith” which we see closely related in 2 Timothy 3:10 (next to each other in a list), Hebrews 6:12 (coupled by kai), and Revelation 2:19 made related by parallel phrases (metonymy).

 

Furthermore, all the other 8 words after agape without any punctuation simply describe this “Unconditional-Love” that ongoingly is the essence/nature of God’s Spirit, and are in order of emphasis in Paul’s mind.  These are the various ‘flavors’ of the singularly karpos ‘fruit’ of Unconditional-Love, but the Lord also showed me while ‘in the Spirit’ one day that they are like ‘facets’ on a single diamond called “Unconditional-Love.”

 

God also showed me this in a vision long ago:  “While jogging around the park, proseuchomai conversationally-praying in the Spirit (a), I saw something like a 1000 butterflies come out of a strangely-bright weeping-willow tree on my path near the park’s lake. Then “in the Spirit” I saw small, soccer ball-sized, yellow fruit hanging from the tree and was told to “take and eat.” All the fruit was the SAME because “a tree is experientially, relationally ginosko known by its [singular] karpos fruit” (Matthew 12:33; Luke 6:44) – not by a bunch of different kind of fruit!  My grapefruit tree leaves look very similar to my orange tree and unless I look at the fruit, I wouldn’t know the difference.  I have a yellow grapefruit and ruby-red grapefruit tree, and again I can’t really tell the difference looking at the leaves or even the fruit, but they taste radically different, and THAT IS HOW YOU KNOW the difference – by experience!  <Notes> a) 1 Corinthians 14:2, 4, 9, 14-15, 18, 26, 39 clearly defines this as “praying in a [supernatural] tongue,” cf. Ephesians 6:18, Jude 1:20.

 

In my vision, when I bit into this karpos fruit, I was overwhelmed with unconditional-love, but as I started recovering from being ‘plowed’ by this, I then tasted “immense joy” (a) that so “overflowed” (b) that it made me profusely cry with such gratitude. Then I felt “a peace of tranquility that passed all understanding” (c), and then I experienced all the other words in the Galatian 5:22-23 list to some degree – very similar to the way a good wine, the ‘fruit of the vine,’ gradually ‘opens up’ with more complex flavors after sipping it for a while, especially if you’ve taken a couple of wine-tasting classes and helped taste for restaurant purchases! <Notes> a) i.e., in tongues, as Paul also describes in 1 Corinthians 14:2, 4, 9, 14-15, 18, 26, 39.  <Notes> a) Matthew 2:10, 28:8; Luke 2:10, 24:52; Acts 15:3; Jude 1:24; 2 Corinthians 8:2, b) 2 Corinthians 7:4, c) Philippians 4:7.

 

In another revelation, the Lord showed me that “Unconditional-Love” is red like a heart, the “Joy” is bright yellow like a daisy, and “Peace” is royal blue like the clean sky looking away from the sun – see Unconditional-Love – BT3.  Paul is describing 8 colors of white light, the Light of Christ’s Spirit.

 

My personal experiences with fillings or baptisms by the Spirit have verified the ‘flavors’ of “Unconditional-Love.”  In every case, I was immediately hit with overwhelming, infinite, unconditional-love followed by grateful tears of joy for such forgiveness, total non-judgmental acceptance, and koinonia communion with God.  Then followed such peace that removed all worries and concerns for the outside world.  Then came months of God’s unconditionally-loving nature visiting me time and time again, displaying itself in and through me with experiences of patience (a), kindness, goodness, trust-rely-trusting-relying-faith/faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control – all traits that I’ve rarely ever had for long otherwise, no matter how much I “worked at them” like so many churches will tell you! They all were just given to me – no reading, memorizing, or study of any bible verses at all!  All were simply expressions of God, unconditional-love, meno “abiding/cohabitating/remaining” (b) in me. See A 11-21-2021 Vision about Meno abiding.  And boy, could I akouo hear/understand God’s Voice of directly-spoken/heard prophetic rhema words clearly inside of me!  And boy, did my prayers regularly come true!  Everything just happened to me, just like Jesus promised (e)! <Notes> a) steadfastness even through suffering, b) John 15:1-7.

 

Every other word in the bible used to describe God is simply describing the “defined-as/exists-as ongoingly IS” or ‘I AM’ of God of “Unconditional-Love.” God has shown me this several times, but really brought it home in this vision! In 1983 after seeking God Himself in proseuche conversational-prayer for about a month at the top of the University of Arizona’s McKale Center stadium after my church fell apart from a disgusting leadership coup d’état, one day I turned around to start my walk down to my morning classes and back to my old life because I could not find to God to verify that I wasn’t just part of some brain-washing cult.

 

Suddenly I lost all strength and fell to the ground, receiving my first vision ever:  I was in the middle of an infinite ocean of unconditional-love, with no shore in sight. A whirlpool started developing and I was being pulled into it, but then I realized the ocean was trying to drain into my innermost being inside my chest as I lay on the concrete, my whole body tingling from what felt like electrocution!  I was completely overwhelmed within minutes of such infinite, unconditional-love trying to fit into my finite body that I felt I would surely die.

 

Unfortunately, I cried out for it to stop and God did, but then I was overwhelmed with immense joy and I wept for a long time!  Then after the tears subsided, I felt a restful peace or tranquil calmness come over me that is beyond all logical understanding. I could have laid there forever with absolutely no cares in the world, but I eventually got up to go to classes.  I was on a ‘Jesus high’ for months, full of the nature of God with absolute enabling-power over all the sins that had always plagued me, especially nearing summer when campus girls wore very little.

 

Worship and evangelism were so natural, simply sharing God who was living in me.  I never studied the bible as my church had so drilled into me, and when I did read it, God said so much between the words and lines that I rarely got through a paragraph!  All I wanted to do was be in God’s presence, share, listen, and feel.  In retrospect, I think God worked within the boundaries I had created with so much bible study being pounded into me, as limited as that was.  Our trusting-relying-faith is what limits us, and the bible is what I was told was God’s only reliable form of communication. What a crock – see Bible Info.

 

The apostle Paul who wrote Galatians 5:22-23 above, also uses all these same words of “joy, peace, . . . self-control throughout his other writings to simply TRY to describe what unconditional-love is (a). Also compare Peter’s writings (b).  However, the apostle John simply nails what Paul is so often wordy in saying:  “God actually ongoingly IS-defined-as/exists-as Unconditional-Love” period (c).  Elegantly simple!  <Notes> a) 1 Corinthians 13:4- 7; 2 Corinthians 6:6; Titus 1:8; Romans 12:9, 14:17; 2 Timothy 2:22, b) 1 Peter 1:8, 5:14; 2 Peter 1:5-7, c) 1 John 4:8, 16.

 

Yet, the context of Galatians 5:22-23 is how this affects us as Christians.  The church father Jerome in his commentary on Galatians 6:10 says: “The blessed John, the evangelist, in extreme old age at Ephesus would be carried into the congregation in the arms of his disciples and was unable to say anything except, ‘Little children, love one another.’ At last, wearied that he always spoke the same words, they asked:  ‘Master, why do you always say this?’  He replied:  ‘Because it is the Lord’s command, and if this only is done, it is enough.’ ” This ‘horizontal love’ is something explored later – see also Logos Word of God – BT16, but in the next BLOG we will dive in deeper to this ‘Vertical, Downward unconditional-love’ nature/essence of God.

 

Read the next BLOG for even more revelation!

 

Reflection:

 

 

As Christian musicians, if we are going to teach the bible, shouldn’t we teach what it actually says in the original language and not 900 English translations or 3,415 other languages that oftentimes don’t come close?  That’s the case with Galatians 5:22-23.  This does NOT teach about the nature of proper Christian “fruits” or behavior but the singular nature/essence ‘fruit’ of the Holy Spirit with many descriptive ‘flavors’ of “joy, restful-peace, . . . self-control/mastery” that seeks to dwell in and overwhelm Christians, albeit supernaturally influencing their behavior in the larger context.

 

Anybody who actually has genuinely, experientially, relationally epiginosko known God by fillings or baptisms of the Holy Spirit can concur that these are all overwhelming experiences that flow out of and after being overwhelmed by Unconditional Love.  I have had many such experiences and want so many more!  I hunger and thirst for this intimate koinonia fellowship with infinite, unconditional-love, the very nature/essence of God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  By this they are certainly “One!”  I have found that power over sin and ability to do the “good works” of Christianity to naturally flow from this river of zoe genuine-life, but otherwise thru the religion of churchianity to be a difficult task.  I believe this is the exact meaning of Zechariah 4:6, “absolutely in fact, no longer by might and power, but by My Spirit, says Yahweh of hosts” describing the completely-different-in-kind New Covenant.  It makes sense that if you are actually experiencing “God within by the indwelling Spirit” that this will find a way to overflow into your life and through your life to others.

 

Prayer:

 

 

Lord, thank You for replacing the old covenant of “works or disciplines of righteousness” to try to get God to move from the outside to the inside of us, with the simplicity of the completely-different-in-kind New Covenant Way of coming to dwell inside us so that You can do Your “works of righteousness” on the inside of us by the means of Your Holy Spirit to then “gush up like an eternal spring” to flow out of us to not only change our lives but those around us, to actually be Your witnesses!

 

 

 

 

 

Spiritual Education, Unconditional Agape Love, Forgiveness instead of Judgment, Emotional Healing, Living like Christ, The singular fruit of the Spirit of God always is unconditional-love, A tree is known by 1 fruit not 9, The other 8 words in Galatians 5:22-23 are 8 flavors of 1 fruit of love or 8 facets of 1 diamond or 8 colors of white light, Wine grapes are 1 variety with many flavors, Spirit baptism and fillings reveal the Spirit’s fruit and many flavors