But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. -- Galatians 5:22-23 (KJV)
Nine words follow, and the noun in front of them is singular. Fruit, not fruits. Paul is not offering a selection to choose from according to temperament. He describes one yield with nine things true of it at once.
That single noun also settles the question of who is working. Fruit is produced, not assembled. A tree does not decide in spring to attempt fruit; it draws what it needs and bears what it is. Paul names the producer in the phrase itself. It is the fruit of the Spirit. Love here is not affection you generate on a hard morning by trying harder than yesterday. Longsuffering is not endurance you manufacture because you have been told patience is a virtue. These grow out of a life the Spirit is sustaining.
Notice too that the nine are unglamorous. Meekness and temperance will not distinguish you in a room. Goodness is difficult to photograph. What Paul lists is mostly what a person is like to live with, which is exactly what makes the list hard to fake for long.
Against Such There Is No Law
The closing clause is the strange one. “Against such there is no law.”
Paul has spent this letter arguing that the law cannot make anyone righteous. Now he turns and says the law has nothing to prohibit here either. There is no statute limiting how much peace you may carry into a difficult house. Nobody is coming to tell you that you have been gentle beyond the allowance. Whatever the Spirit produces, there is no ceiling on it and no rule against more.
Which of the nine have you been treating as a limited supply, spent carefully and only on the people you judged worth it?
