Fruit of the Spirit is essential evidence in the Christian’s life of walking by the Spirit. After love, joy and peace, come another six. These are all found ultimately in the Lord and thus should reflect a Christ-centered, Spirit-led life. God’s patience allowed His kindness to finally lead us to salvation (Rom 2:4). He did not give up over our long resistance to the message of grace.  He continues to be patient, ^“The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

The goodness fruit is also rooted in God’s goodness, for there is only one good and that is God (Mark 10:18). Any goodness we have is a derivative of His. He remains faithful when we are faithless (2 Tim 2:13). The Lord is gentle, “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matt11:29). As for self-control, “While being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously” (1 Peter 2:23). This took tremendous self-mastery.

So the fruit of the Spirit is a reflection of Christ-likeness in our lives. There is a sense where sanctification is a passive sort of thing, in that these traits are produced by the Spirit and not by human flesh. However, as we shall see a few verses later Paul instructs Timothy and us that we should keep in step with the Spirit. We should be living in every way in cooperation with what the Spirit desires in us.  Peter puts it this way, “Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge …  (2 Peter 1:5). We add our efforts to what the Spirit is doing.

This cooperation is not a form of works in keeping with the Law, where we earn God’s favor through our efforts. Rather, since the fruit are the results of a grace-filled life, they become the focus of spiritual development for our efforts. They cannot be codified in a law—that is what Paul means when he says, “… against such things there is no law” (vs. 23b). Paul uses classical understatement to make his point. The law was given to restrain evil, but it had no control over the qualities that are Christ’s. It commanded love of God and neighbor, but it did not provide the means for doing so. The Spirit provides the means, and our role is to cooperate with our efforts.