Can Human Nature Be Fixed?
Replacing the Works of the Flesh With the Fruit of the Spirit
The fruit of the Spirit represents more than human effort can achieve on its own. From love to self-control, each characteristic plays a vital role in overcoming our natural tendencies.
In examining a two-thousand-year-old list of human failings found in Galatians 5:19–21, we’ve discovered that some things don’t change much when it comes to human nature. These fragmented “works of the flesh” (plural) are evidence of disorder. But the apostle Paul, author of the letter, shifts the focus and describes the suprahuman antidote: the “fruit of the Spirit” (singular), expressed in nine interconnected ways. This contrasting list is organized with the most important characteristic first and a significant one last. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things” (Galatians 5:22–23).
Unlike the works of the flesh, which prevent inheritance of God’s coming kingdom, these Spirit-based characteristics come without negative repercussions. Paul shares this information in his letter to a small group of people who have responded to God’s call. They’ve been given these traits through the Holy Spirit, yet they still struggle against human nature’s downward pull. We get to look over their shoulder and learn how to deal with the works of our flesh. “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires [the origin of such works]. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit” (verses 24–25, emphasis added throughout).
The Spirit of God at work in a mind committed to God’s way enables transformation of fleshly thoughts and actions. Developing the fruit of the Spirit becomes foremost in our thinking, so that the intrusive natural mind can be overcome. Godly love leads the way in this transformation, and the virtues that follow are expressions of that love. Self-control serves as the other bookend, emphasizing human agency in the process of cooperative transformation.
Love, Joy and Peace
Love [Greek: noun, agape; verb, agapao], the first of three spiritual states of mind, is paramount—the most fundamental characteristic Paul lists.
Love can transform relationships and overcome division, but as Jesus pointed out, popular understanding had distorted what love requires: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love [agapao] your neighbor and hate your enemy’”(Matthew 5:43). This approach does not express godly love. What they had heard was an incorrect rendering of Scripture. The law commands, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” but nowhere does it command, “Hate your enemy.”
Jesus explained by contrast how godly love is expressed. Hatred is a work of the flesh, but God’s Spirit replaces it with godly love. Rather than retaliating against persecutors, we are called to a different response: “I say to you, Love [agapao] your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? . . . Be[come] perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (verses 44–48).
“You must love your neighbor as yourself.”
God makes no distinction in how He expresses His love toward all His children. Those committed to God’s way must express that same love for all people. There cannot be a state of enmity and hatred, reviling and slandering, bad temper and strife alongside godly love.
Joy, the second expression of love on the list, flows naturally from this foundation. Jesus connected joy with obedience and love when He spoke to His disciples on the final Passover evening. He said, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete” (John 15:10–11).
A person in tune with God will follow God, be obedient to God, experience the love of God and the joy that results.
They will also come to know peace, the third trait listed, beyond anything the natural mind can experience (see John 14:27). The apostle Paul wrote about the rarity of this gift when he said, “The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7).
Five more spiritual expressions of agape—patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness and gentleness—are clearly characteristics that most people desire. But these Spirit-led attributes also go beyond what we can achieve on our own. They flow from a unified Spirit-led mind. They transform the mind that naturally tends toward the destructive works of the flesh.
Self-Control and the Work of the Spirit
The final trait Paul lists—self-control—underscores that this transformation does not occur automatically but requires ongoing cooperation with God’s Spirit.
We can of ourselves exercise a kind of self-control. But as we’ve seen, self-control as a godly characteristic lies beyond what is achievable by the natural mind. It must include self-change, self-management and self-regulation through the help of the Holy Spirit. This is not a simple task.
Paul, a Spirit-led person, writes about the struggle with his own natural mind: “I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.”
“So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.”
He acknowledges that only Christ can deliver him from this impasse: “Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” He’s saying that Christ’s help through the Holy Spirit is the answer. “So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin” (Romans 7:21–25). Paul acknowledges that, though he willingly agrees with the way of God in his mind, he will at times do things that he doesn’t want to do because of the weakness of the natural mind.
Again, we’re looking over the shoulder of a man who is writing privately to people who’ve already committed to God’s way. It’s a great introduction to the dilemma we all face when we sense we’re traveling the wrong path—when our human nature is winning out.
He goes on to explain, “The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed it cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Romans 8:7–8). He shares with his audience that “all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God . . .” (verses 14–16).
It’s clear that the Spirit of God is central to the process of change by enabling godly self-control over the natural mind. It’s not that God does everything for us. We have to make the conscious decision to do the right thing. And with the help of God’s Spirit at work, change becomes achievable. We begin to express godly love as the main principle guiding everything we do, and we start overcoming or setting aside and recognizing the works of the flesh, and we begin to make progress. We must walk according to the Spirit, not according to the flesh.
In this series on the troublesome works of the flesh, we’ve considered more than 16 destructive traits, organized in groupings of sexual, religious, social and alcohol-related problems. They depict fragmented human life, absent the nine aspects of the fruit of the Spirit. Those Spirit-given attributes—based in the gift of godly love and the Spirit-based exercise of self-control—together provide the remedy for human nature’s disorder.
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