How well have you borne the fruit of the Spirit today? Through all the ups and downs, have you exhibited “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, [and] self-control”? (Gal 5:22–23)
Such assessments make most of us nervous. We’re all too aware of our sin, our failures, our weaknesses. Even on a good day, we might feel we displayed only one or two of those character traits. So we respond to that pit of guilt in our stomach by thanking God for forgiving us and by resolving to do better tomorrow.
Tomorrow I’ll exhibit peace instead of stressing about how I’ll pay my rent.
Tomorrow I’ll be patient when another driver cuts me off.
Tomorrow I’ll be gentle when my toddler throws a tantrum.
The Character of Christ4
Jonathan Landry Cruse
Most experienced Christians are familiar with the Fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians. But what do they look like when lived to the fullest?
This book answers this question by studying the fullness of the Fruit of the Spirit in the life of Christ. In a warm and engaging style, Jonathan Cruse examines these godly attributes in the Lord’s example, comparing them with our own faltering efforts at holiness, and shows how only the power of God himself can truly conform us to Christ.
Our instincts aren’t completely wrong. But in this bootstrap-tugging approach, we’ve sidelined Jesus. His role shouldn’t merely be forgiving us when we fall short. Jonathan Landry Cruse gives us a different view in his book The Character of Christ: The Fruit of the Spirit in the Life of Our Saviour. He teaches that we need to behold the fruit of the Spirit in Jesus’s character before we can bear the fruit in our own lives.
Start with Seeing Jesus
Cruse shows us the problem with our common approach. Remember what these virtues are defined as—the fruit of the Spirit. Not the fruit of our efforts.
Chapters take the fruits of the Spirit one at a time and show how Jesus’s character perfectly displays them. Naturally, Cruse relies heavily on the Gospel accounts. He doesn’t just tell us Jesus is gentle or loving or faithful—he shows us from the text of Scripture.
Cruse’s perspective is important because it keeps us from an impoverished expression of the fruit of the Spirit. If we merely see them as tasks to check off a list, we’ll likely focus on outward manifestations and ignore our hearts, leading to self-righteousness.
Remember what these virtues are defined as—the fruit of the Spirit. Not the fruit of our efforts.
True Virtue
For example, consider the virtue of kindness. We may think of this as giving someone the last slice of cake or dropping a few dollars into a homeless person’s cup. But when we look at the life of Jesus, we see his kindness goes right to the heart. Cruse writes, “real Spirit-prompted kindness desires the welfare of others” (85).
He points us to Matthew 8:1–3, when Jesus encounters a leper who says, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean” (NIV). The man doubts not Jesus’s ability to heal but his willingness—his heart. And when Jesus heals him, it’s not for show or to get rid the man off his back. He says, “I am willing.”
Jesus’ response upends our ideas about kindness:
We can do things that on the surface seem kind, but if they are motivated by a begrudging obligation on the inside, they are not produced by the Holy Spirit. Real kindness wills. (85)
Such a view of kindness cuts against our self-promoting virtue signalling as well as our attempts to get away with the bare minimum. In Jesus, we see true kindness as he genuinely wills the good of others and then sacrificially provides it.
Transformed Life
While he trains our eyes to see the virtue of Jesus, Cruse doesn’t stop there. Jesus is our example in the Spirit-filled life, but he isn’t only our example.
As we look at Jesus and see him for who he is, the Spirit transforms us into his likeness—we bear the same fruit. We are “being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor 3:18). Our sight now is partial. But as we wait to finally see Christ face to face, the Spirit aids us to grow into greater holiness.
Cruse applies each virtue to our own lives once he’s explored how it manifests in the life and character of Jesus. For example, in the chapter on gentleness, Cruse encourages us to examine ourselves and cultivate a “proper sense of our own sin,” which will then enable us to “handle with care the weak, sorrowing, or difficult sinners around us” (127).
Only once we see Jesus in his perfect gentleness and humility can we truly see the horror of our own harshness and pride. We grasp afresh how much we need the forgiveness of our Saviour. And we turn away from our sin and ask Jesus to help us live differently. That’s how we grow in gentleness—not merely by trying hard to change our outward behaviour but by communing with our gentle Saviour, letting him reveal our sin, and relying on his Spirit to make us more like him.
That’s how we grow in gentleness—not merely by trying hard to change our outward behaviour but by communing with our gentle Saviour.
Commune with Christ
When a chapter ended, at times I wished Cruse had given more practical guidance about cultivating that particular fruit. But that showed I hadn’t fully internalized the message of the book. My stubborn flesh still wanted a list of practical steps I could take to ease my sense of helplessness. Over and over, I had to keep bringing this to the Lord.
This is a short book with a helpfully narrow focus. There are other (excellent) books that give more expansive and practical help for cultivating these virtues, without contradicting the message of Cruse’s book, like Jerry Bridges’s The Fruitful Life. But The Character of Christ gives a needed foundation and reminds us time and time again: look to Jesus to be transformed.
Cruse urges us often to cultivate communion with Christ, right up to the very last page. His words can serve as a final exhortation as we rethink where to start with bearing the fruit of the Spirit:
So for now, dear Christian, behold the perfections of your Saviour in the inspired Word. Let us begin now contemplating the glory of Christ, that vista that will occupy our sights for eternity. See his character. Learn of his heart. Worship his virtuous ways which won your salvation. And know that those graces that he so wonderfully exhibits, the Spirit has begun to form in your heart as well. (154)
