Part 51

We hear a great deal in these days about “Ethical Culture,” which usually means the cultivation of the flesh until it bears the fruit of the Spirit. It cannot be done; no more than thorns can be made to bear figs and the bramble bush grapes (Luke vi. 44; Matt. xii. 33). We hear also a great deal about “character building.” That may be all very well if you bear constantly in mind that the Holy Spirit must do the building, and even then it is not so much building as fruit bearing. (See, however, 2 Pet. i. 5-7.) We hear also a great deal about “cultivating graces of character,” but we must always bear it clearly in mind that the way to cultivate true graces of character is by submitting ourselves utterly to the Spirit to do His work and bear His fruit. This is “sanctification _of the Spirit_” (1 Pet. i. 2; 2 Thess. ii. 13). There is a sense, however, in which cultivating graces of character is right: viz., we look at Jesus Christ to see what He is and what we therefore ought to be; then we look to the Holy Spirit to make us this that we ought to be and thus, “reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord, we are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit” (2 Cor. iii. 18, R. V.). Settle it, however, clearly and forever that the flesh can never bear this fruit, that you can never attain to these things by your own effort that they are “_the fruit of the Spirit_.”