Christian, Show me Your Fruits

You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? ~ Matthew 7:16 (ESV)

Sep 16, 2024

Therefore (for this is the conclusion which Jesus emphasizes twice) you will know them by their fruits (Matthew 7: 16, 20). What are these fruits?

The first kind of ‘fruit’ by which false prophets reveal their true identity is in the realm of character and conduct.

In Jesus’ allegory of the vine fruitfulness evidently means Christlikeness, in fact, what Paul later termed ‘the fruit of the Spirit’. This being so, whenever we see in a teacher the meekness and gentleness of Christ, his love, patience, kindness, goodness, and self-control, we have reason to believe him to be true, not false.

On the other hand, whenever these qualities are missing, and ‘the works of the flesh’ are more apparent than ‘the fruit of the Spirit’ - especially enmity, impurity, jealousy, and self-indulgence — we are justified in suspecting that the prophet is an impostor, however pretentious his claims and specious his teaching.

But a prophet’s ‘fruits’ are not only his character and manner of life. Indeed, interpreters ‘who confine them to the life are, in my opinion, mistaken’ wrote Calvin.18

A second ‘fruit’ is the man’s actual teaching.

So then, if a person’s heart is revealed in his words, as a tree is known by its fruit, we have a responsibility to test a teacher by his teaching.

Moral and doctrinal.

He encouraged them to look for righteousness and love in their teachers and to reject as spurious both the unrighteous and the unloving. But to these moral tests, he added a doctrinal one. In general, this was whether the teachers’ message was in accord with the original apostolic instruction, and in particular whether it confessed Jesus as the Christ come in the flesh, thus acknowledging his divine-human person.

In examining a teacher’s credentials, then, we have to examine both his character and his message. Bishop Ryle summed it up well: ‘Sound doctrine and holy living are the marks of true prophets.’

Then I think there is a third test that we must apply to teachers, and this concerns their influence. We have to ask ourselves what effect their teaching has on their followers.

Sometimes the falsity of false teaching is not immediately apparent when we look at a teacher’s behavior and system, but becomes apparent only in its disastrous results.

This is what Paul meant when he wrote of error’s tendency to ‘eat its way like gangrene’. Its gangrenous progress is seen when it upsets people’s faith, promotes ungodliness, and causes bitter divisions.30 Sound teaching, by contrast, produces faith, love, and godliness.

Of course, the application of the ‘fruit’ test is not altogether simple or straightforward. For fruit takes time to grow and ripen. We have to wait for it patiently. We also need an opportunity to examine it closely, for it is not always possible to recognize a tree and its fruit from a distance.

Indeed, even at close quarters, we may at first miss the symptoms of disease in the tree or the presence of a maggot in the fruit. To apply this to a teacher, what is needed is not a superficial estimate of his standing in the church, but a close and critical scrutiny of his character, conduct, message, motives, and influence.

This warning of Jesus gives us no encouragement, however, either to become suspicious of everybody or to take up as our hobby the disreputable sport known as ‘heresy-hunting’. Rather it is a solemn reminder that there are false teachers in the church and that we are to be on our guard.

“Beware of false prophets” is addressed to us all. If the church had heeded his warning and applied his tests, it would not be in the parlous state of theological and moral confusion in which it finds itself today.

𝟒𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝟜ℝ𝕖𝕒𝕝

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