Fruits

Fruits run two tracks through the UPDV: the literal produce of the earth that God called good at creation, and the figurative yield of a life — words, deeds, and character — by which trees and people alike are known. The two tracks intersect everywhere the imagery is used, because the figure depends on the literal: trees bear after their kind, and so do people.

Natural Fruit at Creation

Fruit appears on the third day of the creation week as the design of the earth itself. "Let the earth put forth grass, herbs yielding seed, [and] fruit-trees bearing fruit after their kind, in which is their seed, on the earth" (Ge 1:11), and the earth obeyed: "trees bearing fruit, in which is their seed, after their kind: and God saw that it was good" (Ge 1:12). The fruit-bearing trees, with their seed inside, are then assigned as food for humanity — "every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you⁺ it will be for food" (Ge 1:29). The kind-after-kind clause is the seed of the later figure: each tree produces what it is.

Conditions of Fruit-Bearing

Real bearing requires the right conditions. The blessed person "is like a tree planted by streams of water: its fruit it yields in season, and its leaf does not wither" (Ps 1:3). The same image of being "planted in the house of Yahweh" supplies the promise: "They will still bring forth fruit in old age; They will be full of sap and green" (Ps 92:13-14). In the vine discourse, John names the conditions inside the figure: "I am the vine, you⁺ are the branches: He who stays in me, and I in him, the same bears much fruit: for apart from me you⁺ can do nothing" (Jn 15:5). The Father "cleanses" the bearing branch "that it may bear more fruit" (Jn 15:2), and the seed falling into the earth must die before it bears: "Except a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it stays alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (Jn 12:24). Discipline is a parallel condition outside the vine figure: "all chastening seems for the present not to be joyous but grievous; yet afterward it yields peaceful fruit to those who have been exercised by it, [even the fruit] of righteousness" (Heb 12:11). And the freedom from sin produces its own crop: "But now being made free from sin and being made slaves to God, you⁺ have your⁺ fruit to sanctification, and the end eternal life" (Ro 6:22).

Fruitfulness Commanded and Promised

The vocation of bearing is given by Christ to his disciples: "You⁺ did not choose me, but I chose you⁺, and appointed you⁺, that you⁺ should go and bear fruit, and [that] your⁺ fruit should stay" (Jn 15:16). Paul takes up the same language for the believer who has died to the law: "you⁺ also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ; that you⁺ should be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead, that we might bring forth fruit to God" (Ro 7:4). The promise of supply attends the call: "he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food, will supply and multiply your⁺ seed for sowing, and increase the fruits of your⁺ righteousness" (2 Co 9:10). Paul looks for "the fruit that increases to your⁺ account" in those he has taught (Php 4:17), and prays that the Colossians may walk "bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God" (Col 1:10).

Fruit of the Spirit and Fruit of Righteousness

The harvest under grace has named contents. "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control; against such there is no law" (Gal 5:22-23). The fruit of light runs the same direction: "the fruit of the light is in all goodness and righteousness and truth" (Eph 5:9). Paul prays the Philippians be "filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God" (Php 1:11). Wisdom from above is "full of mercy and good fruits, without variance, without hypocrisy" (Jas 3:17). And there is a cumulative chain that begins in faith: in faith virtue, in virtue knowledge, in knowledge self-control, in self-control patience, in patience godliness, in godliness brotherly kindness, in brotherly kindness love (2 Pe 1:5-7) — Christian graces exemplifying what fruit looks like in practice. The same temper appears in Paul's own ministry list: "in pureness, in knowledge, in long-suffering, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in unfeigned love" (2 Co 6:6), and the Corinthians are urged to abound "[in] faith, and utterance, and knowledge, and [in] all earnestness, and [in] our love" (2 Co 8:7). Tribulation itself works the chain: "tribulation works steadfastness; and steadfastness, validation; and validation, hope" (Ro 5:3-4).

Sin's Fruit and Unfruitfulness

The figure runs the other way too. "The works of the flesh are manifest" — whoring, impurity, sexual depravity, idolatry, witchcraft, enmities, strife, jealousy, wraths, factions, divisions, parties, envyings, drunkenness, revelings — "of which I forewarn you⁺ ... that those who participate in such things will not inherit the kingdom of God" (Gal 5:19-21). When the planted vineyard "looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth bad [grapes]" (Is 5:2), the failure is the indictment. Israel as a luxuriant vine multiplies altars instead of right worship: "according to the abundance of his fruit he has multiplied his altars" (Hos 10:1), and the harvest of plowed wickedness is "the fruit of lies" (Hos 10:13). The song of Moses casts apostate Israel as a vineyard whose grapes are wrong at the root: "their vine is of the vine of Sodom, And of the fields of Gomorrah: Their grapes are grapes of gall, Their clusters are bitter" (De 32:32).

Outright unfruitfulness brings warning and judgment. The barren fig tree of the parable owner has had three years to produce: "Look, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: therefore cut it down; why does it also cumber the ground?" (Lu 13:7), and the parable's first frame is the same — "A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came seeking fruit on it, and found none" (Lu 13:6). The unprofitable servant says "Lord, look, [here is] your mina, which I kept laid up in a napkin" (Lu 19:20). In the vine, the branch "in me that does not bear fruit, he takes it away" (Jn 15:2). And ground that "bears thorns and thistles ... is disapproved and near to a curse; whose end is to be burned" (Heb 6:8). An adulteress's children "will not spread out their roots, And her branches will bear no fruit" (Sir 23:25). Even unrepentant punishment can multiply transgression rather than yield reform: "Do you not see that the more they are punished, the more others multiply?" (Gr 7:8).

Fruit as Test

Fruit is also the diagnostic. "According to the cultivation of a tree so is its yield, [So] the thought of a man according to his nature" (Sir 27:6). The Father is glorified "that you⁺ may bear much fruit and may be my disciples" (Jn 15:8). Even Daniel's vision of the imperial tree puts the test in the same terms — "Its leaves were fair, and its fruit much, and in it was food for all" (Da 4:12) — before the tree is felled.

Degrees and Universal Yield

The image admits of degrees and of glorious extension. The vinedresser cleanses the bearing branch "that it may bear more fruit" (Jn 15:2), and the apocalyptic tree of life "bears fruit twelve [times per year], every month yielding its fruit: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations" (Rev 22:2). Ezekiel's temple-river extends the same picture into the land: "every tree for food, whose leaf will not wither, neither will its fruit fail: it will bring forth new fruit every month, because its waters issue out of the sanctuary; and its fruit will be for food, and its leaf for healing" (Eze 47:12). The fruit of the earth, watered from the holy place, comes back to creation's first design — fruit-trees bearing fruit, after their kind, for food.