We are seeking to obey the command of Christ, and Christ was not advancing religious pluralism or playing on our sentimentality. By the word “fruit,” Christ did not mean generic religious experience but the spiritual result of the Holy Spirit’s work in and through the Christian gospel. This is the same word used in Matthew 3:8, “Bear fruit in keeping with repentance,” and John 15:5, “Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit.” Paul uses this term to refer to the virtues wrought in a believer by the Holy Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
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