How Does the Holy Spirit Beautify the Church? from Crossway on Vimeo.
Our Helper
We can’t talk about the church without talking about the Holy Spirit. He is our helper. He is our beautifier. Perhaps there’s no better or more familiar expression of the Holy Spirit’s beautifying work within the church than a very familiar text from Paul’s words in Galatians 5: “The fruit of the spirit, which is love joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control.”
Now at our salvation, the Spirit could instantaneously make us holy. Sometimes I wish he had done that in action, word, and deed. However, he chooses instead to produce fruit in our lives to authenticate our union with Christ. And so bearing fruit is a sign that we are in Christ and Christ is in us.
Now, often the emphasis is wrongly placed on the size of our congregations, the number of baptisms performed in a year, the heft of our offerings, the breadth of our church programs and the like, but these are not evidence of the Spirit’s presence. These are not evidence that the spirit is beautifying the church. Bearing fruit is a sign that we are in Christ and Christ is in us.
What Paul is making clear in Galatians is that without that spirit-produced fruit, all else is in vain. And this spirit-blossoming fruit-bearing, fruit-maturing work of the spirit in every believer’s life results in an abundant harvest within the church, as he makes her beautiful.
This is a guest article by Dustin Benge, author of The Loveliest Place: The Beauty and Glory of the Church. This post originally appeared on crossway.org; used with permission.
Dustin Benge (Ph.D., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY) serves as Executive Director for Reformanda Ministries. He is currently lecturer, senior fellow, and administrative research assistant at The Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies. In addition, he is a visiting lecturer at Munster Bible College in Cork, Ireland and serves as the editor of Expositor Magazine. His books include: A Journey Toward Heaven, Lifting Up Our Hearts, Sweetly Set on God: The Spirituality of David Brainerd, and others. He has also served as a pastor in Kentucky and Alabama. He writes for Reformation21, Christward Collective, Tabletalk, and Expositor Magazine. Dr. Benge is married to Molli and they live in Louisville, Kentucky.