Fruit Unto God

Since that far off day when God spoke the memorable words over His creation, fruitfulness and multiplication have become laws of life. Whether in the animal kingdom, or the world of vegetation; in the physical realm or in the spiritual; whether it be sea or land or air or in heaven itself, everywhere the truth stands fast, 'Be fruitful and multiply.' Certainly it is law for the Church; it is inescapable.

The apostle Paul in his unparalleled ministry to God and man was swept along by the same burning desire that was in his Lord. From the beginning of this man's ministry to the end, his desires remained invariable, his childbearing constant. Speaking of himself as 'one born out of due time', he feels as His Lord and Husband does about all men. He uses the thought of self-death for others' birth and life, just as Rachel and the Lord Himself did, though in a different way. 'Death worketh in us but life in you,' he says to the Corinthians; while to the Romans he wrote, 'I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.' What use a kinship by a first birth without a kinship by a second? Thus is eternal truth and his heart laid bare as one. Earlier he had written to the Galatians (4:19), 'My little children, of whom I travail in birth again.' And to the Thessalonians, 'What is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming?' (1 Thessalonians 2:19). Also to the Corinthians, 'I have begotten you through the gospel,' (1 Corinthians 4:15). While at the end of his life, awaiting execution, he wrote to his friend Philemon concerning 'Onesimus (his son, he called him) whom I have begotten in my bonds.'

John, too, delights in the fruitfulness of his union with his Lord. His letters are studded with loving references to 'My children', and 'little children', 'my little children', and others' children too. Peter also speaks of 'new-born babes' and 'dear children', as he takes up his pen to minister to those who by a second birth have become strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

These men did not cry for converts; they did not count heads nor ask for shows of hands; they longed, and laboured, and travailed for children, God's children. They were married to Jesus Christ. They could not rest until by their own love-labour many were brought forth in His nature, to develop into the image of their Husband and be perfected in His likeness. The Church of the first-born loved Him unto total abandonment to His desires. Not for them a resting in an initial comfort of salvation from hell, or in perfecting their own holiness, though this is a very fruitful hill indeed. Beyond all this, urged on by His Spirit, they desired complete absorption in their Jesus unto utter involvement in His inwardness of longing. They entered into His eternal reasons for coming to Earth and Calvary, to cursing, and ripping, and near disembowelment, and heartbreak, and love for men as men could feel and understand it. Love, profound, crying, caring, desiring, hoping, conceiving, begetting. All-comprehensive love.

They married Him and love; they caught the sweet pain of His heart, and joined with the powerful longing that He was, and became one with Him to the begetting of His children. The pure, holy fire of Him devoured them; they loved and lived and longed with Him, and the children came forth as the natural fruit of the union. They did not die childless, nor have they left their name for a reproach among men.

They served Him, but they were not content with service. Servants serve and can accomplish much in their service, but the wife brings forth the children, Powers, gifts, ministries, talents, pounds, all have a place in a great house, but servants cannot forever abide in it. Serve in it they may with all trustworthiness and with great acceptance and brilliance, and possess great abilities for management and administration. Their Lord and Master may be much pleased with them, but who bears the children? None but she who is married to her Lord, whose cry is 'Give me children or else I die.' Her relationship to Him is beyond that of slave to Master; He must be her Lord, but she is His Wife. So are the children brought forth.

For ever virgin, she is yet not barren for she retains her first-love for Jesus and never departs from or loses it, yet being married thus to Him she bears the children of that love and is both Bride and Wife at once. Virgin in heart-purity, she abides self-giving in love to Him, separate from sinners and wholly sanctified unto the Master's use. Wife in life-union, she serves Him in selfless devotion, utterly yielded, totally involved until Love's children stand around her regenerate. This is the normal spiritual order. To be saved is important but insufficient; to be entirely sanctified is more important but not enough; to serve is commendable and reasonable; but to be the Bride is to be the Lord's wife -- consummation.

Bridal exclusiveness must consummate in wifely, motherly usefulness. Heart-pure love must become body-yielding service, and both must be held in their primal, complementary states and order (Romans 12: 1-3), neither of them changing or destroying the other. The Bride must become the Wife, she must be given children or she will die. Fruit, more fruit, much fruit -- ' I and the children God hath given me.' The cry must be answered and the statement justified; the longing must be fulfilled. God must have fruit.