I’ve heard many sermons on the nine fruits of the Spirit, based on Galatians 5:22-23, but they are missing something. There are actually twelve fruits of the Spirit listed in the Bible, hidden in plain sight. So why are these extra three fruits of the Spirit not mentioned with the other nine listed in Galatians? To fully understand this, we need to understand the basics of the mysteries of God’s word.
There are four levels of understanding of the scriptures. The first level is understanding the word of God at face value. The second level gives the hint of something deeper hidden in the word. The third level is where you begin to study, dig deeper, and learn what the original words mean, what the culture at the time was like, etc. Then there is the fourth level, which is the revelation of the parable, or mystery. This fourth level is given directly from God to His servants, the prophets and apostles. They are ‘hidden,’ even if they are hidden in plain sight. The scriptures below confirm this concept:
Ephesians 3:3-6 how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.
Numbers 12:6-8 And he said, “Hear my words: If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known to him in a vision; I speak with him in a dream. Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house. With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the Lord…
In Numbers above, the word ‘riddles’ can also be translated as mysteries, parables, and even dark sayings. The word ‘dark’ in Hebrew can mean something hidden, thus the dark sayings are hidden sayings, or mysteries. From both Ephesians and Numbers above we see how God gives His mysteries, His revelations, to His prophets and apostles. This divine revelation of what the parables mean is the fourth level of understanding. This fourth level is hidden, revealed only by the Holy Spirit, to His apostles and prophets. Throughout the Bible we find where three things are given, and the forth thing is hidden, or nine are given and three are hidden. These are pictures of the mysteries.
1 Corinthians 3:1-2 But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready,
In the scripture above, solid food can mean meat. The word of God is often referred to as milk, bread and meat. The milk of the word is understanding the word at face value. Bread indicates the next two levels, and the meat of the word correlates with the fourth level of understanding, or the mystery.
The four levels of understanding correlate with the four rows of stones in the ephod of the high priest. This ephod had four rows of stones, with three distinct stones in each row. This is another picture of the mysteries in God’s word. Now we can look at the hidden fruits of the Spirit.
Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
The verses above are commonly preached on as the nine fruits of the Spirit. The scriptures below add to these fruits.
Philippians 1:11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
Hebrews 12:11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
The two verses above show righteousness as a fruit of the Spirit.
Ephesians 5:9 (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth😉 KJV
In Ephesians above, both goodness and righteousness have already been listed in other scriptures, but truth is a new addition to the list. Then in Hebrews 13, we see that praise is considered the fruit of the lips.
Hebrews 13:15 Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.
With all of these combined, we have twelve fruits of the Spirit. Nine of them are written in Galatians 5, and the other three you have to search for, they represent the deeper things of God’s word.