Introduction

This is a word study, one that examines utterances of the Lord and draws conclusions as to what the words heart (kardía) and fruit (karpós) mean to him.  We can profit from examining his use of them to get a clearer grasp on what he meant, for I have observed that many people misunderstand him. We are examining these two words together because they have an essential relation in the Logos.  By this means, we get a better view of both.  The Greek concordance¹ gives these pertinent definitions to heart:

kardía: the heart; The centre and seat of spiritual life, the soul or mind, as it is the fountain and seat of the thoughts, passions, desires, appetites, affections, purposes, endeavors.

The heart gets first attention, and having settled its significance, we will be in a better position to speak of fruit.


The World View of Jesus

The reader should also recognize at the outset that everything Jesus said and did, and everything that is learned from him can be properly understood only in the light of his world view.  His world view differs radically from that of most human beings, so we must clarify that before we can understand anything.  One of his parables presents this in a very compact form, so lets us resort to it so as to begin our study of his utterances:

Matt.13 

[24] Another parable he put before them, saying, The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed (Greek, sperma) in his field;
[25] but while men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away.
[26] So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also.
[27] And the servants of the householder came and said to him, `Sir, did you not sow good seed (sperma) in your field? How then has it weeds?'
[28] He said to them, `An enemy has done this.' The servants said to him, `Then do you want us to go and gather them?'
[29] But he said, `No; lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them.
[30]  Let both grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.'

How does this define Jesus' world  view?  From v. 38, the field is the world.  The good sperma means the sons of the kingdom (v. 38).  This is an adequate definition because the sons of the kingdom are the whole object, and it is the good sperma that produces them. Jesus therefore views the world as a field in which to sow sperma that the sons of the kingdom may come forth.  The world exists to produce the sons of the kingdom.

We see two distinct but inseparable definitions of sperma here.  In v. 37, it applies directly to what is sown, the good seed.  In v. 38, it applies to the produce of the good seed, that is, the sons of the kingdom.  To avoid confusion it is necessary to note a distinction here.   The companion Parable of the Sower identifies the seed as follows:

Luke.8 

[11] Now the parable is this: The seed (sporos) is the word of God.

The Greek sporos means much the same as sperma except that there is more emphasis on the act of sowing than on what the seed produces.  In both of these parables, what is sown (the good seed) is exactly the same.   

But in the Parable of the Weeds, above, the good seed is identified as follows:

. . . the good seed (sperma) means the sons of the kingdom.

The identification differs.  Is the seed the word of God, or is it the sons of the kingdom?

The good seed (sperma) of the Parable of the Weeds is identified with the sons of the kingdom because, in that parable, the emphasis is on the produce of the seed.  But as noted above, it also represents the seed that is sown.  There is no good reason to define the actual seeds as being different in the two parables.  Both of the Greek words, sporos and sperma originate in the same word, speirein, meaning to sow.  

Therefore, in the Parable of the Weeds, the good seed that produces the sons of the kingdom is the word of God.  The Word of God, as specified by scripture, is equivalent to the Gospel of the Kingdom that Jesus brought into the world, revealing it by means of the utterances of his mouth.  His words are therefore the seeds (sperma) sowed into the field, which is the world.

This field (world) has a single purpose, which is to produce its harvest of the children of God (sons of the kingdom) at the close of the age.  The overall world view then combines the following actions:

1. The creation.  The world was/is being created by the Father for one purpose: to serve as the field.  This includes not only the material world, but the emplacement of human beings within it who are to receive the seed (Word).  

2. The preparation.  This involves the long evolutionary development of the world and the human beings to provide a suitable soil for the process, and spans the time from Adam to Jesus, and is equivalent to the clearing and tilling that a farmer performs on the soil to prepare it for the seed.

3. The sowing.  This is the process that Jesus began and that continues even now as his disciples maintain it from generation to generation, through preaching the Word of Jesus.

4. The growing.  This is the process equivalent to the history that began when Jesus' disciples received the Word and were thereby born from above and began to grow up in the world to mature plants.

5. The mowing.  The sole purpose of it all -- the harvest of the world!  At last, the sons of the kingdom are gathered, like wheat into a barn, into the Father house.

Now put this world view front and center and evaluate the purposes of Jesus and the Father in its light and things should come into focus for you as never before.  The entire process, absolutely everything consisting of the creation of the world and the evolution of human beings is the preparation for one thing: sowing the seed!  When the time was fulfilled, the Father sent Jesus into the world for a single specified purpose: to sow the seed.  Jesus brought the seed into the world with him when he entered, and his task was exclusively focussed on finding appropriate soil and there to sow the seed.

Therefore the seed is all important.  It must be protected, placed in fertile soil, nurtured, multiplied and everywhere emphasized.  Apart from this seed-centered process the entire project that incorporates the creation of the world, you, me, and everyone else throughout all history is a vain and lost cause.

Furthermore, the ultimate produce of the seed, which is the sons of the kingdom, is not to be left in the field (world) but is to be gathered into my barn.  The field is only a means to the end of providing children for the Father.  It is the place for the operation of a process, and when the process is complete -- when the children of God have appeared, matured and are ready for harvest -- the field, which is the world, is expendable.  

In this time when society is more and more utilizing disposable items, from paper napkins to trash bags to milk cartons, we should easily understand the significance of this and its implications for the world.  The disposable item, having served its intended purpose, is worthless and must be discarded.  Such is the destiny of the world, for it is disposable.
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The Heart

Having this concept of the world firmly set in our minds, we are now in a position to specify the significance of this word, kardia in the vocabulary of Jesus.  Just keep the pertinent values in mind also.  It is not the world that is of value in itself -- it is what the world can produce for the Father's barn.  This is utterly dependent on the proper placement of the seed (word) in good soil.  The field is the world, but more specifically it is the hearts of humans who compose the world.  The human heart is the soil.  When it is good soil, it receives the seed and reproduces it many times, the reproduction of the exact same seed. Jesus has pointed to this identification in his explanation of the Parable of the Sower:

Luke.8

[8]   And some fell into good soil and grew, and yielded a hundredfold.
[15] And as for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bring forth fruit with patience.

The Fruit

The seed that fell on good soil brings forth fruit (karpos).  A desired yield is a hundred fold!  

I was taught, by Christians who did not know, that this hundred fold is more Christians. This is not true.  Evangelicals prefer this definition because it provides a strong incentive to witness and win converts and, to be sure, each one win a hundred more would soon evangelize the world.  But this view eventually discloses the fundamental value set that fuels it from the outset, which places the world itself at the apex of values and seeks, by evangelization, to change the world and produce a paradise, all contrary to the world view of Jesus.

Remembering that the source of the fruit is the heart, what can we say as to the significance of "fruit" in the vocabulary of Jesus?  Listen!

Matt.12
[33] Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit.
[34] You brood of vipers! how can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
[35] The good man out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.
[36] I tell you, on the day of judgment men will render account for every careless word they utter;
[37] for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.

Luke.6
[43] For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit;
[44] for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thorns, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush.
[45] The good man out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure produces evil; for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

Matt.15
[19] For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander.

Mark.7
[21] For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery,
[22] coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.

So, it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.  It is the Logos, the Holy Words of Jesus, falling into the good and honest heart, that then brings forth fruit from that heart and out of that mouth, in a process described as, to repeat,  out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.  The hundred fold designation then must be a multiplier that applies to what went into the good soil (good and honest heart) at the first.

This is most reasonable.  If one sows wheat, one expects more wheat to be produced as the fruit of that seed.

And what was that seed?

It was the seed (sperma), or word (logos), of God as uttered by Jesus.

It is the testimony to the Logos that issues from the honest and good heart.  The hundred fold reproduction is the hundred fold repetition of the Logos in the world.  This is the good fruit produced by the good soil, the good fruit reproduced from the good seed.  I do not at all suggest that we are to count the times we have witnessed and stop at one hundred.  This expression is nothing more than a multiplier that represents a large but reasonable reproduction of the Logos.  The disciples are charged to reproduce the Word for as long as we abide in this world.  It is this Logos that comes from the honest and good heart.

Jesus also listed other fruits of the heart, such things, from an evil heart, as evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery,  coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. If one thinks about these a bit, one can see that they also involve the production of words -- as required to secure or promote the evil thoughts, the fornication, the theft, etc.  It is with the evil as with the good -- out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

These words of Jesus define fruit, as it appears in his vocabulary here, as the Word of God uttered (sowed) in the world by Jesus.  He sows the Word in the good and honest heart, and out of that comes, multiplied thirty, sixty, and a hundred times, that same Word bearing witness in the world.  The Lord expects -- requires -- his disciples to reproduce his gospel in the world exactly as he first introduced it.  The Father sent him into the World to sow the Word; how he is gone to the Father but it is our responsibility and high privilege, as his disciples, to resow the fields again and again so that the Word will never perish from the earth.  This is the definition of fruit to apply in the allegory of the vine in John 15, where we read:

[1] I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine dresser.
[2] Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
[6] If a man does not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned.

Two Aspects of the Fruit

There are then two intimately related applications of "fruit" in the Logos.  It is, first, the reproduction of the Word in the world through sowing and resowing it in the hearing and hearts of men.  But we have seen, in the Parable of the Tares above, that in the world view of Jesus the world serves the single function of producing children for the Father in heaven.  Ultimately then, these children are the fruit produced in heaven according to the will of the Father.  They constitute the harvest that the Father desires to receive from the world.  The plan was for the nation of Israel to be the first to produce this fruit in heaven, but they had utterly failed, and Jesus came, first to seek to make them to be fruitful through the Word.  Jesus defines this as his task in the Parable of the unfruitful fig tree:

Luke.13
[6] And he told this parable: A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came seeking fruit on it and found none.
[7] And he said to the vinedresser, `Lo, these three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down; why should it use up the ground?'
[8] And he answered him, `Let it alone, sir, this year also, till I dig about it and put on manure.
[9] And if it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'

The Father wanted children as the fruit of his Word in Israel; they rejected the Word and were soon cut down. 

The intimate relation of these two definitions of the fruit in the vocabulary of Jesus is obvious, is it not?  The one is the earthly fruit of the planting; the other is the heavenly fruit of the harvest.

I can go back to my farm childhood and see these two ideas jump out at me in the annual experience of the farm cycle.  Charles Penn Jones, that good man who stood in the place of the Father in this metaphor, was most concerned about the result twice during the cycle.  The first time was immediately after the planting, and his first desire was to get "a good stand."  If the seed did not "come up" all the effort was wasted, thus -- the earthly fruit of the planting. Then followed the tilling (digging about it) and the putting on of manure (literally).  Then it was "laid by" and he earnestly hoped it would produce.  When it did produce, this was the heavenly fruit of the harvest, because it was gathered and taken away from the earth that produced it.  But the earthly fruit comes first, and it produces the heavenly fruit.  Without it, there is no heavenly fruit and the world does not produce children for the Father's Glory.


Conclusion

To summarize this discussion of the heart and the fruit: the seed is the Word of God as delivered to the earth by Jesus and sowed.  The heart, the honest and good heard, is the good soil which reproduces the Word in the world many times after it has heard and received the Word.  This is the earthly fruit of the planting.  Then comes the harvest at the end of the age, on the Last Day, when the fruit will be gathered into the Father's barn -- heaven, to be glorified as He is glorified!  That is the heavenly fruit of the harvest.