If created life comes from God and redeemed life is accomplished in Christ, then new spiritual life is applied by the Holy Spirit.

Jesus says:

“That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” (John 3:6)

Flesh cannot produce spirit. The old life cannot generate the new life. Religious behavior cannot replace regeneration. Moral discipline cannot create spiritual birth. A person must be born of the Spirit.

This truth humbles human pride. The new birth is not self-improvement. It is not psychological adjustment. It is not moral decoration added to the old self. It is a new life given by the Holy Spirit.

The Christian life also continues by the Spirit. Paul writes:

“If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:25)

The same Spirit who gives life also guides life. The same Spirit who regenerates also sanctifies. The same Spirit who unites the believer to Christ also forms Christlike character in the believer.

This is why Christian virtues are called “the fruit of the Spirit”:

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” (Galatians 5:22–23)

Fruit is not manufactured by the branch apart from the root. Fruit grows because life flows from the source. Likewise, Christian character is not self-produced spirituality. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control are the life of God manifested in the believer through the Holy Spirit.

This does not make the believer passive. Rather, it places human effort in the correct order. We strive, but we strive by grace. We obey, but we obey by the Spirit. We bear fruit, but the life that produces the fruit comes from God.

BTT calls us to preserve this distinction: the Spirit is the source of holy life; the believer is the living field in which that life bears fruit.