Galatians 6:8
6 Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things.
7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
8 For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.
9 And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.
10 As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.
The apostle amplifies the figure in the 8th verse, — “For he that soweth to his flesh (ὁ σπείρων εἰς τὴν σάρκα ἑαυτοῦ), shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit (ὁ σπείρων εἰς τὸ πνεῦμα), shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.”
In explaining figurative language, the first thing to be done is to endeavour to form a distinct idea of the figure which the author employs. We must understand what is the illustration before we can apprehend its force as an illustration. In the passage before us, “the flesh” and “the Spirit” seem to be represented as two fields, producing very different crops when cultivated.* He who cultivates the field of “the flesh” has a harvest of “corruption;” he who cultivates the field of “the Spirit” has a harvest of “life everlasting.”
For a man to “sow to his flesh,” and to cultivate the field of “the flesh,” is the same thing as “to live after the flesh” — “to walk after the flesh” — to “do the works of the flesh” — to “fulfil the desires of the flesh.” “The flesh” is just human nature unchanged by Divine influence — the mode of thinking and feeling which is natural to man. The man who is characterised by any of the enormities mentioned in the close of the fifth chapter of this epistle, is one who “sows to the flesh;” but he is not the only cultivator of the field “which bringeth forth nothing but briars and thorns, and the end of which is that it shall be burned.” The man who is entirely occupied with sensible and present things, though he should not be what is ordinarily termed immoral — nay, the man who is strictly honest, and honourable, and punctiliously religious, so far as external morality and religion go, — who yet does not look at “things unseen and eternal,” that man, too, sows in the flesh.
And both of these classes of cultivators of this field which the Lord has cursed, shall reap the same kind of harvest. Both shall “reap corruption.” “To reap corruption” is a phrase which, had we met with it by itself, we should have said naturally signifies to obtain, as the result of our exertions, that which is corruptible and perishable. In this light it is strikingly true of the man who sows in the flesh. Let him be as successful as his heart can desire in the attainment of the pleasures, honours, and wealth of the world, what has he got? nothing but corruption. Short-lived, transitory, perishing are the leading characters of all things natural and earthly. But when we notice that “corruption” is contrasted with “life everlasting,” and we compare the passage before us with the passage in the Epistle to the Romans 8:13, with which it is obviously parallel. “If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live,” we cannot doubt that “corruption” is here equivalent to death or misery — the second death, ever-lasting misery. ‘The man who cultivates the field of the flesh shall find his labours end in his own ruin; a carnal life, whether spent in the grossest pollutions of open and unrestrained profanity, or in the strictest observances of a merely worldly religion and morality, must end in the destruction of the soul.’
As he who cultivates the field of the flesh shall have a harvest of everlasting ruin, so he who cultivates the field of the Spirit, who “sows in the Spirit,” shall have a harvest of everlasting happiness. “The Spirit,” as opposed to the flesh, is the new mode of thinking and feeling produced by the Holy Spirit, through the instrumentality of the gospel, understood and believed. To sow in the Spirit — to cultivate this field — is just to use the appointed means of improving and perfecting this new mode of thinking and feeling, the yielding ourselves up to its influence, the following it out to its fair results on our behaviour. He sows in the Spirit who “lives by the faith of the Son of God,” and abounds in all those holy dispositions and habits, which are enumerated in the end of the preceding chapter, as “the fruits of the Spirit.” Such a person shall have a harvest of everlasting bliss and happiness will be the result of his having sown to the Spirit.
The language of the apostle in both clauses deserves attention, and is very instructive. He who sows in the field of the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption. He who sows in the field of the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. That very corrupted nature which the one has indulged shall be the source of his misery — the various carnal dispositions which he has cherished shall be, as it were, the fiends which shall torment him for ever. Lust, avarice, ambition, reigning with unabated, perhaps increased, force in the soul, while no means of gratifying them in any degree are afforded, must make the irreclaimably wicked inconceivably miserable in their final state. I do not deny, I do not even doubt, that in the regions of final punishment there are direct inflictions of wrath from the hand of a righteously offended divinity; but it surely deserves notice that, in very many passages of Scripture, the misery of the irreclaimably impenitent is represented as the native, necessary, result of their own conduct. The whole economy of God’s moral government would need to be altered, the constituent principles of man’s nature would need to be changed, before those who live and die “carnal” can be really happy in another world.
On the other hand, He who cultivates the field of the Spirit, shall of that Spirit reap life everlasting. That new and better mode of thinking and feeling which he has carefully cherished shall be to him the source of everlasting happiness. It shall be to him “a well of living water springing up to everlasting life.” We are too apt to think of final happiness as something quite distinct from that holy frame of feeling and thought to which the gospel, as “the ministration of the Spirit,” forms the human soul, while in reality it is just the perfection of it. Holiness is heaven. The spiritual mind — the mind of the Spirit (τὸ φρόνημα τοῦ πνεύματος) — the mode of thinking and feeling produced by the Holy Spirit through the belief of the truth — not only leads to, but is “life and peace.” We should not look on the cultivation of the Christian, the spiritual, character as in itself a hard, disagreeable task, by which — for which — we are at last to be compensated with an exceedingly great reward in heaven; but we ought to consider every attainment as bringing its own reward with it, every spiritual view, every spiritual feeling, as a part of the heavenly felicity. The Spirit is the “earnest” of the inheritance. It is a part of a whole — the beginning of what is to be perfected in eternity. The Christian is not like a labourer in the mines, who must look to the upper regions for nourishment and support, and who cannot turn to immediate use the results of his toilsome operation; but, like the agriculturist, all who labour goes directly to the production of what is nourishing, and who is supported by the very same kind of material as that in the cultivation of which he is engaged. Every just view of Christian truth — every holy disposition — is a source of enjoyment opened to the Christian in this waste and howling wilderness; and it is perfect knowledge and perfect holiness which form “the river of life, clear as crystal, issuing forth from beneath the throne of God and of the Lamb,” along whose banks all the nations of the saved repose, “and drink their fill of its pure immortal streams.”
The passage which we have attempted to illustrate is considered by many interpreters as having a particular reference to the disposal of pecuniary substance. They understand the apostle as saying, he who expends his money in gratifying the flesh shall have a poor return — he shall purchase to himself nothing but ruin; but he who lays it out in accordance with the views and desires of a spiritual mind, that man shall be richly compensated in the treasures of eternity. This is no doubt a truth; but we do not apprehend that the words of the apostle so much embody that truth as the more general one which we have illustrated, and which implies this particular truth as well as a thousand others of the same kind.
— John Brown of Edinburgh (1784-1858)
* It is well remarked by Schott, “σάρξ et πνεῦμα comparantur agris qui conseruntur, frugesque proferunt diversissimas indoli seminis convenientes.” He adds, “Non dixerim cum Ruckerto imaginem seminis jam prorsus cedere imagini agrorum: solent quippe pro varia agrorum indole diversa seminum genera adhiberi.” Ruckert, notwithstanding, is right. To mix the two figures produces inextricable confusion. To “sow in,” is just equivalent to “cultivate.”
