What does the Bible say about karma?

God's government is in contrast to His counsels. This government is associated with man's responsibility and exists from the beginning of his history. It was first manifested in Eden where man, innocent but responsible, disobeyed and was driven from the garden and made subject to death. From that moment on, God's government continues to function toward man who is responsible to conduct himself in this world in a way conformable to the righteousness, holiness, and goodness of his Creator who rewards the good and punishes the wicked. On the other hand, doubtless, He makes His sun shine on the just and on the unjust, for He is a God of goodness who, rather than desiring the death of the sinner, leads him to repentance by His longsuffering and patience. Nonetheless it is true that men's wicked actions bring their own consequences, generally already here on earth for themselves, and often for their children to the third or fourth generation. But they are not to be judged on earth, the final word of God's judgment will be pronounced at the last judgment.

God's government is in contrast to His counsels. This government is associated with man's responsibility and exists from the beginning of his history. It was first manifested in Eden where man, innocent but responsible, disobeyed and was driven from the garden and made subject to death. From that moment on, God's government continues to function toward man who is responsible to conduct himself in this world in a way conformable to the righteousness, holiness, and goodness of his Creator who rewards the good and punishes the wicked. On the other hand, doubtless, He makes His sun shine on the just and on the unjust, for He is a God of goodness who, rather than desiring the death of the sinner, leads him to repentance by His longsuffering and patience. Nonetheless it is true that men's wicked actions bring their own consequences, generally already here on earth for themselves, and often for their children to the third or fourth generation. But should they are not be judged on earth, the final word of God's judgment will be pronounced at the last judgment.

Further, providence is not the subject of prophecy. By providence I mean the ordering of the course of all things by divine power, in such sort that all results which happen in the world are according to the divine purpose and will. Often inscrutable to us in its reasons and even the means it employs, and leaving the government of God obscure, still it is certain to faith, and that by which it remains true that God is not mocked - what a man sows this will he reap. Faith will recognise the hand of God in many things, and believes it in everything; but to the world all of it is hidden. Certain principles, universal with God in their application, by this means are verified, as "righteousness exalteth a nation." The men of this world see nothing of the bearing of the moral causes on the effect, or, if they do see the causes, the result issuing thence is that they ascribe the effect to them, and God is shut out. His immediate action and government is excluded. Now the subjects of prophecy are the contrary of this. The public products of God, coming in in power, are revealed. They are either the day of the Lord, or the characteristic results which bring it about - a judgment which man has to acknowledge as of God. Now it is evident that the day of the Lord, properly speaking, closes the history of this world; it is the opposite of that secret course of government which is carried on, and from the checks of which the pride of man rises again to pursue his course of evil. When God sets to His hand, the proud helpers do stoop under Him.

Verses 7, 8. "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," etc. The frequency of the Spirit's warnings against deception, both of ourselves and as the dupes of Satan's emissaries, is truly remarkable, and should be taken well to heart. One thing at least is certain: God is not mocked. Though once utterly derided by the wise and prudent of this world in the person of His Son, God cannot be permanently set at nought. He is a God of knowledge, and by Him actions are weighed, with results to be declared openly in due time. For He will mete to every man according to his work. Moreover, in the counsels of His wisdom, men are themselves their own judges and the requiters of themselves. What men sow they must inevitably also reap, sparingly or bountifully, grief or joy, according to the manner of their husbandry. If, like the apostle, they go forth weeping, bearing precious seed, and sow beside all waters in the spirit of unflagging faith and love, they will reap fruit to life eternal at the coming day. No kind of labour in the Lord is vain, and the life here below is our sole opportunity of winning or losing in the things of God. We may sow to our flesh, seeking with an ill-bestowed diligence our own, with corruption for our harvest. Labouring only for the meat that perishes, and careful overmuch about the things of time, we shall find that not only is the labour lost which we bestow on vanity, but with it also the precious occasion of true spiritual gain. To regard what men call their own interests, and regulate our course of life with a chief reference to these, is wisdom and prudence in the estimation of the world, but folly and wasting in the sight of God. We lose our life by seeking it; we find it when we lose it for Christ's sake. To seek first God's kingdom and His righteousness is to secure for ourselves a double blessing; since godliness has promise both of this life and of that which is to come (Matt. 6:33; 1 Tim. 4:8). To perform grudgingly, and without the warmth of love, such duties only as are felt by the conscience to be necessary to its peace, is still to be sowing to our flesh. God owns no other work than that of faith, and accepts no motive of His children's acts but love.

The apostle goes on to show that saints in their walk on the earth are as subject to the general principles of the government of God as any. "Be not deceived God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. 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" (vers. 7, 8). Our souls are apt to forget this, and to act as if because subjects of grace, we are free from responsibility. In no wise. Grace can never be forfeited every believer will infallibly be carried safely through the wilderness and presented in glory; but on the road the unchangeable principles of God's government touch us even as others. Flesh is not to be indulged: they that are Christ's have crucified it with its passions and lusts. It is to be treated as an evil thing — neither place nor quarter is to be given to it. This is our solemn responsibility all the way along.

"Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap." The sin of sowing weeds may be forgiven, but the reaping must be according to the sowing. The former is grace, the latter is government. Each acts in its own sphere, and neither interferes with the other. The lustre of the grace and the dignity of the government are both divine. David was permitted to tread the courts of the sanctuary as a subject of grace (2 Sam. 12:20) ere he was called to climb the rugged sides of mount Olivet as a subject of government (2 Sam. 15:30); and we may safely assert that David's heart never had a deeper sense of divine grace than at the very time in which he was experiencing the righteous action of divine government.

Read this second chapter carefully. Follow it out for yourself, and note how God seeks to get at the conscience as well as the heart. "Hast thou not procured this to thyself, in that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, when he led thee by the way?" (ver. 17). All that came upon them was the fruit of their own doing. "Be not deceived: God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap. For he that sows to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that sows to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting" (Gal. 6:7-8). We cannot sow a handful of seed without the necessary crop which that seed produces coming up. If sorrow and trial come, what is it? it is the fruit of some seed that we have sown, years and. years ago, when we were away from the Lord. If I have returned to Him now, I may be wondering what harvest I am reaping, but I must not forget that I have sown the seed.

He enters now upon the subject, which this opens, of divine government, a thing which is not, as we know, in the slightest contradiction with divine grace. These are things which are sometimes put as if in some sense contrary to one another; but, on the other hand, the government of God for us is expressly a Father's government, while it is, none the less, that of One who, without respect of persons, judgeth according to every man's work. This is, of course, a thing of the present, not of the future. The future judgment, whether with regard to saint or sinner, is in the hands of Christ. "God hath committed all judgment to Him because He is the Son of Man," but there is a government which is, none the less, the government of grace, because it is one absolutely intolerant of evil. We may repeat again that the toleration of evil is never grace. It would be a perversion of the very thought of grace to imagine this. "Be not deceived," he says, therefore, "God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap, for he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption and he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." These are principles of absolute necessity. Nothing can alter them. If a man sows a certain seed, he knows, or he should know, that he can get of that seed nothing but what is proper to it. If a man sows to his flesh, he sows, in fact, the corruption which he reaps. The very principle of self-will which must, of necessity, be in it, is a principle which is essentially that of sin. Every form of sin will come under this, and God may allow, in fact, such seed to come to harvest, in order that we may recognize its character, as we otherwise would not do. In the opposite way to that of the man who, bearing good seed, goes forth even weeping, but returns with joy, a man in this way may sow his seed rejoicing, but it will be the return that will be sorrowful. It does not follow that God cannot come in and deliver us from what would otherwise be the necessary fruit of such sowing, if only there be the true self-judgment of it in the soul; for to a Christian, the reaping of it is but in order to self-judgment, and if we will judge it first, there may be no need of reaping at all. Judge it first or last we surely must, or the thing will develop for what it is and be manifest, not to ourselves alone it may be, but to others also. On the other hand, "He that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." Blessed and wonderful reaping! The life is looked at here, of course, in its practical character, in its fruits and activities. The life itself, the life which produces this, is no matter of reaping at all, it is what we must have to be Christians. Nevertheless, we can reap it as a practical thing, and the witness of it is that, even though reaped here upon earth, it is something which has eternity in it. All that which in us here is the fruit of the divine work has necessarily its link with eternity. It is for eternity that we are preparing. There is not even just that sharp division between the present and the future for us which we are apt so to imagine. It is eternity that God has before Him, it is the things eternal with which we are conversant day by day. It is eternity, therefore, that imprints its character upon the present. It is the life everlasting which we live practically now, and let us not then, says the apostle, be "weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not." The path is through a world of trial, and therefore, though in itself all well doing has its own delight, yet the opposition to it from the world through which we pass will surely give us need of such an encouragement as this. "As we have, therefore, opportunity, let us do good unto all men, but especially," he adds, "unto them who are of the household of faith." This ends very much the practical test which he has been making of the two principles which we have seen in opposition all the way through the epistle. All the way through it is a controversy, and one from which we need not expect to escape while we are here. God's principles lead into conflict, and, alas, not merely with the men of the world, but, it may be, as here, with the children of God themselves.

The apostle then returns to the fundamental principle of the Christian walk. It is not a law given to a nature which always, by its very nature, resists the law: it is a power which works in a new life, the Spirit given to those who believe on the Lord Jesus. The government of God ensures the consequences which flow from the walk. God does not allow Himself to be mocked; "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." "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." The path of sin and the path of the Spirit, in which the true Christian walks, both infallibly lead to the ends which suit each - the path of the flesh to corruption, even in this life; the way of the Spirit to life eternal.

One thing more we must notice before we leave "the harvest," is that we may always expect to reap more than we sow. We read in the gospels of those who reaped some "a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold" (Matt. 13:8). This is true whether the seed be good or bad, and whether the ground be good or bad. Jacob deceived his old father and stole his brother's birthright. That was bad sowing, but he did not expect the harvest he received. Laban deceived him about his wife, and he had to work another seven years in order to win her. Nor was this all the harvest. Laban changed his wages ten times in his efforts to cheat him. That was only part of the harvest. He had twenty years of bitter labor in Syria. Then his own sons deceived him about Joseph, and he spent twenty-two years in bitter sorrow, mourning him as dead. This was part of the harvest of his own sowing. David committed adultery with Bathsheba, but he never expected the harvest would come as it did; his own son defiled his sister. David murdered Bathsheba's husband, but he never expected the harvest this brought; his son Ammon was murdered by his brother, his baby died, and his son Absalom was killed in battle, without the hope of ever seeing him again in the world to come. And finally Solomon the king puts his older brother to death for what was really conspiracy. Yes, reader, we reap more than we sow, and we reap that very thing we sow. These are most solemn thoughts, and should make us every one "consider" our "ways" (Hag. 1:5, 7). Even by a thought we may sow to the flesh. How many books, pictures and magazines in these days sow to the flesh, and will bring forth a harvest unto corruption. "Consider your ways!"