What does it mean to sow to the Spirit (Galatians 6:8)?

To sow to the flesh is to cater for it and its desires. To sow to the Spirit is to yield to Him His place, and lay oneself out for His things. If the former, we reap corruption. If the latter, eternal life. The corruption comes from the flesh. Eternal life, from the Spirit. In both cases it is just the proper outcome of what is sown; as normal as it is to obtain a field of thistles from the sowing of thistledown, or wheat from the sowing of wheat.

That we reap in quantity as we sow 2 Corinthians 9:6 states, whereas this scripture emphasises the former consideration. If we "sow to the flesh," that is, indulge the desires of the flesh and follow its bent and cater for its gratification, we reap its corruption. If we "sow to the Spirit," that is, yield to all those thoughts and desires of which the Spirit of God within us is the source, we reap life everlasting.

Everlasting life, be it remembered, does not only mean a new life within us of which God is the source, and the duration of which is eternal, but it also covers all those blessed relationships, all that communion, and all those joys in which the life expands and expresses itself. If it did only mean the new life within us which we possess as born again, then indeed we might quote this passage to prove that we gain new birth as the result of something which we can do. Rather the life is ours by the gift of God, and we reap the enjoyment of the relationships and communion, which is the life according to this verse, as we sow to the Spirit who is the energising power of life. It is life in the practical and experimental sense, the sense in which men use the word when they talk of "seeing life" in the world.

This practical side of things is summed up for us in Galatians 6:7 and 8, under the figure of "sowing" and "reaping." Our thoughts, our words, and our actions are viewed as so many acts of seed sowing. All depends on whether we sow to the flesh or to the Spirit, i.e., whether the tendency and intent and end of our sowing is to the gratification of the cravings of the flesh or of the desires of the Spirit. This it is which determines the character of our sowing, and consequently the character of the reaping.

It is, of course, true that we reap as we sow as to quantity. 2 Corinthians 9:6 emphasises this side of the question. "He which sows sparingly shall reap also sparingly, and he which sows bountifully shall reap also bountifully." Our Scripture is enforcing the truth that as surely as God is God, we reap as we sow as to character or kind. We cannot sow one kind and reap another kind. There is no such thing as "transmutation of species" in the material creation, though evolutionary philosophers have eagerly sought it. Men cannot sow thistles and reap wheat, or cockle and have a harvest of barley. Neither is there transmutation of species in the spiritual realm. If we sow to the gratification of the flesh we reap corruption, always corruption, and nothing but corruption. If we sow to the Spirit we reap everlasting life. Let us not deceive ourselves on this point, for we are apt to do so, as the apostle's warning implies.

Flesh and corruption are thus inseparably connected as cause and effect. This has been true as to man's physical flesh ever since the fall. His flesh then became mortal flesh with corruption as its inevitable end. It became equally true of his moral condition and nature which is "the flesh" in the passage we are considering. Its workings always issue in moral and spiritual corruption. The "old man" is "corrupt, according to the deceitful lusts" (Eph. 4:22), and so deceitful are its lusts that what appears to be the most intellectual and refined philosophic speculation may really be the wanderings of human minds that are controlled by the lusts, that is, the desires, of the flesh. Such persons just end by thinking what they want to think; and all the corruption which fills the world to-day originates in thought: words and actions follow after.

The world then is full of corruption, but how solemn for us believers to think that whenever we pander to the flesh and its desires we lay up for ourselves a harvest of corruption, and that the amount of our sowing in that direction will determine the quantity of the harvest. We may rejoice that these principles are equally true if we turn to the other side, if we sow to the Spirit.

To some of our readers it may appear strange that the term "everlasting life" should be given as the antithesis of "corruption"; and the very idea of everlasting life being "reaped" by anyone as the fruit of a previous sowing may appear to be difficult of explanation; and more difficult and remarkable still that all this should be addressed to believers. Such may ask if this passage does not contradict those statements as to eternal life being the portion of the believer which are found in the Gospel of John.

Galatians 6:7-9, may help to answer this. Our lives in a practical way are made up of sowing and reaping. It is as though we go forth each day with a seed basket on either side of us. We may put our hand into the basket of the flesh on that side and sow to the flesh, or into the basket of the Spirit on this side and sow to the Spirit: that is we may be yielding to the things which merely gratify the flesh, and so scatter the seeds of the flesh, or we may give ourselves to the things of the Spirit, and sow seeds that will be fruitful to His glory.

This is not something that God does for us, but what we do ourselves. All day long we are doing it in one or other of these two directions. In which direction does our choice lie? Into which basket are we continually placing our hand? The resolute refusal of the one, and the cultivation of the other, is the secret. That is the way to set about it.

No one can sow to the Spirit save he who has the Spirit; that is, is a true believer. Having the Spirit, and indeed having eternal life in the sense of John 5:24, we reap eternal life as the proper consequence of cultivating the things of the Spirit of God. This verse plainly sets "eternal life" before us not as the life by which we live, but as the life we live. As we cultivate the things of the Spirit we lay hold of and enjoy all those blessings, those relationships, that communion with the Father and the Son, in which life consists from the practical and experimental side of things.

The things we are occupied with are the things that govern our lives and produce either a crop for God or contrariwise, something that is of no value, and so Paul says, 'Brethren, do not let us be debtors to the flesh, let us apply our lives to sowing to the Spirit, give the Spirit of God the opportunity to produce in our lives the things that are pleasurable to God'.

In the previous chapter we are told about the fruit of the Spirit, "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance". What a lovely crop this is. I believe these things can be produced in our lives as we sow to the Spirit, that is, as we allow the Spirit in our lives to produce these things. There are none of the things we were reading about this afternoon, no birds who come and snatch away the seed, no rocky ground, the weeds or the shrubs, which prevent the seed from growing, all these things are the production of the flesh. However, if all these things are cleared away from our lives we allow the Spirit of God to produce in us those features of Christ, features that are so pleasurable to God. Let us be sure, dear young Christians, that early in our lives we apply ourselves to sowing to the Spirit and avoid like the plague sowing to the flesh. Sowing to the flesh will never produce anything in your life that will help you as a Christian and will never produce anything in your life for God, you will never be like Isaac reaping a hundred fold, you will never be one who in any way will stand for God. Sow to the Spirit, make sure that the things that you sow are pure and clean and wholesome and upright before God, and you will produce these features that we have been reading of, features of peace and love and uprightness and temperance against which there is no law.

Yes, and the contemplation of them will make us very thankful that we are not in the flesh but in the Spirit. The works set forth what the Adam life is in its sinful development; "the fruit" shows what the life of Christ is, and we by grace have been transferred from Adam to Christ. We are "in Christ," and by the Spirit may now bring forth this fruit; It is the natural development of the new life. The cross settles the flesh and all its claims over us and the Spirit brings forth the fruit, and develops the new life. Only we must walk in the Spirit; we must give our minds to His things, and this calls for patience and endurance, which is implied in sowing to the Spirit. We must set ourselves for the fruit; it we make provision for the flesh, or sow to the flesh, we reap corruption, distress of mind, a bad conscience, loss of peace, misery; but as we sow to the Spirit, life everlasting, the liberty and joy that goes with the knowledge of God, and the fruitfulness that that knowledge produces. But it can only be by the Holy Spirit's leading. He only is the Christian's power for true Christian living. Therefore "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed to the day of redemption."

The above instructions require a spirit of grace in which to be fulfilled. Yet, they are instructions, not merely suggestions as to which we may form our own opinion. "Let him" in verse 6 is not the legal demand, "You shall," but it is God's strong encouragement to respond to His grace, as seen beautifully in 2 Corinthians 8:9: "You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich." One who learns the truth of God from another is responsible to respond in turn with whatever help he may give the teacher, particularly if the teacher's time is devoted to the ministry of the Word. It is most serious here that the apostle warns that God is not mocked, and people will reap what they sow (v.7). The believer is addressed here not the unbeliever, though the principle is all-inclusive: anyone walking in independence of, and disobedience to God, is sowing to the flesh and the sad reaping will come in due time. The sowing here directly refers to the use of our possessions. Compare 2 Corinthians 9:5-10. Are we using for God that which He has given us? We are not to expect recognition for it in the world, for we are to give as to God, seeking only His approval, not because we look for a reward, but desire only to please Him.

We may sow to our flesh in a religious as well as in a secular sense. The Galatians were doing so while desiring to be under law. But in its commoner intention, it is a general expression for all plans or purposes which expect results only in this present life. To live here for the morrow is the instinct of our old nature, which in the midst whether of toil or pleasure is still hoping for an increase of the fruits which gratify its own foolish and hurtful lusts. Sowing to the Spirit is impossible without a corresponding denial of the flesh, since these things are contraries; and to seek God's things we must begin by letting go our own. But the main point of this passage concerns the right or wrong disposal of that which is already in our hands. Our time, Our strength, our money, our faculty or means, must be devoted to some uses, good or bad. The soul that lives consciously beneath the Father's eye will pass the time of its sojourning here with fear, as well as in abiding peace and joy (1 Peter 1:17). It is, above all, important to remember that unreal piety is a thing even more offensive to God than spiritual slothfulness. His eye is on every heart, and He observes and notes the difference between a sleeping and a waking saint. But that He is not mocked is the emphatic declaration here, an expression which applies with equal propriety to a positive contempt of His commandment, or to an insincere though apparent observance of His will. Scoffers will find this to be true, when the hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him will awake at last the slumbering vengeance of the Lord. False and empty lip-service will be also silenced and condemned, in the presence of Him who comes to put a final difference between them that truly serve Him, and such as, with His name and praises in their mouth, still give their hearts to that which He abhors. The value also of the work of His true servants will be searched and found by the same burning ordeal of His presence. What need, then, on all our parts, of thoughtfulness and sobriety of mind, of reverential fear and self-distrust, of circumspection and humility, of simplicity and godly sincerity, of meekness and poverty of spirit, that the work of our hands may be prospered on ourselves, and cause us neither shame nor loss in the surely and soon-coming day of recompences!

Our life down here is a time of sowing, and as Christians we can either sow to the flesh or to the Spirit. It is a natural law that what is sown is reaped: and the spiritual law is "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" (Gal. 6:8). Sowing to the flesh is simply to be engaged with the things of the flesh; finding gratification in the pursuit of natural things. There is no true satisfaction in natural things, and for us they are all utterly destroyed when death comes.