CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
Galatians 6:6. Communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things.—Go shares with him in the good things of this life. While each bears his own burden he must think of others, especially in ministering out of his earthly goods to the wants of his spiritual teacher (see 2 Corinthians 11:7; 2 Corinthians 11:11; Philippians 4:10; 1 Thessalonians 2:6; 1 Thessalonians 2:9; 1 Timothy 5:17-18).
Galatians 6:7. God is not mocked.—The verb means to sneer with the nostrils drawn up in contempt. Excuses for illiberality may seem valid before men, but are not so before God.
Galatians 6:8. He that soweth to his flesh.—Unto his own flesh, which is devoted to selfishness. Shall reap corruption.—Destruction, which is not an arbitrary punishment of fleshly-mindedness, but is its natural fruit; the corrupt flesh producing corruption, which is another word for destruction. Corruption is the fault, and corruption the punishment.
Galatians 6:9. Let us not be weary: we shall reap, if we faint not.—“Weary” refers to the will; “faint” to relaxation of the powers. No one should faint, as in an earthly harvest sometimes happens.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Galatians 6:6-10
Moral Sowing and Reaping.
I. Beneficence by the taught towards the teacher is sowing good seed.—“Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things” (Galatians 6:6). The good things referred to, though not confined to temporal good, do certainly mean that. While every man must bear his own burden, he must also help to bear the burden of his brother. Especially must the taught go shares with his spiritual teacher in all things necessary. But beneficence shown towards the minister in temporalities is the least, and with many the easiest, part of the duty. Teacher and taught should mutually co-operate with each other in Christian work, and share with each other in spiritual blessings. The true minister of the gospel is more concerned in eliciting the co-operation and sympathy of the members of his Church than in securing their temporal support. If he faithfully ministers to them in spiritual things, they should be eager to minister unto him of their worldly substance, and to aid him in promoting the work of God. Every good deed, done in the spirit of love and self-sacrifice, is sowing good seed.
II. By the operation of unchanging divine law the reaping will correspond to the kind of seed sown and the nature of the soil into which it is cast.—“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh,” etc. (Galatians 6:7-8). Men may wrong each other, but they cannot cheat God. To expect God to sow His bounties upon them, and not to let Him reap their gratitude and service, is mockery. But it is not God they deceive; they deceive themselves. For at last every one shall reap as he sows. The use made of our seed-time determines exactly, and with a moral certainty greater even than that which rules in the natural field, what kind of fruitage our immortality will render. Eternity for us will be the multiplied, consummate outcome of the good or evil of the present life. Hell is just sin ripe—rotten ripe. Heaven is the fruitage of righteousness. “He that soweth to his own flesh reaps corruption”—the moral decay and dissolution of the man’s being. This is the natural retributive effect of his carnality. The selfish man gravitates downward into the sensual man; the sensual man downward into the bottomless pit. “He that soweth to the Spirit reaps life everlasting.” The sequence is inevitable. Like breeds its like. Life springs of life, and death eternal is the culmination of the soul’s present death to God and goodness. The future glory of the saints is at once a divine reward and a necessary development of their present faithfulness (Findlay, passim).
III. Sowing the seed of good deeds should be prosecuted with unwearied perseverance.—
1. Because the harvest is sure to follow. “Let us not be weary in well-doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not” (Galatians 6:9). Here is encouragement for the wearied, baffled worker. We have all our moments of despondency and disappointment, and are apt to imagine our labours are futile and all our painstaking useless. Not so. We are confounding the harvest with the seed-time. “In due season”—in God’s time, which is the best time—“we shall reap, if we faint not.” Our heavenly harvest lies in every earnest and faithful deed, as the oak with its centuries of growth and all its summer glory sleeps in the acorn-cup, as the golden harvest slumbers in the seeds under their covering of wintry snow.
2. Because the opportunity of doing good is ever present.—“As we have opportunity let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith” (Galatians 6:10). The whole of life is our opportunity, and every day brings its special work. Opportunity is never to seek; it is ever present. There is not a moment without a duty. While we are looking for a more convenient opportunity we lose the one that is nearest to us. As members of the household of faith there is ever work enough to do—work that fits us to do good on a wider scale—“unto all men.” True zeal for the Church broadens rather than narrows our charities. Household affection is the nursery, not the rival, of love to our fatherland and to humanity.
Lessons.—
1. Our present life is the seed-time of an eternal harvest.
2. The quality of the future harvest depends entirely on the present sowing.
3. God Himself is the Lord of the moral harvest.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Galatians 6:6. Pastors and People.
I. It is the duty of the people to give their pastors not only countenance but maintenance.
II. It is the law of nations, and a conclusion grounded on common equity, that those who spend themselves, as a candle, to give light to others and for the common good of all, should be maintained of the common stock by all.
III. Every calling is able to maintain them that live therein, therefore we may not think that the ministry, the highest calling, should be so base or barren as that it cannot maintain them that attend thereupon.
IV. Ministers are the Lord’s soldiers, captains, and standard-bearers, and therefore are not to go a warfare at their own cost.
V. Ministers are to give themselves wholly to the building of the Church and to the fighting of the Lord’s battles. Therefore they are to have their pay that they may attend upon their calling without distraction.
VI. It is the ordinance of God that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel.—Ministers should be liberally provided for, yet with moderation, that they draw not all men’s wealth into their purses. He that would live of the gospel must teach the gospel. A benefit requires a duty, and diligence in that duty.—Perkins.
Ministerial Maintenance.—
1. Seeing Christ’s ministers are to bestow themselves wholly in the work of the ministry and not to be entangled with the affairs of this life, therefore the people of God, among whom they spend their strength, are bound by common equity to give them worldly maintenance, that they may be neither diverted from nor discouraged in their work of watching over souls.
2. This maintenance, though it should be moderate and such as may not through abundance occasion pride, luxury, and prodigality, yet should be liberal and creditable, such as may not only supply pinching necessities, but also that they may have wherewith to supply the necessities of the indigent, to educate their children so as they may sustain themselves and be profitable members both of Church and commonwealth.
3. The Church’s maintenance is only due unto such ministers as have abilities to preach, and are faithful and diligent labourers in the word. Those who are unfit or unwilling to preach should be removed from their charge, and not suffered to eat up the Church’s maintenance, feeding themselves and starving the souls of people committed to their charge.—Fergusson.
Galatians 6:7-9. Deceived Sowers to the Flesh.
I. The solemnity of the apostle’s warning.—He seems to intimate that such is the audacious wickedness of the human heart, that it has within it so many latent mazes of iniquity, that they might be self-deceived either as to their apprehensions of that which was right before God, or as to their own actual condition in His sight; and he tells them God is not mocked by this pretended service, that to Him all hearts are open, and that in impartial and discriminating arbitration He will render to every man according to his deeds. It is sad to be deceived in a friend, in our estimate of health, in our computation of property; but a mistake about the state of the soul—a veil folded about the heart so that it cannot see its own helplessness and peril—this is a state of which thought shudders to conceive, and to describe whose portentousness language has no words that are sufficiently appalling. There can be no peril more imminent than yours. The headlong rider through the darkness before whom the dizzy precipice yawns; the heedless traveller for whom in the bosky woodland the bandits lie in ambush, or upon whom from the jungle’s density the tiger waits to spring; the man who, gazing faintly upward, meets the cruel eye and lifted hand and flashing steel of his remorseless enemy; they of whose condition you can only poorly image, who in far dungeons and beneath the torture of a tyrant’s cruelty groan for a sight of friend or glimpse of day; all around whom perils thicken hopelessly, and to whom, with feet laden with the tidings of evil, the messengers of disaster come,—how they move your sympathy, how you shudder as you dwell upon their danger, how you would fain stir yourselves into brave efforts for their rescue or their warning! Brethren, your own danger is more nearly encompassing and is more infinitely terrible.
II. The import of the apostle’s statement.—We have largely the making or the marring of our own future—that in the thoughts we harbour, in the words we speak and in the silent deeds which, beaded on Time’s string, are told by some recording angel as the story of our lives from year to year, we shape our character and therefore our destiny for ever. There are three special sowers to the flesh—the proud, the covetous, the ungodly. They are all spiritual sins—sins of which human law takes no cognisance, and to which codes of earthly jurisprudence affix no scathing penalty. There is the greater need, therefore, that these spiritual sins should be disclosed in all their enormity and shown in their exceeding sinfulness and in their disastrous wages, in order that men may be left without excuse if they persist wilfully to believe a lie.—W. M. Punshon.
Galatians 6:7-8. The Double Harvest.
I. Our present life is a moral trial for another to come.—On till death is our seed-sowing; after death is the sure and universal harvest. On till death is our moral trial; after death is the life of judicial retribution, alike for the just and the unjust.
II. Human life has one or the other of two great characters, and will issue in one or the other of two great results.—
1. They sow to the flesh who live under the influence of their natural inclinations and desires, pleasing only themselves and despising or neglecting the holy will of God. They live to the Spirit the whole current of whose being has been supernaturally reversed under the grace of the gospel.
2. The sowers to the Spirit live. And this true and proper life of man, in its maturity and full perfection, is the great and glorious reward which, by divine appointment, shall eventually crown the labours of the sowers to the Spirit. The sowers to the flesh sow seed which brings forth death. Even now their life is death in rudiment, and in the end they must reap it in its full and eternal development. Degraded existence, miserable existence, everlastingly degraded and miserable existence.
II. We are liable to delusions with respect to these great verities.—All history and experience teem with illustrations of the spiritual spells and juggleries which men, prompted by the invisible potentate of evil, practise upon themselves, that so they may reduce to their convictions the sinfulness of sin, and may tone the booming of the great bell of Scripture menace down to the gentle whisper of an amiable reprimand.—J. D. Geden.
On the Difference between sowing to the Flesh and to the Spirit.
I. The man who soweth to his flesh.—It is to spend our lives in doing these works of the flesh—to lay out our time, our thoughts, and our care in gratifying the vain, sensual, and selfish inclinations which the evil state of the heart naturally and continually puts forth. Broken health, loathsome diseases, ruined fortunes, disappointed wishes, soured tempers, infamy, and shame are among those things which usually come from walking after the flesh.
II. The man who soweth to the Spirit.—It is to live under the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit, and in every part of our conduct to bring forth the fruits of the Spirit. He enjoys even at present the fruit of his labour: inward peace and joy, and a hope full of immortality.—Edward Cooper.
The Principle of the Spiritual Harvest.
I. The principle is this, “God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”—There are two kinds of good possible to men—one enjoyed by our animal being, the other felt and appreciated by our spirits. Reap what you have sown. If you sow the wind, do not complain if your harvest is the whirlwind. If you sow to the Spirit, be content with a spiritual reward, invisible, within, more life and higher life.
II. The two branches of the application of this principle.—
1. Sowing to the flesh includes those who live in open riot.
2. Those who live in respectable worldliness.
3. Sowing to the Spirit, the harvest is life eternal.
4. The reward is not arbitrary but natural. The thing reaped is the very thing sown, multiplied a hundredfold. You have sown a seed of life, you reap life everlasting.—F. W. Robertson.
Galatians 6:7. Sowing and Reaping in their bearing on the Formation of Individual Character.—There are three plots in which every man is perpetually engaged in sowing and reaping—in the plot of his thoughts, in the plot of his words, and in the plot of his deeds. And there is a storehouse into which the harvests from these three plots are being secretly but unmistakably garnered—the storehouse of individual character. The moral condition of the man to-day is the inevitable result of his thoughts, words, and deeds; his selfhood is rich or poor according to his sowing and reaping in these respective fields.
I. Whatsoever a man sows in thought that will he also reap in the formation, tone, and tendency of his intellectual and moral nature.—
1. Vain thoughts. If we indolently sport with vain and foolish thoughts, they will inevitably produce a crop of the same kind. The mind will be garnished with flimsy and unprofitable fancies, inflated with a too conscious self-importance, and the outcome is heard in “the loud laugh that proclaims the vacant mind,” and seen in the pompous swagger of the intellectual fop (Proverbs 13:16; Psalms 94:11).
2. Proud thoughts.—The man dominated by pride is the most pitiable of objects. His pride of birth will not bear investigation into three generations, his pride of social status is snubbed in a way that leaves a wound that never heals, his pride of wealth smitten down by an unexpected turn of the ever-revolving wheel of fortune, and his pride of life withered by the passing breath of the great Destroyer. But he reaps what he sowed. He sowed the dragon’s teeth of proud and boastful thoughts, and the monster grew up and devoured him (Proverbs 16:18).
3. Thoughts of sinful pleasure.—If we allow the mind to dream of pleasures that are forbidden, the bloom of innocence is rubbed off never to be again replaced, the conscience is outraged till its voice is muffled and but feebly heard, one vile thought indulged breeds another that is viler still, and the moral atmosphere of the soul is poisoned. What he sows he reaps.
4. Good thoughts.—The mind that aims at the loftiest style of thought, declining to tolerate the presence of a debasing sentiment, that keeps in check the wild and savage brood of evil thoughts ever seeking to overrun and defile the mind, that cultivates a chaste imagination and cherishes the exalted and unselfish charity that “thinketh no evil”—reaps the result in an accession of intellectual vigour, in the creation of a nobler standard by which to judge of men and things, in the unbounded raptures of a refined and fertile imagination, and in the increase of power for doing the highest kind of work for God and humanity.
II. Whatsoever a man sows in words that shall he also reap.—
1. Bitter and rancorous words. If a man studies how much of spiteful venom he can pack into a single sentence, how he can most skilfully whet and sharpen the edge of his words so as to make the deepest wound and raise the most violent storm of irritation and ill-feeling, unalterable as the course of nature the harvest is sure to come. “Our unkind words come home to roost.” The man offensive with his tongue is the devil’s bellows with which he blows up the sparks of contention and strife, and showers of the fiery embers are sure to fall back upon himself to scathe and destroy.
2. False words.—If we deliberately and maliciously concoct a lie, and utter the same with whispered humbleness and hypocritical commiseration, as sure as there is justice in the heavens, the lie will come back with terrific recompense upon the head of the originator.
3. Kind and loving words.—If we speak in the kindest spirit of others, especially in their absence, if we stand up for a friend unjustly maligned and defend him with dignity and faithfulness, if we study to avoid words which cannot but grieve and irritate, then as we have sown so shall we reap—reap the tranquil satisfaction of conscious inoffensiveness, and, best of all, the divine approval. “Heaven in sunshine will requite the kind.”
III. Whatsoever a man sows in deeds that shall he also reap.—
1. Cruel deeds. If we take a savage delight in torturing beast or bird or insect, if we plot how we can inflict the most exquisite pain on our fellow-man, if we make sport of the anguish and distress of others which we make no effort to relieve, we shall inevitably reap the harvest—reap it in the embruting and degradation of our finer sensibilities, reap it in the tempest of rebellion and retaliation which those we outraged will launch upon us.
2. Selfish deeds.—If we live for our own selfish gratification, indifferent to the rights and woes of others; if we surrender ourselves to a covetous spirit, living poor that we may die rich—as we sow we reap. The thing we lived to enjoy ceases to gratify, and our noblest sentiments are buried amid the rubbish of our own sordidness.
3. Generous and noble deeds.—If we aim at the elevation of ourselves and others, if we seek to act on the highest level of righteousness and truth, if we are diligent, unwearied, and persistent in well-doing, then in due season we shall reap the harvest—reap it in a heightened and expansive nobility of character, in an intensified influence and enlarged capacity for doing good, and in the eternal enrichment of the divine plaudit, “Well done.”
Be not Deceived.—This phrase occurs several times as preface to warning, seeming to indicate thus that the subject of the warning is one about which we are specially liable to deception, and upon examination we find that observation justifies the presumption. We are thus guarded against any deception as to the following important practical truths:—
I. The contaminating influence of evil associations (1 Corinthians 15:33).
II. The personal responsibility of each for his own sin (James 1:16).
III. Entrance into heaven conditioned on character (1 Corinthians 6:9).
IV. Human destiny, once settled, irreversible (Galatians 6:7).—British and Foreign Evangelical Review.
Galatians 6:8. Sowing to the Spirit.
I. The natural man has no desire for immortality.—He has not been seized with the earnest and real wish for a future life; but he is entirely bound by this world in all his thoughts, aims, and wishes: he identifies life and existence altogether with this world, and life out of this world is a mere name to him. He is shut up within the walls of the flesh and within the circle of its own present aims and projects.
II. The spiritual man has a strong desire for immortality, and it is the beginning and foundation of the religious life he leads here. Every field of action becomes unimportant and insignificant compared with the simply doing good things, because in that simple exercise of goodness lies the preparation for eternity.
III. The natural and spiritual man are divided from each other by these distinctions—one has the desire for everlasting life, the other has not. The success of the one perishes with the corruptible life to which it belongs; the success of the other endures for all ages in the world to come.—J. B. Mozley.
The Law of Retribution.
I. We see the justice of God—His bounty and severity.—His bounty in recompensing men above their deserts; His severity in punishing sinners according to their deserts.
II. This doctrine, that we shall drink such as we brew, reap such as we sow, and that men have degrees of felicity or misery answerable to their works, will make us more careful to avoid sin.
III. It serves as a comfort against inequality; whereas the wicked flourish and the godly live in contempt, the time shall come when every one shall reap even as he has sown.
IV. It crosses the conceit of those who promise to themselves an impunity from sin and immunity from all the judgments of God, notwithstanding they go on in their bad practices.—Perkins.
Galatians 6:9. Against Weariness in Well-doing.—
1. There is the prevailing temper of our nature, the love of ease—horror of hard labour.
2. The reluctance and aversion are greater when the labour is enjoined by extraneous authority—the imperative will of a foreign power.
3. In the service of God there is a good deal that does not seem for ourselves.
4. There is a principle of false humility—what signifies the little I can do?
5. The complaint of deficient co-operation.
6. In the cause of God the object and effect of well-doing are much less palpable than in some other provinces of action.
7. Yet the duty expressly prescribed is an absolute thing, independently of what men can foresee of its results.
8. There is the consciousness and pleasure of pleasing God.
9. What relief has man gained by yielding to the weariness?
10. Our grave accountableness is for making a diligent, patient, persevering use of the means God has actually given us.—J. Foster.
Apathy one of our Trials.—
1. Because, as in everything else, so in our spiritual growth, we are inevitably disappointed in much of our expectations.
2. The temptation to weariness is no sign at all that the man so tempted is not a true servant of God, though this very often is the first thought that enters the mind. It is no sin to feel weary; the sin is to be weary—that is, to let the feeling have its way and rule our conduct.
3. We expect a kind of fulness of satisfaction in God’s service which we do not get nearly so soon as we fancy that we shall.
4. You are quite mistaken in your belief that former prayers and former resolutions have been in vain and have produced no fruit because no fruit is visible.
5. In due season we shall find that it has been worth while to persevere in trying to serve Christ.—Dr. Temple.
Well-doing.
I. Contrasted with fruitless profession.—It is possible to have a clear notion of Christian truth and to talk well, and yet be idle and useless.
II. Contrasted with mistaken standards.—It is easy to do as others are doing; but are they doing well? Practice must be guided by holy precepts.
III. Contrasted with wrong motives.—Many are careful to do what is literally the right thing, but they do it with base motives. The correct motives are—love (2 Corinthians 5:14), gratitude (Psalms 116:12), compassion (2 Corinthians 5:11), desire to imitate Christ. All well-doing is humble and self-renouncing.—The Lay Preacher.
“Reap if we faint not.”—The image is agricultural.
I. Points of resemblance.—
1. The material harvest is of two kinds—weeds and golden grain.
2. The spiritual harvest is of two kinds—corruption and everlasting life.
3. A combination of agencies.
(1) For the material harvest seed, soil, and elements work with the efforts of the farmer.
(2) For the spiritual harvest the seed of the word and the power of God must co-operate with man’s agency.
4. As to difficulties.
(1) The season may be too wet, too dry, or too hot, or an army of insects may attack the growing grain.
(2) The foes of the spiritual harvest are the world, the flesh, and the devil.
II. Points of contrast.—
1. The material harvest is annual, the spiritual eternal.
2. There are seasons so unfavourable that all the efforts of the farmer prove in vain; the spiritual harvest will never fail.
3. The drouth of one year may be made good by next year’s abundance, but eternity cannot compensate for what was lost in time.
III. Encouragements.—
1. “Our labour is not in vain in the Lord.”
2. “In due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”
3. The harvest will be glorious and eternal.—Homiletic Monthly.
Galatians 6:10. On doing Good.
I. It is our duty to do good.—This duty is enforced both by the words and example of Christ. Christianity not only requires its adherents to abstain from evil, but it demands their active service.
II. In doing good man attains to true nobility of character.—The characters in history that exert the greatest fascination over us are not those of eminent statesmen or scientists, but those who have been distinguished for their philanthropy. We see in them a moral dignity that is unique. What reversals in human estimates of character will take place when the divine standard of greatness is appealed to!
III. In doing good we find true happiness.—God has so constituted us that the exercise of our malevolent passions is productive of inward dissatisfaction, while the exercise of benevolent affections is attended with the greatest joy. There is real luxury in doing good.—Preacher’s Magazine.
The Opportunity of Beneficence.
I. What a precious thing is opportunity.—People talk about making time for this or that purpose. The time is really made for us, only we are too idle or too careless to use it for the proper end. Opportunities of usefulness are of frequent occurrence; they are wont to come and go with rapidity. They must be seized as you would lay hold of a passing friend in the street.
II. The whole of life is an opportunity.—There is such a thing as a useful life, a true life, a noble life, though all lives must needs contain a multitude of neglected opportunities. As a series of opportunities its record is woefully imperfect. As one opportunity it is not utterly unworthy of the example of Christ. Let us have a thread of right intention running through life. Let us have an active purpose of benevolence—a constant design of love. The continuous opportunity of life must be utilised, if the particular opportunities of life are to be turned to the best account.
III. The field of beneficence is very wide.—Wherever men are found it is possible for us to do them good. We touch only a few persons, but each of these is in contact with others. To do great things with great powers is easy enough; but things so done may be undone so. The glory of Christianity has always been that it does great things with small powers, or powers that men think small; and the results of its work remain. Good work done by many hands is better than the extended philanthropy of an individual; for what is this but the effort of one man to make amends for the neglect of a thousand?
IV. Though all men have a claim on our Christian benevolence some are entitled to a special share.—A man does not become a better citizen when he spurns his own family and neglects his duties at home. On the contrary, the noblest philanthropist is the most affectionate of fathers and husbands, and he who loves most widely in the world loves most intensely in his own house. So it will be with us in our Christian charity. We shall begin with those who are called by the common name and worship the common Lord, and from these we shall go on, with our energy not exhausted but rather refreshed, to the great mass of mankind.—Edward C. Lefroy.
Doing Good.
I. We must do good with that only which is our own.—We may not cut a large and liberal shive off another man’s loaf; we may not steal from one to give to another, or deal unjustly with some that we may be merciful to others.
II. We must do good with cheerfulness and alacrity.—What more free than gift; therefore we may not play the hucksters in doing good, for that blemishes the excellency of the gift.
III. We must so do good as that we do not disable ourselves for ever doing good.—So begin to do good as that we may continue.
IV. We must do all the good we can within the compass of our calling, and hinder all the evil.
V. We must do good to all.—
1. From the grounds of love and beneficence.
2. God is good and bountiful to all.
3. Do good to others as we would they should do to us.
4. Our profession and the reward we look for require us to do this.
VI. There is no possibility of doing good to others after this life.—Perkins.