SOWING TO THE SPIRIT

SOWING TO THE SPIRIT
Harry Foster

"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." Galatians 6:7-8
"SOWING to the Spirit" is a striking phrase which embodies Paul's last words concerning the Holy Spirit to the would-be 'spiritual' Galatians. Although it is simple and unsensational, it gets right to the heart of the whole question of how to please God. Already in the letter mention has been made of being born of the Spirit, of miracle-working by the Spirit, of praying, 'Abba Father' by the Spirit, of hoping and being led, of producing fruit, living and walking by the Spirit; now the final appeal comes that Christians should 'sow' to the Spirit. What did Paul mean?

The passage begins with a general statement that a man reaps what he sows. This is true in nature though, of course, there are accidents of pest and weather which can modify it. The apostle however was not dealing with nature but with moral and spiritual issues, and above all with the reminder that it is God with whom we have to reckon. The Galatians could deceive others with a show of spurious spirituality, just as we can also deceive our fellow believers. They could deceive themselves, and so can we, for the human heart is deceitful above all things and particularly so in the realms of imagined spirituality. But neither the Galatians nor we can deceive God. When we sow to the Spirit, we sow to God. We do not even deal with the inexorable laws of God, but with God Himself, for the Spirit is God. I have observed that in this life there is often an amazing fulfilment of this logical sequence of sowing and reaping. It is quite startling at times to see how relentless -- or rewarding -- the truth is that actions and attitudes have a remarkable way of boomeranging back on their authors. As we treat others, so in due course we shall find ourselves being treated, as others can observe, even if we do not realise what is happening. This call to sow to the Spirit, however, seems to refer to something even more certain and inevitable in the life of every Christian, which is the eternal outcome of present procedures in time. Although this is a text which has often been effectively used as an evangelistic warning and appeal, its original meaning was not in such a context, but was rather a message for men 'in Christ', reminding them that their present way of life, their sowing, will bring its own harvest in one way or another. Above all it was an encouragement to all believers to know that if they patiently continue to obey the Spirit's urges and seek His pleasure, they will reap in the 'due season' of eternity.

IN this sense "every man shall bear his own burden" (verse 5). Others may fulfil the law of Christ by rendering sympathetic aid, but, in the final issue, each of us has an inner life to lead which is peculiarly our own. Each Christian is regarded as a continual 'sower' with personal responsibility as to what he sows and with the constant possible alternatives of acting according to his flesh, and so wasting his time and strength in what will not last, or acting according to the Spirit, and so saving up a harvest of eternal gain. "God is not mocked." Although this is true, the statement is not made with regard to the matter of salvation, for in this connection God, who is marvellously merciful, does not press the law of sowing and reaping. We have sowed rebellion and iniquity, and yet God gives us a free pardon as soon as we ask Him to do so. We never sowed eternal life before we came to Christ, and yet we have received this life as a gift, without any need for working or waiting. In this matter we reap from our Saviour's sowing on the cross. Once we have entered into life by being born from above, however, we cannot escape from the law of the Spirit; we can never hoodwink God nor avoid receiving the harvest of what we have done [105/106] in the body, whether it be good or bad (2 Corinthians 5:10). God's grace is infinitely great, but in this matter of sowing and reaping He has made it quite plain that He will not deviate from His declared principle of seedtime and harvest. Let us not be deceived by wishy-washy ideas of God's kindness. His love is deep and unchangeable, but His principles are as fixed as His throne, being that, as the Lord Jesus Himself said, "Whatsoever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatsoever is born of the Spirit is spirit" (John 3:6). No amount of sincere wishes can change the specific nature of a seed once it is sown. Not even prayer can alter it. Our deceitful hearts will try to convince us that we can take advantage of God's love to reap differently from what we have sown, but when the harvest comes they will be proved wrong. On the other hand, in our discouragement we may sometimes accept Satan's lie that spiritual sowing is vain, and that there will be no harvest, but equally we shall be proved wrong -- happily wrong in this case. What we sow we shall reap.

This makes us the more concerned to know what is involved by this activity of sowing to the flesh. How is it done? The answer to this question is that we sow to the flesh by giving expression to our own natural ideas and desires. Like many weeds, the flesh has its own way of self-propagating and hardly needs much deliberate sowing, but if allowed to do so, will spread into every area of life, even in the things of God. Let us not be misled by the word 'flesh' into imagining that the Scriptures are only speaking of obviously evil and unclean actions and habits. No, the flesh is something much more comprehensive than that; it includes just the normal reactions and activities of our self life, it is indeed what we are. As the Lord Jesus said, the flesh can only produce flesh; there is no miracle by which it can be turned into spirit, for its nature, like that of the seed, is permanent and final. Since all that is human is mortal, and therefore has the seeds of corruption within itself, sowing to the flesh can only produce 'corruption', i.e. that which will not be able to stand the test of eternity.

THIS, then, should be our first concern, to be saved from sowing to the flesh, and it is with this in view that the letter to the Galatians lays such stress on the need for the cross to cut back and cut out the natural corruption of our hearts. It is vain for us to determine that by our efforts we will not sow to the flesh, for we can do nothing else unless we experience a supernatural deliverance from ourselves. This is what God has provided through the cross of His Son which is intended not only to provide a free gift for us but also to do a work in us. For his part, Paul insisted that his new life in the Spirit sprang out of a very definite appropriation of the divine fact that he had been crucified with Christ (Galatians 2:20). He indicated that the only possible way to walk in the Spirit is to crucify the flesh with its affections and lusts (5:24). This is, of course, a symbolic expression, since we cannot ourselves do the crucifying. It is a fact that crucifixion is one of the few forms of death which can never be self-inflicted; a man may hang himself, poison himself or drown himself, but it is a physical impossibility for him to crucify himself. Clearly what Paul meant is that we must realise that Christ's cross is also ours; that we must accept the need for having our natural impulses slain by its power, and to this end must co-operate with the Holy Spirit in a day to day, hour by hour, setting aside of our wills in favour of the will of God.

Do we, then, need the Holy Spirit to deliver us from sowing to the flesh? Indeed we do. His method is the simple but drastic one of always leading us back to the cross. After all, the Lord Jesus was always and entirely under the government of the Spirit, and was led by Him to the divine 'must' of being lifted up on the cross. He did this not for Himself but for us, and He did it not to excuse us from the cross's sentence of death on the natural life but rather that this sentence might be applied in an active and effective way in order to deliver us from ourselves. So it is that sowing to the Spirit is the only sure way of not sowing to the flesh. And lest anyone should wrongly imagine that there is some handicap or loss because of this union with Christ on His cross, the apostle closes this section of the letter with a shout of triumph -- "God forbid that I should glory save in the cross ..." (6:14). Let us notice that his glorying is not in the old rugged cross of the past which brought him pardon and reconciliation with God, but in the present, sharp application of the cross which kept cutting into his own life to make and keep him a crucified man.

When you have realized something of the gloomy inevitability of your flesh's self sowing, with its distressing harvest, then you do indeed welcome the cross's delivering power. When you [106/107] find that the cross of Christ can work right deep down in your own nature, setting aside the innate rebellion against God's will which is entrenched there, and so enabling you to sense the Spirit's promptings to do the will of God and to obey them, then you have every reason for shouting 'Glory!'

ALL this negative work of the Cross produces the positive release of the new life. "I have been crucified with Christ" the apostle declares, but he then goes on to affirm, "nevertheless I live" (2:20). So it is that our text not only warns us against sowing to the flesh but provides positive encouragement to us to sow to the Spirit. We must face the fact that such sowing involves actions and not merely aspiration or longings, or even only prayers. Constant sowing must find expression in the practical ways of daily life, just as it did in the case of the Lord Jesus Himself who by the Spirit's leading "went about doing good ..." (Acts 10:38). It is interesting to note that Paul's words about this sowing are immediately preceded by instructions concerning a Christian's financial obligations towards those who minister God's Word to him. Is failure in this respect one of the reasons for the withholding of the Spirit's power among many groups of God's people? How can we expect to know the harvest of the Spirit's liberty and power among us if we neglect this practical form of sowing which God Himself has commanded? Even in this financial realm we are told that "He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly" (2 Corinthians 9:6), and it is quite impressive how much God's Word has to say about this one practical matter although it is, of course, only one area in which we must sow to the Spirit.

We notice that immediately after these verses, Paul makes a double reference to "well doing" and doing, good", with the stress not so much on isolated actions as on the steady continuance indicated by the words "if we faint not". Sowing is an operation which requires patient persistence, the ability to keep on keeping on. This was precisely what the Galatians did not seem able to do. They could start enthusiastically, but soon they would go off at a tangent, drawn aside by some attractive novelty. This same characteristic is still found among those Christians who can be provoked into activity by new ideas and new ventures, but seem quite unable to persevere steadily in a course set before them by the Lord. Their enthusiastic beginnings are no proof of true spirituality, for one of the hall-marks of a man of God is his ability to go on sowing to the Spirit in faith, even though he sees no evidence of an immediate harvest. The test of time is God's way of finding out just how much of the Spirit's work is really found in His people.

THE Corinthians were also Christians who needed to learn how to sow to the Spirit. Indeed they were sad examples of how truly converted people, "in one Spirit ... all baptised into one body" (l Corinthians 12:12), could yet fail to sow to the Spirit. They were unspiritual, as Paul's letter clearly states and proves, so much so that in his second letter he not only spoke of their unkind criticism of himself, but confessed that he dreaded to visit them for fear of finding them marred by "debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults" (2 Corinthians 12:20). They had all drunk of the one Spirit, but they greatly needed to learn this simple but profound lesson of constant, practical obedience to the Spirit. This command to sow to the Spirit may help those who are confused about possible differences between the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) and the exercise of His gifts. It stresses, as does 1 Corinthians 13 also, that God looks for constancy in both areas. It is categorically stated that without the fruit of the Spirit, the gifts are of no eternal value at all, since what will abide then will be character and not mere activities. The only harvest which can come from the flesh is corruption, even if that flesh is trying to serve the Lord. On the other hand the fruit of the Spirit must be expressed in actions, so that sowing to the Spirit necessitates the employment of gifts, whether they be obviously supernatural or not conspicuously so. The whole fruit of the Spirit is essential if we are to act positively for God and thus sow to the Spirit. A man can never be a 'help' without love, nor exercise 'government' without patience, nor can he work 'miracles' without faith or 'prophesy' without self-control (1 Corinthians 14:31). And since all the gifts are to be exercised in harmony, it is certain that the variety of gifts demands considerable longsuffering if Christ's body is not to be a staggering confusion of uncoordinated members.

We have already said that this sowing demands the test of time, and it may now be added that such a test requires the setting of assembly life for its full application. Steady sowing is essential in corporate Christian testimony. It is not enough [107/108] for Christians to be taking long journeys or making big sacrifices to share in some special convention meetings if they fail to pull their weight at the local prayer meeting just round the corner. It may be a good prayer meeting or it may be a bad one, but in either case it is an opportunity to go on with the work of sowing to the Spirit, and absence may be regarded by God as inexcusable failure to sow just because the wind or the clouds tended to discourage (Ecclesiastes 11:4). One of the evidences of spiritual sowing is that we should be found in our places in assembly life and keep those places with unflagging steadfastness, even if the 'due season' for reaping shows no signs of coming. If we do so there will eventually come a day when persistence in faithful fellowship and prayer will reap its own harvest. In that day we may exclaim in surprise, 'Where has all this harvest come from?' and the Lord will reply, 'You see, I am not mocked. You have patiently sowed to the Spirit, and this is the rich harvest which I promised to all who obey My command in this respect.'

Let us, then, go on sowing to the Spirit by praising God in the face of adversity; by refusing to be discouraged by criticism or misunderstanding; by showing love to those who provoke us and by praying for those who try to harm us. In short, let us sow to the Spirit by allowing Christ to live out His life in us. He is the pattern Spirit-filled Sower, who is now reaping the great harvest of life everlasting from His faithful sowing.

----------------