Lexicon

The [one]

ὁ

(ho)

Article - Nominative Masculine Singular



The, the definite article. Including the feminine he, and the neuter to in all their inflections; the definite article; the.

who sows

σπείρων

(speirōn)

Verb - Present Participle Active - Nominative Masculine Singular



To sow, spread, scatter. Probably strengthened from spao; to scatter, i.e. Sow.

to please

εἰς

(eis)

Preposition



A primary preposition; to or into, of place, time, or purpose; also in adverbial phrases.

his

ἑαυτοῦ

(heautou)

Reflexive Pronoun - Genitive Masculine 3rd Person Singular



Himself, herself, itself.

flesh,

σάρκα

(sarka)

Noun - Accusative Feminine Singular



Flesh, body, human nature, materiality; kindred.

from

ἐκ

(ek)

Preposition



From out, out from among, from, suggesting from the interior outwards. A primary preposition denoting origin, from, out.

the

τῆς

(tēs)

Article - Genitive Feminine Singular



The, the definite article. Including the feminine he, and the neuter to in all their inflections; the definite article; the.

flesh

σαρκὸς

(sarkos)

Noun - Genitive Feminine Singular



Flesh, body, human nature, materiality; kindred.

will reap

θερίσει

(therisei)

Verb - Future Indicative Active - 3rd Person Singular



To reap, gather, harvest. From theros; to harvest.

destruction;

φθοράν

(phthoran)

Noun - Accusative Feminine Singular



Corruption, destruction, decay, rottenness, decomposition. From phtheiro; decay, i.e. Ruin.

but

δὲ

(de)

Conjunction



A primary particle; but, and, etc.

the [one]

ὁ

(ho)

Article - Nominative Masculine Singular



The, the definite article. Including the feminine he, and the neuter to in all their inflections; the definite article; the.

who sows

σπείρων

(speirōn)

Verb - Present Participle Active - Nominative Masculine Singular



To sow, spread, scatter. Probably strengthened from spao; to scatter, i.e. Sow.

to please

εἰς

(eis)

Preposition



A primary preposition; to or into, of place, time, or purpose; also in adverbial phrases.

the

τὸ

(to)

Article - Accusative Neuter Singular



The, the definite article. Including the feminine he, and the neuter to in all their inflections; the definite article; the.

Spirit,

Πνεῦμα

(Pneuma)

Noun - Accusative Neuter Singular



Wind, breath, spirit.

from

ἐκ

(ek)

Preposition



From out, out from among, from, suggesting from the interior outwards. A primary preposition denoting origin, from, out.

the

τοῦ

(tou)

Article - Genitive Neuter Singular



The, the definite article. Including the feminine he, and the neuter to in all their inflections; the definite article; the.

Spirit

Πνεύματος

(Pneumatos)

Noun - Genitive Neuter Singular



Wind, breath, spirit.

will reap

θερίσει

(therisei)

Verb - Future Indicative Active - 3rd Person Singular



To reap, gather, harvest. From theros; to harvest.

eternal

αἰώνιον

(aiōnion)

Adjective - Accusative Feminine Singular



From aion; perpetual.

life.

ζωὴν

(zōēn)

Noun - Accusative Feminine Singular



Life, both of physical (present) and of spiritual (particularly future) existence. From zao; life.

He that soweth to his flesh.

i.e.,

(8)--The seed sown is a man's actions here on earth. If the object of those actions is merely self-indulgence, they are, as it were, sown in a field the owner of which is the flesh (the lower, carnal self). The flesh alone benefits by them, and for it alone are they garnered up.

Shall of the flesh reap corruption.--If such has been a man's conduct, he must look to the flesh for his reward, and all the reward it can give him will be a share in its own corruption. The flesh perishes, and so shall the fruit of his actions perish, and "leave not a wrack behind."

He that soweth to the Spirit . . .--On the other hand, where all the actions are like seed deposited in the field of which the owner and lord is the Spirit, that same Spirit will reward them in the world to come with the gift of everlasting life.

Verse 8.

For he that soweth to his flesh

of the flesh reap corruption

o%ti o( spei/rwn ei) th

sa/rka e(autou = e)k th = sarko\ qeri/sei fqora/n

for he that soweth unto his own flesh

shall of the flesh reap corruption.

ὅτι

up to here

δέ

ἐν

ἐπί

εἰς

εἰς

εἰς

τὸ Πνεῦμα

ἑαυτοῦ

their

φθορά

φθορὰ

decay

impaired

spoilt

wasted away

φθείρω

διαφθείρω

ἀφθαρσία

corruption.

in incorruption

corruption

incorruption

φθαρτός

ἄφθαρτος

διαφθορὰ

ἐκ τῆς

σαρκός

aetiologically

ἀφθαρσία

οἱ ἀπολλύμενοι

ἀπώλεια

ἀφθαρσίαν

αἰώνιος ὄλεθρος

imagine

this

is

Ἄρτι γὰρ

βλέπομεν δἰ ἐσόπτρου ἐν αἰνίγματι

-

σκώληξ

e.g

worm"

corruption"

corruption

corruption"

ἐν τῇ

φθορᾷ αὐτῶν καὶ φθαρήσονται

φθορά

φθαρήσονται

But he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting

ὁ δὲ

σπείρων εἰς τὸ Πνεῦμα ἐκ τοῦ Πνεύματος θερίσει

ζωὴν αἰώνιον

but he that soweth unto the Spirit

shall of the Spirit reap life eternal.

now

ἵνα

ἐκιλάβωνται τοῦ ὄντως ζωῆς

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shall);"Fort" the causal force of the particle, properly "because," is here greatly attenuated, being employed to introduce a sentence commending to acceptance the foregoing one, simply by a detailed exposition of particulars illustrating its meaning. This is the case also in 1 Thessalonians 2:14 Philippians 4:16 . In regard to the connection of this first half of the eighth verse with the preceding context, we must take note of the sternly monitory tone which marks ver. 7. This shows that in the sentence, "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," the apostle has more immediately in view the terrible harvest to be reaped by those who acted as if they thought that God might be overreached. We may infer from this that this first clause of ver. 8 is mainly the thought whichthe writer had it on his mind to inculcate - the "corruption" which a man would reap from a life of self-indulgence. But, after completing the statement of this thought, his tone forthwith changes; the frown clearing away from his countenance, he adds, to the threatening admonition of the first clause, the cheering promise of the second, while a more genial tone marks his further remarks on the subject in vers. 9 and 10. The second limb of the verse thus appears introduced in the same way as the second does in Romans 8:13 ; and in both cases with the conjunction. "Sowing unto his own flesh." Many critics render, "into his own flesh," as if, with a shifting of the image, which is certainly not uncommon with St. Paul, the flesh were now the ground into which the seed is cast. This relation, however, to the verb "sow" (see Alford and Ellicott) is in the New Testament expressed differently, by, in, or by, upon; whilein Matthew 13:22 denotes "among." It is more obvious to takeas "unto," "denoting the immediate object of the action, that to which it tends, that in which it terminates" (Webster and Wilkinson, 'Commentary'). This way of construing suits better in the phrase,, which follows. Applying the image of sowing generally, the apostle in ver. 7 speaks of the quality of the sowing (not precisely the quality of the seed) as determining the quality of the harvest; and here, of one kind of sowing being "unto the flesh," the other "unto the Spirit." "He that soweth unto his own flesh;" that is, he whose general action in life is referred to his own personal gratification in his lower nature - to his own profit, pleasure, honour. The addition of("his own") has a marked reference to the topic which led to this general statement: the apostle has in his view a man's gratifying his own merely worldly inclinations, to the disregard of the well-being, even the physical well-being, of other men. To sow unto the flesh of our brethren, in one sense, namely, for the promotion ofphysical well-being, would bear a different aspect from sowing unto oar own flesh. "Shall from the flesh reap corruption." This by some commentators has been interpreted thus: In the harvest of That Day, nought will be found with him of all those things on which his heart has been set - nought save, at the best, mere rottenness, disappointment, and illusion. This would be analogous to the moral with which our Lord pointed his parable of the rich fool, to whom God said, "Whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?" "So is he," added Christ, "that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God" ( Luke 12:20, 21 ). The word, corruption, involves at least as much as this; but this view alone would furnish an inadequate antitheten to "eternal life," as also it gives less force to the word itself than it appears from its ordinary use to convey. One essential element of this verbal nounis the notion of, or the condition of being(cf. Colossians 2:20 Romans 8:21 ), It is used of corruption in our moral nature in 2 Peter 1:4 2 Peter 2:12, 19 ; asandare likewise applied in 2 Corinthians 7:2 1 Timothy 6:5 . But the clear presentment of its sense, when connected as it is here with "flesh," is afforded by its antithesis, with respect to the "body" or "flesh," toin 1 Corinthians 15:42 , "It is sown in, it is raised," and ibid., 1 Corinthians 15:50," Neither dothinherit;" and by the opposed adjectives "corruptible" and "incorruptible ' (and) in 1 Corinthians 15:53, 54 , as well as by the use ofof the rotting away of a dead body, in Acts 2:27, 31 Acts 13:34-37 . That the apostle uses the word "corruption" with a direct reference to "flesh," and therefore as alluding to or rather expressing a certain qualification of the flesh's condition, is shown by his inserting the words,, "of the flesh." Strictly speaking those words are not necessary for the completeness of the sentence. To all appearance they are added, to make prominent the thought that what is sown unto the flesh may be expected to issue in corruption, because corruption is the natural end of flesh itself. For an analogous reason, "of the Spirit" is inserted in the antithetic statement; the Spirit being essentially not only living, but vivific. The words, then, seem to mean this' "shall from the flesh reap that corruption which the flesh, un-quickened by the Spirit of God [for comp. Romans 8:11 ], must itself issue in." In endeavouring more exactly to determine the sense of these words, it is well in the first instance to confine our view to the conceptions relative to this subject presented by St. Paul. In reviewing these, we observe that St. Paul never predicates("incorruption," "incorruptible-ness") of the future bodily condition of "those who perish ()." On the contrary, in 1 Corinthians 15:42-54 he clearly restricts this conception of bodily being to the case of those whose body shall be assimilated to that of the second Adam, the Lord from heaven, as indeed it is only to them that the entire discourse (vers. 20-58) relates. So again in Philippians 3:21 , the "fashioning anew of the body of our humiliation into conformity with the body of his glory" is evidently limited to those whoso end is not "perdition ()." Again, in 2 Corinthians 5:1 the "house not made with hands, eternal," appears to be an exclusive designation of the resurrection-body of the accepted believer. Once more, in Romans 2:7 the words, "to them that by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honour and incorruption ()," imply that incorruption is an attribute exclusively pertaining to the happiness after which true Christians aspire. All that we meet with elsewhere in St. Paul's writings fits in perfectly with his holding the view that, while "there shall be a resurrection both of the just and unjust," as he stated to Felix ( Acts 24:15 ) - a resurrection surely he meant in the body - the bodies of the accepted alone wilt be incorruptible, the bodies of the lost being, for all that appears in his teaching, left in some sense subject to corruption. In what way the apostle in his own mind connected this conception, of in-corruption being a quality exclusively pertaining to the future condition of the just. with that of the "eternal destruction ()" awaiting them who know not God ( 2 Thessalonians 1:9 ), we shall, perhaps, do wisely in not attempting to determine. We can, it is true,ways of conjoining the two notions; 'but it will be best not to positively affirm thator that that was St. Paul's manner of viewing the subject. Possibly the Spirit had not revealed this to him. if so, he might feel it incumbent upon him to forbear from giving forth definite statements on matters not really disclosed to his view, and, therefore, not intended to form a part of revealed truth. This, however, should not keep us back from accepting what appears to be the only probable view of the sense of the present passage, namely, that they who live a life of selfishness and carnal self-indulgence will reap the final award of having a body with flesh, in some most real and important sense, subject to corruption. The consideration that the apostle is thinking of the awards of the day of judgment, at once meets the objection that corruption is predicable of the Christian's body also. It is obvious to reply that, though the body of a believer is sown in corruption even as the body of an unrighteous man, it is revealed to us that it will be raised in incorruption; which it is nowhere said that the body of him who dies in his sins will be. As applied to objects lying on the other side of the veil which parts the spiritual world from that visible world whence all our images of thought are derived, this term "corruption" must be understood as describing a condition of bodily being, not necessarily identical with, but very conceivably only in some respects analogous to, that which it describes in relation to a corpse in our present state. The resurrection stale, with all that pertains to it, inscrutably blending, as the story, of the forty days commencing with Christ s resurrection exemplifies, spiritual phenomena with corporeal, is one which we are wholly unable to understand or to realize. This may be thought a very superfluous observation. But it is not so. The attempts intellectually to realize the events which we are hereafter to witness and to be the subjects of, and the dogmatic affirmations relating to them, made, not merely in past ages, but in the very present, render it necessary that we should distinctly keep this truth in view. The physical theory of that future state, and the eventual history which is to be evolved in it, we not merely do not know, but are absolutely incapable of forecasting. We dare not say one syllable about them beyond what is distinctly told us; and whattold us, we are to remember, is through the very nature of the case no other than images, presented in a dark dim mirror, which shows them so obscurely, that to our intellective perception they seem riddles rather than revelations:, ( 1 Corinthians 13:12 ). It is, in fact, not our intellect, but our moral sense, that the revelations of the future state are designed to inform. Next, looking out from the field of purely Pauline doctrine upon the teaching presented in other parts of the New Testament, we are reminded at once of that awful and repeated word of our Lord concerning the "Gehenna of fire""where their worm () dieth not, and the fire is not quenched" ( Mark 9:43-48 ). It is known that, before our Lord appeared upon earth, this conception of Gehenna, the terms of which beyond question were borrowed from the closing verses of Isaiah, had already become current in the eschatological views of the Jews. This is evidenced by Judith 16:17; Ecclus. 7:17. This imagery our Lord adopted, recognizing, it should seem, in this portion of rabbinical teaching a just evolution of ideas which had been presented in the inspired volumes of the Old Testament - a development of them which we may fairly attribute to the guiding influence of the Holy Spirit promised to God's restored people, as, in Ezekiel 36:24-28 . We cannot doubt that the "which our Lord spoke of means the worm which preys upon rotting flesh. The image, therefore, exactly accords with the word "as interpreted above. Whether the apostle glanced at that discourse of Christ, or was even aware of it, is uncertain; but that he both knew of it and even inferred from it in using this word "," is by no means unlikely. One other reference to "as the future doom of at least certain of the lost, is found in 2 Peter 2:12 , which, according to the now approved reading of the Greek text, runs thus: "But these, as creatures without reason, born mere animals to be taken and destroyed - shall in their destroying be destroyed [or, 'in their corruption shall even rot away'] ()." Possibly the word, taken as "corruption," points here to moral corruption; but the verbmay very well point to the miserable doom of rotting away by which they shall judicially perish, moral corruption working physical corruption. But the exact sense is doubtful. With the clause before us we must group Romans 8:13 , "If ye live after the flesh, ye are certain to die;" whilst the sentence which follows, "But if by the Spirit ye put to death the doings of the body, ye shall live," answers to the closing sentence of the present verse; as also does "death" as "the wages of sin," balanced against the "eternal life" which is "the gift of God," in Romans 6 :25. The contrasted thoughts in Philippians 3:19, 20 likewise closely touch those here presented to us.);That is, he that expends thought, time, effort, money, upon the furthering, in himself and in others, of the fruits of the Spirit, shall receive, from that Holy Spirit to whose guidance dwelling within him he resigns himself, that quickening of his whole being, body, soul, and spirit, for an everlasting existence in glory, which it is the proper work of that Divine Agent to effect. For the latter clause, comp. Romans 8:11 , "If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you [as the guiding, animating influence in your lives], he that raised up Christ from the dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies, because of his Spirit dwelling within you;" in which passage the aetiologleal clause, "by reason of his Spirit dwelling in you," corresponds exactly with the aetiological clause, "of the Spirit," in the words before us. The two verses which follow show that one specific form of sowing unto the Spirit which the apostle has definitely in view, while enforcing the general idea, is that of Christian beneficence. How closely the practice of Christian beneficence was in the apostle's mind, in conformity with Christ's own teaching ( Matthew 25 . etc.), connected with the securing of the future blissful immortality, is markedly shown in 1 Timothy 6:18, 19 ; - not the less so if we adopt theapproved reading,, "that they may lay hold on the life which is life indeed."Alphabetical: but corruption destruction eternal flesh For from his life nature one own please reap sinful sows Spirit that The to who will