The Pulpit Commentary — Galatians — Section 334

deeds? Will the lost receive the award of the infinite benignity of his Father, whioh their good deeds? For there is no righteone loved him even then, in those very hours of m1m who hath not sinned; QI! also neither ie hie extremest ill-deserving. If these specu- there an unrighteous man whose life does lations appear not nnreRsona.ble, then they not show good and laudable actions. A win serve to explain in what: we.y the sinful :reference to the actual experience of souls doings even of those fine.Hy accepted will, in this life suggests, not indeed a oomplcte however, not fail of receiving their award; solution of the difficulty which the nRture of the award will be there, both in that sense the ca.ee probably m!Lkee impossible to us at of loss-loss of Divine commendation, which devise, but a consideration which helps to will necessarily accompany the recollection lessen our sense of it. It is this : in Chris- of them ; and also in the sense of their tians who hRve a well-grounded oonscious- debt of punishment, though ca.ncelled. Be nees of perfect reconciliation with God, we sure our sin will find us out. assured to them even by the see.I of the Ver. 8.-:ror he that soweth to his :flesh Spirit of adoption, this happy oonsciousnese shall of the flesh reap oorrnption (8-r, o is. however, perfectly compatible with a "1rElpo,v £ls '7'¾/v ao.p1<a. <a.uToii, 11< -rijs aap1<bs vivid remembranee of wrong things done in l!,plau ,p8opb) ; for he that soweth unto liis the past. And this remembrance is per- oton flesh, shall of tl,e flesh reap corruption. pet.ually suggestive of sentiment.s of self• " For ; " the causal force of the particle loathing-self-loathing the more bitter in 3.,,, properly " because,'' is here greatly proportion as the soul, by it.s growing purifi- attenuated, being employed to introduce cation through the Spirit, is enabled the a. sentence commending to acceptance the more truly to estimate the evil character of foregoing one, simply by a detailed exposi- thoee evil deeds. This is exemplified by tion of particulars illustrating its mea.ning. St. Paul's wailing recollection, near the very This is the case also in l These. ii. 14·: end of his conrse, of those beinons sins of iv. 16; Eph. ii. 18; Phil. iv. 16. In regard his. committed long years before, agatnst to the connection of this first ha.If of the Christ and bis Church (l Tim. i 15)- Now, eighth verse with the.preceding context, we we cannot conceive of a continuous existence must take note of the sternly monitory tone of the sonl apart from a continued remem• which marks ver. 7. This shows that in the brance ofit.s past experience&- The redeemed, sentence, "whatsoever a man soweth, the.t then, in their perfected state after the resur- shall he also renp,'' the apostle has more rection, can never become oblivions of those immediately in view the terrible harvest to foul blots in their spiritual history ; the recol- be reaped by those who acted as if they lection of them can never cease at once to thought that God might be overreached. 11,base them in their own consciousness and We may infer from this that this first to glorify the graco which has redeemed clanse of ver. 8 is me.inly the thought them. The Divine Spirit itself will still, which up to here the writer had it on his mind we may believe,quicken these remembrances; to inculcate-the "corruption" which a und the infinite benefactions of God, in that man would reap from a life of self-indul- state of felicity experienced, will be still gence. But, after completing the statemens J,eaping fresh coals of fire npon their heads_ of this thought, his tone forthwith changes; 'l'heir felicity will be no offspring of blind- the frown clearing awRy from his coun- ness or misconception in reference to the tenance, he adds, to the threatening ad- past; on the contrary, they will know the monition of the first clause, the cheering truth in respect to their own lives, in respect promise of the second, while a more genial to every part of them, with a clearness nn• t.one marks his further remarks on the subject attainable in the present state; but they in vers. 9 and 10. The second limb of the will know the trnth too in respect to the verse thus appears introduced in the so.me intensity of the Divine love. God's love, it way as the second does in Rom. viii. 13; is true, cannot shed the light of appro1Jal and in both cases with the conjunction 61. upon those dark spots of their earthly his- "Sowing nnto his own flesh." Me.ny critics tory; cannot shed upon them those felici- render, "into his own flesh,'' a.s if, with tating beams of "Well done, good and a shifting of the imRge, which is certainly fo.ithful servant," which will most assuredly not uncommon with St. Pe.ul, the flesh were flow down upon the acceptable portions of now the ground into which the seed is cast. their conduct ; that love itself cannot deal This relation, however, to the verb " sow " with bis stnants otherwise than according (see Alford and Ellicott) is in the New 1o truth. But the love of God will be Testament expressed differently, by ,.,, in, or clearly seen, cancelling, for Christ's sake, by brl, upon; while ds in Matt. xiii. 22 the penal consequences which bnt for Christ denotes "among." It is more obvious to those several wickedneeeee would have in- te.ke Eis as " unto,'' " denotiug the ilnme- curred; in those very instances of sinfulness diate object of the e.ction, that to which it magnifying in each aaved one's consciousne88 tenda, that in which it terminates" (Webater  OH, VJ. 1-18.) 'fHE EPISTLE ·ro THE GALATIANS. 301