“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” Yes, almost word for word, in Galatians 6:7. But Paul aims it at the reader’s own sowing, and two verses later he uses the same harvest to tell believers not to grow weary in doing good.
The paragraph around it
The chapter opens with a person caught in sin, and the first instruction is about how to treat him.
Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.
Galatians 6:1 (KJV)
Restore him, gently, and watch yourself. That holds when the man really did sin: the chapter’s way of treating a person “overtaken in a fault” is to restore him in meekness, not to keep quoting his harvest at him. The next lines say to carry one another’s burdens and to “prove his own work,” each answering for his own.
Verse 6 adds one practical matter, sharing “in all good things” with the person who teaches you. Read with the lines around it, the paragraph speaks to the reader about his own conduct, and never hands him a verdict on someone else.
Where the sentence points
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 (KJV)
Paul means the warning. What he does with it is hand it to the reader, about the reader: sow to please yourself and you will gather what that grows.
Elsewhere Paul uses the same image for giving, as in 2 Corinthians 9:6: “He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.”
The warning form is in Scripture too
The threatening use people reach for has biblical company. “They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind,” says Hosea 8:7 of a nation that made its own kings and idols. “Ye have plowed wickedness, ye have reaped iniquity,” says Hosea 10:13. And Proverbs 22:8: “He that soweth iniquity shall reap vanity.” None of these is rebuked. The principle is true, and it is true for everyone, including the one who quotes it.
The trouble starts when it is aimed at someone’s suffering. Job’s friend Eliphaz uses nearly the same words in Job 4:8, “they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same,” just after asking, “who ever perished, being innocent?” Later, in 22:5, he tells Job outright, “Is not thy wickedness great?” At the end of the book, in 42:7, God tells Eliphaz and his two friends that they have not spoken rightly of him, and he does not say which words were wrong. Eliphaz had used a true saying as a verdict on a suffering man.
Proverbs 22:8 sits two verses after “train up a child,” and that verse has suffered the same misuse: a proverb about how life usually runs, turned into a sentence on a parent.
What Paul does with it
Verse 8 is still a warning, and God is not mocked. The paragraph keeps it. It opens by telling you to restore the person in a fault and watch yourself, and it closes on doing good, not on a threat.
And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.
Galatians 6:9 (KJV)
Paul writes “us,” and includes himself. The temptation he names is weariness, and the work in the meantime is to keep sowing.
If you are the one the verse has been aimed at, and you are tired, this is where Paul leaves you: with the next good thing in front of you, the kindness, the honest word, the help for someone who cannot pay it back, and a harvest promised in due season, if you faint not.