Galatians 6:9: ‘Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.’ Can you comment on the idea of eternal life being ‘reaped’?
I suspect that it may have suggested to you the fact that eternal life has to be reaped, that it is not in our present possession, and that we cannot be certain of possessing it until finally we reap it in heaven at last.
But that cannot be so, because our Lord himself and the Apostle John, in many places, tell us, 'He that believes in the Son of God has,' that is, already has, 'eternal life' (for example, John 3:36). The reason why, in fact, Paul can talk about reaping eternal life in the future is because eternal life is a life. Eternal life is not a thing like a lump of gold that, once you have received it, you can put it into a bank and say, 'Well, I don't need it now, I will leave it in the bank until some future occasion when I do need it and then I will take it out.'
Eternal life is a life. It has all sorts of potential. But having eternal life is one thing, and developing its potential is another.
We may take the analogy of physical life. All living people have physical life, but they do not all develop the potentials that are inherent in their physical life. One may go on by diligent use of time and practice to become a world famous athlete; the rest of us cannot be bothered to exercise ourselves even as we should and, therefore, our muscles become flabby. But we still have physical life.
And so Paul here is talking to the believers that, if they are to sow to the Spirit here and now in this life—not merely in the next—they shall reap all the blessings that come from the diligent development of the potential of our eternal life.
If, of course, a believer neglects to sow to the Spirit and, on the contrary, sows to the flesh, he will, says Paul, 'from the flesh reap corruption' (Galatians 6:8). And that would be perfectly true. If we grow careless in our Christian living, and spend our time and energies on fleshly and unclean things, we shall find that we reap a great deal of trouble and sorrow and heartbreak in this life.
But as we see from 1 Corinthians 3 that the man who does that kind of thing, and builds on the foundation with wood, hay and straw, shall lose his reward. He shall suffer loss, indeed eternal loss, but he himself shall be saved—his eternal security is not in doubt.
