sowing and reaping

Individual Responsibility

The prophet Ezekiel was designated by God as a watchman for Israel and assigned the task of telling the people about their individual responsibility to do what God told them to. The LORD told Ezekiel:

Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. If I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, in order to save his life, that wicked person shall die for his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand.But if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, or from his wicked way, he shall die for his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul.

The use of the term soul looks beyond the material ramifications and considers the eternal results of sin. Many righteous people were going to die in the siege of Jerusalem, and many would be carried to Babylon (as Ezekiel and Daniel were). “The eternal fate of each person, however, was determined by his or her individual relationship to God” (note on Ezekiel 18:1-32).

God illustrated the principle of individual responsibility with the example of three righteous people who had a relationship with him, Noah, Daniel, and Job, to show that individual responsibility works both ways. A righteous person will not die for the sins of a wicked person, and a wicked person will not be saved because of someone else’s relationship to God. God said, “When a land sins against me by acting faithlessly, and I stretch out my hand against it and break its supply of bread and send famine upon it, and cut off from it man and beast, even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they would deliver but their own lives by their righteousness, declares the LORD” (Ezekiel 14:13-14).

God told Ezekiel that he was going to change the way he dealt with sin as a result of the Israelites breaking the covenant he made with them. The Lord GOD said to the people of Israel, “I will deal with you as you have done, you who have despised the oath in breaking the covenant, yet I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish for you an everlasting covenant” (Ezekiel 16:59-60). The everlasting covenant that the Lord was referring to was the one that Jesus established through his death on the cross and resurrection three days later (Matthew 26:28). God said of this covenant, “I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the LORD, that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I atone for you for all that you have done, declares the Lord GOD” (Ezekiel 16:62-63).

Atonement was not a new concept to the Israelites. When the Lord said, “I will atone for you” he was changing things by interjecting himself into the process. The Lord wanted everyone to know that he was going to do something that would change the way sin was taken care of with regard to being able to remove it from people’s lives permanently. In Romans 11:11-24, Paul said the reason for this change was to make it possible for the entire world to be reconciled God.

The Lord told Ezekiel, “The soul who sins shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4). The Hebrew word that is translated sins, chata (khaw-taw) is “a verb meaning to miss the mark…Its central meaning is to miss the mark or fail. It is used in a nonmoral sense or nonreligious sense to indicate the simple idea of missing or failing at any task or endeavor. In Judges 20:16, it indicated the idea of a slinger missing his target” (H2398). Jesus explained the concept of missing the mark in his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) and wanted his followers to understand that anything less than perfection (hitting the mark) counted as a miss or sin against an individual. Jesus told his followers, “You have heard it said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire” (Matthew 5:21-22).

God emphasized the importance of each individual taking responsibility for his or her own sin when he told the people of Israel, “I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways” (Ezekiel 18:30). The Apostle Paul made it clear that this judgment also applies to believers as well as the house of Israel. Paul said, “So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Corinthians 5:9-10). The Greek word that is translated done, prasso (prasˊ-so) means “to ‘practice,’ i.e. perform repeatedly or habitually” (G4238).

Developing habits, whether good or bad, usually takes time and an intentional effort. Paul said in Galatians 6:7-9, “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” Paul was eluding to the set time for the coming of the Messiah in his kingdom when he used the phrase due season.

Jesus illustrated the principle of rewards by comparing the kingdom of heaven to a master of a house who hired laborers for his vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16). Jesus said the master agreed to pay the first group of laborers he hired a denarius, a day’s wages for a laborer, and sent them out to work (Matthew 20:1-2). Throughout the day, the master hired additional laborers and promised to pay them whatever was right. At the end of the day, he called them in to pay them their wages. Everyone was paid the same amount, no matter what time of the day they had started working. The laborers hired first grumbled at the master because the last group of laborers had only worked one hour and were given a full day’s wages. Jesus said, “But he replied to them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge  my generosity? So the last will be first and the first will be last” (Matthew 20:13-16).

Equality

Paul indicated in his second letter to the Corinthians that one of the works of the Holy Spirit is to bring equality to the members of the body of Christ. Paul used the example of Jesus’ death on the cross to show how God’s riches are meant to be distributed to those in need. He said, ” For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9, NKJV). The Greek word translated grace, charis (khar’-ece) refers to the friendly disposition from which acts of kindness proceed (G5485). The objective of grace is to give away what others need more than we do. Paul wasn’t suggesting that Christians should go into debt in order to take care of the needs of others. He stated, “For I mean not that other men be eased, and you burdened, but by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality” (2 Corinthians 8:13-14).

The Greek word translated abundance in 2 Corinthians 8:14, perisseuma (per-is’-syoo-mah) means surplus or what is left over (G4051). In some ways, it could be thought of as that which might otherwise go to waste or what we might normally store up for a rainy day. The point I believe Paul was trying to make was that God’s provision doesn’t involve us storing things up for the future. We are to give away what we don’t need now so that when we are in need, God can provide for that need through someone else’s generosity. The Greek word translated equality, isotes (ee-sot’-ace) means likeness (G2471) and has to do with our circumstances being perceived to be similar. In other words, you’re not rich and I’m living in poverty, we both have a comfortable lifestyle.

The principle behind Paul’s lesson on Christian equality was sowing and reaping. He stated:

The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. (2 Corinthians 9:6-8, ESV)

The Greek word translated sufficiency in 2 Corinthians 9:8, autarkeia (ow-tar’-ki-ah) means self satisfaction or contentedness (G841). Paul wanted the believers in Corinth to give to the church in Jerusalem where Jewish believers were suffering greatly for their faith in Jesus, not because they were being pressured to do it, but so that they wouldn’t feel ashamed because they were well off. Paul added that the Corinthians shouldn’t give grudgingly meaning because they felt sorry for the Jewish believers (G3077/GG1537) or out of necessity because they were afraid something bad might happen to them if they didn’t help (G318). The Corinthians’ motive for giving was supposed to be so that they would be equally blessed by God in their time of need.