1. The contaminating influence of evil associations (1 Cor. xv. 33).
  2. The personal responsibility of each for his own sin (Jas. i. 16).
  3. Entrance into heaven conditioned on character (1 Cor. vi. 9).
  4. Human destiny, once settled, irreversible (Gal. vi. 7).—British and Foreign Evangelical Review.

Ver. 8. Sowing to the Spirit.

I. The natural man has no desire for immortality.—He has not been seized with the earnest and real wish for a future life; but he is entirely bound by this world in all his thoughts, aims, and wishes: he identifies life and existence altogether with this world, and life out of this world is a mere name to him. He is shut up within the walls of the flesh and within the circle of its own present aims and projects.

II. The spiritual man has a strong desire for immortality, and it is the beginning and foundation of the religious life he leads here. Every field of action becomes unimportant and insignificant compared with the simply doing good things, because in that simple exercise of goodness lies the preparation for eternity.

III. The natural and spiritual man are divided from each other by these distinctions—one has the desire for everlasting life, the other has not. The success of the one perishes with the corruptible life to which it belongs; the success of the other endures for all ages in the world to come.—J. B. Mozley.

The Law of Retribution.

I. We see the justice of God—His bounty and severity.—His bounty in recompensing men above their deserts; His severity in punishing sinners according to their deserts.

II. This doctrine, that we shall drink such as we brew, reap such as we sow, and that men have degrees of felicity or misery answerable to their works, will make us more careful to avoid sin.

III. It serves as a comfort against inequality; whereas the wicked flourish and the godly live in contempt, the time shall come when every one shall reap even as he has sown.

IV. It crosses the conceit of those who promise to themselves an impunity from sin and immunity from all the judgments of God, notwithstanding they go on in their bad practices.—Perkins.