What is the flesh? What is sowing into the flesh? The flesh is self-love and self-pleasing with the passions and desires. These have settled especially in the flesh, are manifested in it, and find their support there. Sowing into the flesh is the multiplication of self-pleasing and passionate deeds, which the Apostle has already listed above (cf. Gal 5:19-21).
What is the spirit? What is sowing into the spirit? The spirit is the Godlike power which, when it is in strength, sets a man with consciousness in the heart before God. It keeps him in reverent fear before Him and disposes him to walk unswervingly in His holy will, in expectation of eternal blessedness in Him. Sowing into the spirit is the multiplication of those virtues that the Apostle listed above in the twenty-second and twenty-third verses of chapter five (Gal 5:22-23).
What is the fruit of the one sowing and of the other? The fruit of sowing into the flesh is corruption. The fruit of sowing into the spirit is eternal life. The flesh will certainly decay. Therefore everything by which it is fed perishes in vain. But if the harmful consequence of sowing into the flesh were limited to this, it would present nothing terrible. It would not sober those who please the flesh. No, here corruption means eternal corruption, corresponding to eternal life.
The soul will be clothed in an incorruptible body. Together with it, the soul will eternally reap corruption, as it also pleased itself together with it. Corruption will be the body's constant dissolution by fire, worms, and cold. It will be a tearing dissolution, but not an annihilating one. This is incorruptible corruption.
In the soul there will be its own dissolution and its own torments. These too will be so painful that they could destroy both body and soul. Yet neither one nor the other will be destroyed. They will only feel that, because of the unbearable sufferings, their life hangs as if by a thread. Yet they will remain whole for all eternity.
It should be noticed that the Apostle did not say, the flesh will reap corruption. Rather, the man himself will reap this corruption because he practiced flesh-pleasing in desire. "From the flesh" means for the flesh, for fleshly life. Sowing into the flesh will make corruption spring up for him, and he will reap it for all eternity.
The fruit of sowing into the spirit is eternal life. The spirit, weakened by the fall, is restored in power by the grace of the Holy Spirit. The grace of the Holy Spirit keeps the spirit of man in the disposition shown above. Through it, He produces the fruits of the Spirit indicated by the Apostle.
Each of these fruits appears as a consequence of expelling from the heart the passionate disposition that corresponds to it. This expulsion is accomplished by the man's own labor and sweat, under the action of the grace of the Holy Spirit. If we call each passion a wound of the soul, or a sickness, which is what their Greek name παθος means, then expelling the passion and implanting a good disposition in its place, the fruit of the Spirit, will be the healing of a wound and the cure of a sickness.
When all the passions have been expelled by the fruits of the Spirit, then all the wounds and sicknesses of soul and body will be healed. Human nature will receive its original health and wholeness, and even something higher. Since corruption entered as a result of receiving selfhood and the passions, after their expulsion incorruption, health, and wholeness must reign in our nature. In them is the joy of life.
Thus the direct consequence of sowing into the spirit is eternal and blessed life. "He who strives toward the spiritual goal and follows the laws of the Spirit will acquire eternal life" (blessed Theodoret).
Saint Chrysostom says: "So it is with seeds. He who sows peas cannot reap wheat, for the harvest is of the same kind as the seed. The same happens in deeds. He who fills his flesh with pleasures, drunkenness, and unbridled desires will reap what usually grows from these. And what is this? Punishment, vengeance, shame, mockery, corruption. For costly and luxurious tables and banquets end in corruption alone. They themselves decay, and together with themselves they corrupt the body. The works of the spirit, on the contrary, are not such. They are entirely opposed to the fleshly works. See, you have sown almsgiving, and heavenly treasures and eternal glory await you. You have sown chastity, and honor and reward await you, greetings from the Angels, and crowns from the Giver of the contest."
Blessed Augustine writes: "He who sows to the flesh will reap corruption from the flesh. The Apostle says this of those who love self-pleasing pleasures more than God. For he sows to his own flesh who does everything he does, even if it seems good, in order that it may be well for him bodily. But he who sows to the spirit will reap eternal life from the spirit. Sowing to the spirit is to work righteousness from faith with love, without obeying sinful desires, even though they exist in mortal flesh. The harvest of this sowing is eternal life. Then the last enemy, death, will be abolished (cf. 1 Cor 15:26). What is mortal will be swallowed up by life, and this corruptible will put on incorruption. In this life, being under grace, we sow with tears, because contrary desires come forth from the soulish body, and we must struggle with them. We struggle to the point of weariness, so that we may reap with joy. But after the renewal of the body, no troubling impulse will come from any part of man, and no danger of temptation will threaten."
THEOSIS