In Writing to the Corinthians the Apostle Paul declares of the believers there, “ye are God’s husbandry” (1 Cor. 3:9). The margin of the AV says, “ye are God’s tillage”; the RSV, “you are God’s field”; and the NEB, “you are God’s garden”.
All these various translations have one thing in common; they emphasise the fact that what the apostle is representing by this figure of speech is the raw material, that is, the field, the tillage, which is worked by the husbandman, and which has its counterpart in the heart of the believer, upon which God works to produce the desired fruit of the Spirit. The method by which God has chosen to break up the soil, to plant the seed and then to nurture and cultivate its growth, is by a combination of the power of His Word, which is the primary agent, and His providential hand, which works in a multiplicity of ways, many of them utterly beyond human comprehension.
Immediately, of course, we hear in this figure an echo of the Lord’s parable concerning the sower, which emphasises so vividly the differing quality of the soil, or hearts, upon which God seeks to work. It is, however, important that we realise, in order to understand the apostle’s argument properly, that in the Corinthian context the only type of soil in view is the “good ground”, the good and honest hearts which bring forth fruit abundantly under the sweet influences of the Divine Husbandman.
We know that one of the main problems confronting the ecclesia at Corinth was the schisms and divisions by which it was troubled. Throughout the early chapters of this first epistle Paul has been wrestling to get to grips with this divisive spirit, and in the third chapter, where our subject title occurs, we have a further stage in the development of his argument. Some said, “I am of Paul”; others, “I am of Apollos”. There were, of course, other personalities and other causes for the differences that existed amongst the Corinthians, but Paul chose Apollos, one of his own closest friends and associates, to make the comparison he desired, so that none could cavil at his words or accuse him of being motivated by envy and jealousy himself.
Of course, such rivalry was completely incompatible with the life in Christ, and so we might sum up the argument in this way: God is the husbandman working ceaselessly on His field, and without His influence and the transforming power of His Word there could be no success at all. Paul might plant and Apollos water, but all in vain if God did not give the increase. Factions and divisions are therefore completely foreign to the spirit of true believers, for the apostles and teachers were not just leaders of men in their own right but servants of God and labourers together with Him in His field. Notice that the construction of the Greek text does not mean “workers with one another for God”, although that of course is none the less true, but rather God’s fellow workers.
This emphasis served first to drive home to them, and to us, the tremendous privilege that is enjoyed by those who are called by God to share in the work of His Truth. Secondly, and perhaps this is the key point in the apostle’s argument, if they are fellow workers with God in His husbandry, then there is no room for schisms and factions, for all, planters and waterers alike, are united together with Him in a common cause. There might be a difference of operation, but they are one in spirit and purpose, that all might be done to His glory and honour.
To pick up the exhortation in a little more detail, both of them were “ministers by whom ye believed” (v. 5). The idea of the word ‘minister’ is principally that of a servant or an agent who acts for and on behalf of another and cannot therefore himself be leader or head without a breach of trust. Again, they minister or serve as the Lord has given unto them, for in watering or planting they all have their particular function or special work to perform. In the case of those in the first century this was dispensed to them as Holy Spirit gifts, but the underlying principles are still true for us today in our work in the ecclesia.
As it is in the natural world, where the outward acts are done by men but the life and growth within are utterly beyond their powers, so also it is with the spiritual. The new man, to change the figure, is the creation of God, born through the operation of His Word upon the heart.
So, then, the labourers, without God, are as nothing, and their efforts would be futile if He did not give the increase to their work. The apostle, however, is anxious not to eliminate completely the idea of reward for individual effort and service (v. 14).
The gift of God is eternal life, and all those who labour with God will share this blessing. Nevertheless, as in the Lord’s parable, one will be ruler over five cities and another over two; for while they have a common aim and are one in purpose there are still rewards to be dispensed according to a man’s labours (v. 8).
The word ‘labour’ is an exhortation in itself. It means literally ‘toil’, and it implies the weariness and exhaustion that follow vigorous and prolonged effort. Paul uses the metaphor of the husbandman in another context (2 Tim. 2:6), where it occurs amongst some other very telling and powerful illustrations of the effort and discipline required for discipleship:
“Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully. The husbandman that laboureth must be first partaker of the fruits” ( vv. 3-6).
“The husbandman that laboureth”. As one writer has put it, this labour “toils with honest sweat, week in and week out”. Such is the service that God demands of those who would labour with Him. No time then for petty jealousies and arguments about who shall have the preeminence, for the work is one, and we are all united together in its execution.
The work is great. There is no room for slackness, no place for the slothful, for each of us has his part to play: some to plant, some to water; but all must be done to that same great end, that God’s field might bring forth fruit abundantly, even trees of righteousness, that He might be glorified.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One