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The leading truth in the context would seem to be this - that the most honoured and most successful worker in the kingdom of Christ is but as a helpless instrument through which the living power is pleased to operate, and that power is in God alone. The name of God, therefore, occupies the emphatic place in each clause of this verse. "Of God ye are the husbandry." This is spoken of the Corinthians, not so much as individual believers, but as an organized Christian society. Observe the view it gives us of -

I. THE NATURE OF A CHRISTIAN CHURCH. It is God's "tilled land." Not so much the process of husbandry, but the field in which the process is wrought out, is here intended. Every organized Christian society is the sphere of a spiritual culture analogous to that which goes on in the realm of nature, in the gardens, the vineyards, and the corn-fields. Two or three distinct elements of thought are suggested.

1. There is the idea of a germ of Divine life implanted is the hearts of men. The course of nature's husbandry proceeds on the law that when the seed corn, in which the mysterious principle of vegetable life is hidden, is brought into contact with certain quickening and nourishing elements of the soil, it will germinate and be productive. The step of primary importance is the planting of the seed in the ground, because that establishes the necessary connection between the latent forces that combine to work out the desired result. So in the higher sphere of man's moral life. The "truth as it is in Jesus" is the productive germ, in which, beneath the husk of the literal verbal form, is hidden the very spirit and life of God. And the condition of its unfolding is that it should be brought into real, direct, living contact with the soul (Matthew 13:23; James 1:21; 1 Peter 1:23). There is no uncertainty in the result when the needful conditions are supplied. The Church is God's "tilled land." "The field is the world;" but then the world has its "wayside" and its "stony and thorny places;" the "good ground" is composed of those who, "in an honest and good heart," are prepared to receive the imperishable seed of the kingdom.

2. The development of this germ by external culture. The husbandry of the earth is man's effort to supply the most favourable conditions for the working out of nature's great productive law. Churches exist to promote, as far as possible, the operation of the spiritual law. Social life generally, with all its relations and activities, is no doubt intended by God to be helpful to this. We rise to the true, broad idea of religious culture only when we look On them all as auxiliaries to the great work of spiritual enlargement and enrichment. But the Church relationship, by all its conditions Of fellowship, worship, and work, is specially fitted to accomplish this end. Spiritual culture is the primary purpose of its existence. The ideal may not always be reached. As the earth has its frigid and temperate and torrid zones, so Christian societies differ as to the kindliness of their soil and atmosphere for the development of the germs of spiritual life. But this is their Divine intent - that they should be nurseries of all truth and goodness, where everything that is best and noblest and loveliest in men may be fostered and brought to perfection.

3. The production of the appropriate fruits. All labour is for the sake of the "profit" that can be got out of it. Seed sowing, "planting and watering," point on to the harvest. One harvest lays the foundation for another and a greater. The "increase" is the end of all. "Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit" (John 15:8). "These things [good works] are good and profitable to men" (Titus 3:8). Churches exist for the production of the fruits of Divine goodness, with all the added force and fulness that social unity can give. They answer their end only so far as spiritual power goes forth from them, and they are felt to be centres and sources of blessing to the world, producing something that shall make it richer and happier than it would otherwise have been, something that shall never die.

II. THE RELATION BETWEEN DIVINE AND HUMAN AGENCY IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH. "God's husbandry." Divine proprietorship is an important truth involved here, but Divine activity is no doubt the more prominent. The field not only belongs to God, so that none dare claim any kind of "lordship" over it; but it is one in which God is the great Worker. The process wrought out in it is the result of his productive power, and, as far as the vital part of it is concerned, of his alone. Man is nothing; God is "all in all" (ver. 7). But the instrument has its needful and proper place. God works out his beneficent ends through the intervention of man's own willing cooperation, and in this lies for man himself an infinite benediction. He might have made the earth to yield its fruits without any culture of ours; but would that have been a merciful arrangement? In those parts of the earth where there is the nearest approach to such a condition of things, human life is always found to be in a state the most degraded. Labour is the law of man's being. And though that labour, through the curse of sin, presents too often the aspect of irksome toil, yet still it is a "sublime necessity," the indispensable condition of physical health and happiness. In the spiritual sphere, too, God would have us to be "fellow workers" with himself. He will not accomplish his beneficent purposes without us. He employs us as the channels and vehicles of his power. His working in us is the motive and the inspiration of our working for him. "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for," etc. (Philippians 2:12, 13). We can expect to see the blessed issue only when we place ourselves as ready and prepared instruments in his hands. But never may we forget that the power is his and not ours.

"Should e'er his wonder working grace
Triumph through our weak arm,
Let not our sinful fancy trace
Aught human in the charm."

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Parallel Verses

KJV: For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building.

WEB: For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's farming, God's building.