HUSBANDRY AND BUILDING
[p. 279] HUSBANDRY AND BUILDING
1 Corinthians 3:9 - 12; 2 Chronicles 3:3
The scripture in Corinthians indicates how we are to regard the people of God in any town or place in which they may be. They are to be regarded as God’s husbandry, God’s building; the former may apply and not the latter, whereas normally both ideas should apply or be manifest in any company of God’s people. The husbandry is the fruit of sowing: the yield is for use; the scripture says, “The king himself is dependent upon the field”, (Ecclesiastes 5:9). God has in mind that in the sowing there should be a crop for Himself. The idea is that it is for use or consumption. I am speaking now of the figure itself; the building is a permanent idea, but it rightly accompanies the thought of husbandry; the two thoughts are aptly set in their position in Proverbs 24:27: “Prepare thy work without, and put thy field in order, and afterwards build thy house”, so the idea of building is not to be detached from the field or husbandry, but nevertheless they are two distinct things. In the house there are liveable conditions, that in which there is scope for affection, it is therefore obvious that the two things run together. They do so in ordinary affairs — we have the farm and the habitation, but the greater thought is the habitation: it is the sphere for the display of intelligence with which God has endowed man, and of affection, of family life.
Now that is what is stated, dear brethren, in this verse very briefly, and that it has an application to a company of christians in any town or city is of course obvious. What is to be noted primarily is that the husbandry and the building are God’s, implying that man as such has no part in them. It has a negative bearing, for in truth there was very little ground for [p. 280] speaking of the positive side. In the letter to the Corinthians the main thought is to get rid of the man who had got in there, and who had spoiled everything of God from Adam onwards. Paul had planted, Apollos watered, and God had given the increase, but on Paul’s leaving Corinth the man had got in that had been set aside judicially in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one great aim of the epistle is to get that man out, for he is always ready either to come in, or, if he has come in, to stay in. The Holy Spirit in His energy in a company of saints would keep that man out, but if he is in, get him out, so that there should be no rival to God. It is God’s husbandry and there must be no intrusion on that. It was not Paul’s husbandry, it was not his tillage or his building, it was God’s tillage and God’s building, and God is jealous that His belongings should not be interfered with, indeed the Lord had anticipated this in saying to the Jews, “your house is left unto you” (Matthew 23:38). They had asserted rights in it although the Lord had called it “my Father’s house”; it had become theirs on the principle of rapine; they had made it a house of merchandise, and so He says “your house is left unto you desolate”. God is jealous that it should be His house; and each of us is to be concerned that His place should be undisputed; that there be no rival to God; that His rights should be absolutely accorded to Him. The fruit and the building are God’s, so that, as I said, the bearing of these remarks is against the men that had risen up on partisan lines, arrogating to themselves the rights of God.
Anyone that exercises natural or worldly influence over the people of God is a rival to God. Indeed lower down in our chapter allusion is made to those who were destroying the temple of God. It was God’s temple, and He says, “If any one corrupt the temple of God, him shall God destroy” (verse 17). He is particular about temple conditions, and God will destroy anyone who corrupts His temple. The bearing of this statement is [p. 281] against the party leaders that had arisen. The apostle was aiming at carrying the brethren with him in what he was saying, that they might come in a general way to the mind of God and the knowledge of His rights; in a word, that their obedience might be fulfilled. He says he was ready to avenge all disobedience when their obedience was fulfilled. Paul was never unready, never unvigilant — always vigilant and ready to carry out the will of God; and he acted in great wisdom in writing this letter before he came, the bearing of which is to shut out the natural mind from dominating in the assembly of God.
Now, having said all that about these verses, I want to say a little as to building, because that is what I have particularly in mind, and let no one here assume that it is something beyond him or her, because the principle of building is by love — love edifies, and every true christian has love. Anyone who has no love is nothing at all spiritually, and, moreover, the apostle says, “If any one love not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha”, 1 Corinthians 16:22. He resents the idea of a non-lover of Christ having a place in the assembly and uses the strongest language against such. There may be those who have a little love for the Lord down in the bottom of their hearts, they are thus not non-lovers, but they are in a poor way — their external position is very little different from a non-lover, something like the speaker in Song of Songs 1:7 who says, “why should I be as one veiled?” that is to say, a person whose fidelity is questionable. That was her idea at the first, and in seeking to find the Lord and to be in happy relations with Him, she was to seek out the footsteps of the flock, and resort to where they resorted. You do not want to be one of those who are questionable, you want it to be known to all that you are a lover of Christ. Song of Songs greatly helps us in this. The Song shows how one may be devoid of love externally like the “little sister” — but still there is hope of her — she is regarded as a sister. We may thank God for all such.
For several reasons we believe you are one of the Lord’s own, not for present reasons, perhaps, but for past reasons we regard you as a sister, but a little one. “If she be a door” — if there is the principle of exclusion in you in any little way, if you have power to shut out and to receive, that is to say, the power of discrimination, the refusal of evil and acceptance of good — then you are accredited, you have a certain place among the people of God. It is a very small one, but not to be despised. If she be a door or a wall, something can be done with her, so that she should not remain questionable. “If she be a wall, we will build upon her a turret of silver” (Song of Songs 8:9). What I am thinking of is that there is something on which we can build that which is of God — “a turret of silver”; what a great thought that is! There are other great thoughts seen when He seeks recovery and He has great thoughts for you. In Song of Songs 8:9 there is the idea of enclosing a door in boards of cedar — what spiritual dignity there is thus!
Well, I want now to show that the general thought in building spiritually is in this passage in Chronicles. The better rendering is the one to be noted, no doubt you have observed it. It reads, “And this was Solomon’s foundation for the construction of the house of God”. We do not want to be on any other. This is “Solomon’s foundation”. There is a lot of history behind Solomon’s foundation. The Spirit of God in the first book of Chronicles enlarges on what preceded this, indeed the first verse of this chapter tells us that it was “the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite”. It was on mount Moriah, which signifies shown of Jehovah, for these things are not to be understood by natural ability. The foundation of a cathedral does not need to be shown by God, an ordinary architect only is needed, and one need not be converted or have the Holy Spirit to be an architect or a builder, a stonemason or a plasterer. All [p. 283] such may be mere natural men. I refer to these things in a simple way so that you can get the idea that what I am speaking of is a matter of divine showing and has to be understood spiritually. The cleverest man in the world by himself knows nothing of it, in spite of his cleverness. He has to be shown — as a matter of fact we have to learn everything from the Lord, but this particularly. Of old God told Abraham to go and offer up Isaac on one of the mountains He would tell him of, he was to go into the land of Moriah and when there God would tell him. It is all a spiritual matter — we have to do with God, dear brethren, if we would know anything of the initial ideas of the assembly, they have to be learned from God.
In the sorrowful time of David’s sin in numbering the people, the Angel had come from Jehovah to destroy Jerusalem and there he was seen by David with sword stretched over the city, but God repented — a touching thing that God can repent. What great thoughts centred in Jerusalem! and what great thoughts centre in us! How great a saint is, a believer in Christ! known in divine counsels before the world was! God repented as the city was about to be destroyed; and then the Angel commanded Gad to tell David to rear an altar to Jehovah on the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite. Thus the place was shown. David saw the Angel and, clothed in sackcloth, he fell to the ground, taking to himself all the blame. David in that sense represents what is necessary in such circumstances — the ploughing time — when our souls are stirred up as having sinned against God. That was his experience, he felt things and went to Ornan, and the Angel was seen by Ornan too. It was a sight never to be forgotten — the sword drawn, the judgment of God pending and about to be executed. We are not of much account in the assembly, dear brethren, until we know something of this, learn something of what the judgment of God is and how that sword, when it was seen drawn over [p. 284] the city was sheathed — what a change! We are living in the period of the sheathed sword; the sword was once drawn and not without a righteous cause when it pierced the Lord Jesus. There could be no building for God save on the ground of God’s judgment of sin being borne by Christ.
David offered sacrifice on the mount, on the threshing-floor. It was a question of Christ bearing the judgment and not David. That is the sort of experience that precedes this history, and so David perceived that God accepted him on the principle of sacrifice, so that the foundation links on with the death of Christ in that way and the sheathing of the sword of judgment. The effect of the realization of this in the believer, the truth being apprehended, is that there is not an atom of fear in one’s heart as regards God; it is the God who has been glorified in the death of Jesus that we have to do with. And so David beautifully goes on to say, “This is the house of Jehovah Elohim”. He had arrived at it in that way. It is not simply that I am converted, but I have to get the idea of God’s foundation from Himself.
David recognizes this, but when you come to the actual structure David did not build the house — it is “Solomon’s foundation”, that is, Christ in heaven. The Son, past judgment for ever, marked out to be Son of God, according to the Spirit of holiness, by resurrection of the dead. It is indeed a great truth, it is Christ in heaven as the Son building, and you see His foundation, and then you get the measure, which I cannot go into fully, but give the general idea. It is not here the local thought, it is the assembly in a universal sense. “The first measure”, is the length, and then the second measure, and so on. God is the God of measure as we are told in 2 Corinthians 10. What a measure on God’s part to reach to us! Paul says “to reach to you also” (verse 13). The measure of God to reach us is the cross of Christ. That is the first [p. 285] great measure, all others must hinge on it. Paul was working on that principle, he says, “not ... boasting in another’s rule of things”. That is what his rivals at Corinth were doing — making the most of what he had done to glorify themselves, but he says, “according to the measure of the rule which the God of measure has apportioned us, to reach to you also”. He reached to the Corinthians according to God, and hence effectively.
In reaching the Corinthians Paul lodged with Aquila and his wife, because, as we are told, they were “of the same craft” (Acts 18:3). It is remarkable that this marked his entrance into Corinth — he came that way; it was a question of reaching them. Had he sought to get at them on the line of the flesh he would have selected the best hotel in Corinth, but he is getting at the Corinthians according to God. You cannot help people by flattering them in their worldly circumstances. It is a question of the cross. The apostle determined, he says, “not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). That was the way he came in, and his preaching was on that line, so that it might reach them, for he was in keeping with the God of measure. That, dear brethren, points to the calculations that enter into the service of God, so that in coming into a town like this, one is concerned as to what is in it; one seeks the mind of God as to what to present, what He would appoint, to find out just what is needed. Paul had found out what was needed at Corinth; the Lord had told him that He had “much people” there, but whether he told him in words what he should do or not, we are not told, but the apostle Paul had the sense, by the Spirit, of the line to take and he took it and thus reached them, having remained there for eighteen months.
There was a great work and he laid the foundation, not for something of his own, not to rear up something that should be a monument for him, but [p. 286] a building for God. I often inquire: If Paul came to London, what would he think of St. Paul’s cathedral? How he would recoil from that great structure; he never had such a thought in laying a foundation that there was to be something in Corinth taking his name. He would say, It is God’s — He used me as a wise masterbuilder. The wisdom Paul had was the same as that, by which the foundations of the earth were laid. What Paul laid at Corinth had the whole system in view, only what he laid there had also in view the requirements of the place, and that was “Jesus Christ” — that kind of man. He was “pressed in respect of the word, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ”, (Acts 18:5). If any of those Jews questioned the Messiahship of Jesus, the apostle would resent it. They have continued doing it ever since — alas for them! They spit at His name when it is mentioned, but the apostle at Corinth testified to it, his whole soul was in it, that Jesus whom he preached was the Christ. The note in the New Translation to this passage reads, ‘the Christ was really come, and that Jesus was he’. That kind of Man was preached by Paul and exemplified in his own service amongst the Corinthians. That was the way he laid the foundation.
You might have said if you had been there, Can you give us something else tonight? No, Paul would say, it is “Jesus Christ, and him crucified”. What he presented was according to the calculation of love and the wisdom that entered into it. No doubt he would find a variety of ways in presenting the same truth, but it was “Jesus Christ, and him crucified”. What did the Greek think of that? He scorned that thought, the preaching of the cross was to him foolishness, to the Jew a scandal, but to us that are saved — the power of God and the wisdom of God. What a weapon it was there, and it is the one the Spirit of God would always use in the preaching — He would never leave [p. 287] it out — for God cannot make use of us in the assembly unless we come to the great truth of “Jesus Christ, and him crucified”.
Well, at Corinth there was the husbandry; there was a yield — a great many converts, a large assembly as Paul left for other fields of labour; but what about the building — God’s building? It is not this room — of course I need not say that to you — but there are many of our dear brethren in this town who, if you spoke to them of God’s building, would think of some material building, some church, as they call it; but it is not that at all — there is no greater fallacy than that. Satan deceives people by such thoughts. Paul could say of the saints at Corinth that they were God’s building, but I am afraid it was somewhat abstract. There was very little idea of building expressed there, for parties had got in, and hence they were divided. But although it was very little seen, the apostle could speak of it; the foundation was there and he had laid it. That is what the Lord would say to us here or anywhere where the two ideas apply in a concrete way — God’s husbandry, God’s building — that people might see here that there is something belonging to God.
It encourages one greatly to think of the holdings that the Lord has in many countries of the world today, the twos and threes of those who love Him and who are pulling together and also walking together in the maintenance of divine principles, understanding the idea of edification, of building up something that resists the storm of time and will go on into eternity. One rejoices to think of what the Lord has in that way, and that is what He would press upon us — what He has. If I have any part in it I am just acting for Him and seeking to do it wisely, as Paul did, and recognizing the foundation. The apostle says, “other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ”. He says further, “I have laid the foundation, but another builds upon it”. One has to challenge oneself as to this — “another builds”: the thing has to go on, but in what way? “Let each see how he builds”. There is the “wood”, the “hay” and the “stubble”; these will not go through — they will not stand the test.
The question is one of quality — gold, silver, precious stones. Only what is of God will stand the test, dear brethren. The Lord would call upon us to think of these things, as to whether there is a yield for God in the way of a crop, and, on the other hand, a house for God, so to say, living conditions; God’s building, that into which God can come.