THE office of the holy ministry of the Gospel of Christ was given its own proper and high place in the Church of Christ by the Apostle Paul, himself an Apostle and servant of Jesus Christ, converted and commissioned to preach the doctrines and truths of salvation to dark and lost sinners, beyond the limits of the Jewish nation and among heathen Gentiles. The success and prosperity which attended and followed his labours in the conversion and salvation of many sinners who were turned from sin and idols to the living God in Christ Jesus, is recorded for us in the Acts of the Apostles and his Epistles.
And while this was a blessed fact related to his ministry, which the Apostle himself recognised, as when he addresses Timothy as his “own son in the faith” and the Thessalonian believers thus: “What is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming?” (I Thess. ii. 19); yet he will not have his own person and ministry or the person and labours of any other, in the gospel, to be regarded or venerated in an unscriptural or unwarranted manner by any in the Church of Christ.
In the Church at Corinth, there confronted the Apostle, envying, strife and divisions among the people, on account of which he charges them with being carnal and walking as men (I Cor. iii. 3); that is, their being guided by principles which appertain to men exercising human and worldly wisdom. He reveals the background and root of the trouble as follows:— “For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos, are ye not carnal?” (I Cor. iii. 4). Paul is not in any way envious of the mighty preacher, his fellow companion and labourer, Apollos. Banish the thought! But he is deeply concerned to protect and preserve himself and Apollos from obtaining a place and eminence in the minds and activities of the varied persons in the Corinthian Church, concerned in the situation that had arisen. And further and more important still, he was concerned for the honour of God in relation to the salvation of sinners and the building up of His people on their most holy faith.
He writes, “Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man?” (verse 5). Paul would have them to clearly understand that he and Apollos were but men, exercising their holy ministry and who were merely instruments through which the Corinthians were brought to believe upon the blessed Redeemer; the doctrines they preached and the effectual power accompanying the same, not beings theirs originally or essentially. He does state however in a definite manner that Apollos and himself did discharge their respective tasks and duties as gifted and guided by God. “I have planted, Apollos watered” (verse 6). No doubt he excelled in ordered doctrinal preaching with respect to the Cross of Christ, and Apollos in argument and exhortation. Their respective ministries were without doubt essential and vital to the end, that the means of salvation be brought nigh to sinners in Corinth (as elsewhere) and be made a saving blessing to precious souls, according to God’s ordaining and pleasure. “For it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe” (I Cor. i. 21).
Now at this stage in his argument Paul introduces a “But.” “But God gave the increase” (iii. 6). And he repeats the “But” after emphasising the true place appertaining to himself and Apollos in relation to the success of the gospel. “So then, neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase” (verse 7). And so even heaven-sent and the most outstanding ministers of Christ are relegated to the background as to the actual work of bringing dead, guilty sinners to believe in Christ Jesus to the saving of the soul, and regarding the personal, inward-saving experience of such. It is God that giveth the increase. The desires of godly ministers for the spiritual and eternal welfare of their fellow men, their groans, their prayers, their meditation upon and study of the Word of God, their faithful and zealous preaching of the pure gospel of salvation, their tears over sinners, and their constant concern for the success of the gospel, are all desirable and as it should be in their own place; and God would have His servants to be so exercised. Yet all this in itself cannot, and will not, turn one sinner from the error of his ways to Jesus in faith and love. True and genuine experienced servants of the Lord learn this increasingly and the longer they continue in the work of the gospel which they love so much.
God in His heavenly and sovereign grace made the work of Paul and Apollos effectual to the ingathering of souls into the Kingdom of Christ Jesus. To emphasise this, when Paul preached at Antioch of Pisidia, the Jews to whom he declared the word of life, contradicted and blasphemed so that he perforce had to turn away from them. But when for instance in Philippi, he was faced with much opposition and exposed to suffering, God gave, in His free grace, salvation manifold to Lydia and to the jailer, although through Paul’s ministrations. It was surely by the Holy Spirit sent forth from the Father, through Jesus Christ the Son, that any sinner was converted, humbled, and brought to forsake all and follow Christ. God’s power alone could and can give the increase. As Paul writes to the Ephesians, “You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins.” Paul certainly preached at Ephesus but he did not quicken the soul of one sinner there. God did that by the effectual working of His power, through the instrumentality of His Word and Gospel. And it is He who thus gives the increases in adding to the Church such as shall be saved, where and when and in the case of whom He pleases. And so Paul declares of himself and Apollos, “We are labourers together with God. Ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building” (I Cor. iii. 9).
And so ministers of the gospel are to depend on God alone and the mighty power of His blessed Spirit for success in their labours; and those who are brought to believe upon the Redeemer through their ministry, with due respect to that ministry, are to render the glory of all their salvation to the God of all grace Himself.
And it may further illustrate the main line of the Apostle’s teaching here if we glance at the account of the healing of the lame man who sat at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful (Acts iii). Peter took him by the hand and lifted him up, the meanwhile saying, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.” And the man immediately entered the temple, walking and leaping, and praising God. Now the people were filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened unto the lame man. “And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people . . . why marvel ye at this? Or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk?” (verse 12). Then Peter proceeds to explain the true situation as to the author of the lame man’s deliverance, by reminding the people of Christ, His death, resurrection and glorification at the right hand of God. And then declared of Christ—”And his name through faith in his name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know” (verse 16). And so it was the Lord Jesus who gave the “increase” in this lame man’s healing; and although Peter spoke to him in the name of Christ and lifted him by the right hand, yet Peter denies that it was by virtue of any power or holiness possessed by John or himself that the miracle was accomplished.
And so the Apostles will have us to learn, in one way or another, to guard against false or unwise views of the place and powers of such as have been obviously ordained by God to serve Him in His Church on earth, that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, may not be dishonoured as He who is, in Christ Jesus, all and in all to His believing and redeemed children.
The point on which a crisis turns may be small enough, but the crisis itself may be fraught with eternal destinies.—Venn.