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Sketches from the Life of Paul
for another to build upon. He stated, “For we are laborers together
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with God.” He claimed no wisdom of his own; but divine power,
uniting with his human efforts, had enabled him to present the truth in
a manner pleasing to God. He was a co-laborer with Christ, a diligent
worker in bringing spiritual knowledge from the word of God and the
works of Christ, to all whose hearts were open to evidence. United
with Christ, who was the greatest of all teachers, Paul had been enabled
to communicate lessons of divine wisdom, which met the necessities
of all classes and conditions of men, and which were to apply to all
times, all places, and all people. In so doing, the apostle took no glory
to himself, as a humble instrument in the hands of God.
The Lord gave Paul the wisdom of a skillful architect, that he
might lay the foundation of the church of Christ. This figure of the
erection of a temple is frequently repeated in the Scriptures, as forcibly
illustrating the building up of the true Christian church. Zechariah
refers to Christ as the Branch that should build the temple of the Lord.
He also refers to the Gentiles as helping in this work: “And they that
are far off shall come and build in the temple of the Lord.”
Paul had now been working in the Gentile quarry, to bring out
valuable stones to lay upon the foundation, which was Jesus Christ, that
by coming in contact with that living stone, they might also become
living stones. In writing to the Ephesians, he says: “Now, therefore,
ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the
saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation
of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief
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corner-stone; in whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth
unto an holy temple in the Lord. In whom ye also are builded together
for an habitation of God.”
In his letter to the Corinthians, he writes, further: “If any man build
upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble,
every man’s work shall be made manifest; for the day shall declare
it.” Some ministers, through their labors, furnish the most precious
material, gold, silver, and precious stones, which represent true moral
worth in those gained to the cause by them. The false material, gilded
to imitate the true,—that is, a carnal mind, and unsanctified character,
glossed over with seeming righteousness,—may not be readily detected
by mortal eye; but the day of God will test the material.