Fellowship: May 2008
Table of Contents
Fellowship Divine
And shall we see Thy face,
And hear Thy heavenly voice,
Well-known to us in present grace?
Well may our hearts rejoice.
With Thee in garments white,
Lord Jesus, we shall walk;
And spotless in that heavenly light,
Of all Thy sufferings talk.
Close to Thy trusted side,
In fellowship divine;
No cloud, no distance, e’er shall hide
Glories that then shall shine.
Fruit of Thy boundless love,
That gave Thyself for us;
Forever we shall with Thee prove
That Thou still lov’st us thus.
J. N. Darby, Little Flock
Hymnbook, #270
“We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10).
Our Fellowship: What Is It?
Webster defines “fellowship” as “a community of interest, activity, feeling or experience.” The definition makes me think immediately of the Apostle Paul. His desire for fellowship with the Lord Jesus was so strong that he wanted to pass through death, if that shared experience would enable him to know the Lord Jesus better.
God created us so that He might have creatures to love. But He did not stop there. He wanted a creature He could have fellowship with, so He made us in His likeness. Then He came down in the cool of the day to visit. Sin destroyed the fellowship. But that did not change His heart. He sent His Son to do the needed work to reconcile us to Himself so that fellowship could be restored and maintained in a bond of peace.
The Son became a man to make peace by the blood of His cross, and He remains a man so that God and man may remain together forever in the closest bond of fellowship — so that God might “tabernacle” with men.
In turn, God has called man from His lost condition in a world that knows not God into the fellowship of His Son, and as God’s assembly to enjoy and walk together in their common interest in Christ and His glory. As He and the Father are one, so the Son desires “that they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us.”
Fellowship
It has always been God’s wish to have fellowship with His creature. As someone has aptly remarked, “God is sufficient unto Himself in everything except in His love; He must have objects to love.” No doubt this is why, after creating the plant and animal kingdoms, God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). More than this, it is evident that God came down in order to enjoy fellowship with His creature, for it is recorded that after they sinned, Adam and Eve “heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (Gen. 3:8).
Sin Interrupts Fellowship
We know well how man’s sin interrupted this happy fellowship of God with His creature and that he was subsequently driven out of the garden of Eden. However, we know that long before sin entered this world, God had already planned the remedy for it, not only in order to bring man back into fellowship with Himself, but to bless him far more than if sin had never entered this world. Before they were driven out of the garden, God announced to them the wonderful news that the seed of the woman would bruise the serpent’s head, no doubt referring to the ultimate victory of Christ over Satan.
In the subsequent history of man in the Old Testament there was fellowship with God by various individuals, and in varying degrees, although it was not characteristic of man in general during that time. Men like Abraham, Moses, David, and many of the prophets enjoyed an intimate relationship with the Lord. Indeed, it is recorded that “there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face” (Deut. 34:10). However, the common people were not able to access God’s presence in such a way, and thus it is recorded that during that time, God said “He would dwell in the thick darkness” (1 Kings 8:12). A few individuals rose above their day and enjoyed a measure of intimate fellowship with God, but God had not yet revealed Himself in His full glory and character.
Reconciliation
When we come to the New Testament, we find God sending His Son into the world, and John the Baptist could say of Him, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). It was sin that had interrupted God’s communion with man, and the work of Christ would ultimately banish sin from the entire universe. This will not happen practically until that period known as the eternal state, but the work of Christ has already provided the basis for this to happen. This is brought out in Colossians 1:20: “Having made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself; by Him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.” However, the next verse shows us that we do not have to wait for this to happen, but can enjoy God’s presence and have fellowship with Him now. “You, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled” (Col. 1:21). The believer in the Lord Jesus is now reconciled to God — brought back into fellowship with Him, a fellowship that was lost when man sinned.
The fellowship into which we are brought is far more than that which Adam and Eve lost, for while they did indeed enjoy God’s presence in the cool of the day, we can say that “our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3). Our place is one of far greater nearness than Adam ever enjoyed, for not only do we have new life in Christ, but we have the Spirit of God dwelling in us, giving us the enjoyment of Christ through that new life. In every way the believer today is brought nearer to God than he could possibly have been, even if sin had never entered this world.
Separation From the World
This wonderful fellowship, of necessity, separates the believer from the world. Prior to the coming of the Lord Jesus into the world, man was not as responsible as he is now, and there was not the same differentiation between the world and those who followed the Lord. It is true that separation from other nations was enjoined on Israel, but eventually they proved themselves to be morally no better. In connection with His coming into the world, the Lord Jesus could say, “Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division” (Luke 12:51). His coming caused an irrevocable separation between those who accepted Him and those who rejected Him. The break with the world was complete, for those who have new life in Christ have no common moral ground with this world, unless they come back down to the level of what they were before they were saved. But the new life is characterized by a desire to please God, while the old, sinful self can only do evil. Thus the believer, if walking with the Lord, can have no fellowship with the world. He is not to go out of the world, but while being in the world, he is not of the world. He is sent back into the world as a living witness of the grace that saved him, but he can have no fellowship with it.
New Life
We have already seen that the believer’s fellowship is “with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.” However, we also read that “every one that loveth Him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of Him” (1 John 5:1). The believer has a new life that responds to God’s love, and because of this, it also responds to other believers. All of those who “walk in the light” (1 John 1:7) are part of this fellowship, for every true believer is in the light. Thus the believer has the wonderful privilege, not only of fellowship with God, but of fellowship with other believers, for they also are children of God.
Confession — Forgiveness
The word “fellowship” (or “communion”) simply means “having common thoughts,” and it is because we have common thoughts with God and with one another that we can have fellowship together. However, we well know that this fellowship can be interrupted by sin in our lives. When we sin, the Spirit of God must occupy us with the sin until we judge it, and thus He cannot occupy us with Christ. Our fellowship is not restored until we have dealt with the sin by confessing it. Then God acts in forgiveness, and we enjoy fellowship once more.
The Unity of the Spirit
In the same way our fellowship with other believers can be interrupted, for known sin in our lives will cause other godly believers to avoid us, until we have dealt with the sin. Likewise, fellowship is based on what Scripture calls “the unity of the Spirit” (Eph. 4:3), and it is only to the extent that we walk in that unity that we have real fellowship, either with God or with fellow-believers. A believer can have fellowship with another believer only to the extent that both walk in this unity, so such fellowship may be to a greater or lesser degree. If a believer holds or teaches bad doctrine as to the person and work of Christ or if there is serious moral sin in his life, we would have to refuse fellowship with him until that sin is confessed and dealt with.
There is a day coming when all hindrance will be removed, and full fellowship will exist, not only with God Himself, but with all fellow-believers. In that day all outside hindrance from the world and Satan will be gone, and our sinful self will likewise be gone. We will be perfectly like Christ, and in the words of the hymn, “We shall dwell with God’s Beloved, through God’s eternal day” (Little Flock Hymnbook, #48).
W. J. Prost
Communion and Conscience
In order to have communion, there must be perfect peace as regards the conscience. There is no communion in conscience. I am alone as to my conscience, and so are you. In order to have communion, I must have far more than conscience, though a perfectly purged conscience is the basis of communion. We must know that God has settled the whole question of sin.
J. N. Darby
Fellowship With the Father and With the Son
In all His dealings in grace, the great purpose of God is to bring us into fellowship with Himself. “Truly our fellowship is with the Father.” Thus we have the full knowledge of God, as far as it can be known, in full communion with Himself. This knowledge and communion is not in the way of creation, that is, not merely as being His creatures, but it is in “union.” We are made partakers of the Holy Spirit that there may be power; “we dwell in Him and He in us.” There cannot be anything more intimate.
Knowledge or science has nothing to do with this, for if it be the human mind working in the things of God, it is only a “high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God.” Babes in Christ have possession of these things; they do not have to seek for them, for they are in possession of them, though, of course, they have to grow in acquaintance with them. Mere knowledge puffs up, but being brought low, the Spirit of God can act upon the soul and give knowledge in communion with God.
The Epistle of John
Although the Epistle of John is very abstract, yet it is abstract about things that the very feeblest saint knows in Christ. God is brought down to our nature, for God can come down to us in our weakness, in Christ. John speaks of the nature of God Himself. The purpose and object of God is to bring us into full fellowship with Himself. There are three things I would here notice:
First, there is the work of God by which we can stand in His presence perfectly free from any question of sin, so that we can enjoy all that God is.
Second, there is justification by faith and acceptance in the Beloved—the perfect cleansing of the conscience, knowing we are accepted so as to be able to be before Him in perfect peace.
Third, there is the new birth. There must be a new nature capable of affections towards God. An orphan, who never knew a father, has the affections of a child and is capable of loving a father and is often very unhappy because he has no object towards whom those affections would naturally flow. So the capacity to love God is that which we get by being partakers of the divine nature. The Holy Spirit gives us competency to enjoy these things. We have an unction from the Holy One enabling us to enjoy what God has given to us.
Vessels of His Fullness
Remember, we received life in the humblest and simplest way. He who came into the world to save sinners, He has made us vessels of His fullness. Thus we have fellowship with the Father and with the Son, and we display it. “Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.” The effect is that we have the Father and the Son, and we lack nothing. I have the Father and the Son. I may have more to learn. If a man is on the ocean, there may be a great deal he has to discover of it, but he has not to get there; he is there. So I am in the truth. I have got a great deal to learn, but I am in the Father and the Son, and I am in the truth. I do not want to seek it if I am in it. I have the very eternal God in whom I dwell — I have come to the Father.
When there is a consciousness of this, oh, what comfort! what peace! This not only guards us from evils without, but it gives spiritual rest within. “These things write we unto you that your joy may be full.” This is the place where God brings the saint when there is humbleness. And if there is not humbleness, we shall slip. When we lose the sense of God’s presence (I say the sense of it, because we are always in His presence in truth), we are at the point to sin. My natural character or flesh will show itself if I am out of His presence. There is such a thing as the saint’s dwelling in the conscious presence of God without fear. If there is anything between me and God, my conscience will be at work, but when the Spirit is not grieved, the soul is in the presence of God for joy — learning holiness, it is true, but in joy, because occupied in communion instead of in detection, and that is a great thing. There is such a thing as being in His presence without the conscience having to be exercised and in perfect joy. “My peace I give unto you.” This was full peace of heart with God. Christ was divinely perfect — all His affections were always in tune with God. Now, through the grace and power of God, we may be brought to that. Christ having been revealed to the soul, the world is cast out, and Christ is everything, and there is perfect joy. This is often what our experience is after conversion, but afterwards the love to Christ grows less fervent — the world creeps in little by little, and we have less joy.
The Christian Position
There are three things in these verses of 1 John 1 which characterize a Christian.
First, he is in the light as God is in the light. Now God had said to Israel, “I will dwell in the thick darkness,” and at Sinai He told them to keep off. There was a great deal of good there, but He was in His pavilion of darkness, not seen. God acted towards Israel, but did not show Himself. Now the veil is rent from top to bottom, and all is light. God is now manifestly revealed, and He that comes in through the rent veil stands in the light of God’s holiness, perfect purity in itself. The light shows everything that is not pure.
Second, there is “fellowship one with another.” We are there together, and all have fellowship by the same Holy Spirit dwelling in all.
Third, we can be there because “the blood of Jesus Christ . . . cleanseth us from all sin.” The more thoroughly we are in the light, the more it shows that there is no spot on us through that blood. This could not be said of a Jew in the Old Testament, but now the righteousness of God is set forth, and we are brought into the light as He is in the light. This gives us joy.
If we are true of heart, we shall be glad of the light which detects any darkness in us. “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” We do not want to escape from the light, but to be searched by it — not with a pretension that we have no sin, but with the consciousness that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin, for the effect of being in the light is that we confess our sins. There are two things here, the confession and the love.
The Link of Fellowship
The power of the affections of the new nature forms a link of fellowship with God, and only as we keep in the light shall we know the practical enjoyment of it. We must be in the light that evil thoughts may be shut out, so that we may have fellowship with God. In many things, in our relationship with one another or with the world, self comes in and is not judged by us. There is a practical consciousness in the Christian that he cannot go on without God, so he judges, waits and confesses, trusting in God, and thus his heart is kept calm and in peace.
There are two important things: the manifestation of the eternal life which has been manifested to us, and, second, we are partakers of it —we have fellowship with the Father and the Son. He has communicated to us that nature so that we can delight in His fellowship.
The Lord give us to keep ourselves in the love of God — in His presence, in the light, detecting everything that is not of Him, judging it, and thus to be in the enjoyment of His love.
The Girdle of Truth, 1:232, adapted
Intimacy of Communion
There should be a going of the soul to God in a far more intimate way than to anyone else. Communion with saints is precious, but I must have intimacy of communion with God above all, and communion of saints will flow from communion with God. Then the soul, getting into this wonderful place of communion with God, takes His likeness. “We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory” (2 Cor. 3:18). While there is dependence upon God learned by need, still there is a deeper thing, a forming into the image of God by the soul’s getting near to Him and finding its delight in Him. J. N. Darby
Our Fellowship
The words, “our fellowship,” are found in 1 John, but as they have been used by some with a very different meaning from that which the Spirit of God gives them there, I would like to say a word on the subject.
The basis of fellowship among the men of this world is extremely simple. It is because the world “loves its own,” and “as in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man” (Prov. 27:19).
But there is another fellowship referred to by John, and it is equally simple. Scripture gives us the true witness as to this other fellowship, as it does also of the first, but the light of the Spirit is needed to understand both.
The Origin of Fellowship
The origin and present basis of the fellowship which is according to God is found in God Himself—hence its stability. God has been pleased in Christianity fully to reveal Himself. Christianity has displaced Judaism on the earth, wherein He could not be fully known, since He had not revealed Himself in it. Now He has, and He has revealed Himself to man. The man who does not know God needs to be brought into the fellowship, because outside it is the sphere where God is not known. This comes before us most clearly in the First Epistle of John, which is the epistle of fellowship. It is the epistle of fellowship because it insists on the fact that God will have sharers now in His own joy and in what suits Him, and that, too, outside of all that is in this world. Outside this fellowship is “the world,” the whole moral scene which is opposed to God. “All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 John 2:16). It is very important to keep these distinct. “We know that the Son of God is come” —this is Christian knowledge. Having spoken in times past to the fathers by the prophets, He has in these last days spoken to us “in [the person of the] Son.”
The basis and constitution of the fellowship is in God Himself. There is progress in the understanding of what it is by those who are brought into it. There are in it babes, young men, and fathers, but these are all brought into it (and once for all) by the one reception of the truth of the gospel. God is made known, and the fellowship being thus introduced, they grow in the knowledge of God.
The Epistle of Fellowship
The First Epistle of John is the “epistle of fellowship.” Notice a few points which will make this clear. The Spirit in the gospel leads men to Christ, and Christ is the revealer of and the conductor to the Father. I believe that it is thus that God is known and that we are brought into this fellowship.
John writes his epistle that we may have fellowship with him, and this fellowship of the apostles was “with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.” What do we get, then, in this fellowship?
1. The Father and the Son are known in the power of the Spirit. “Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.”
2. Light is walked in and enjoyed, in contrast to the moral darkness which exists all around us.
3. Righteousness is practiced in the midst of a scene of unrighteousness (ch. 2:29-3:12).
4. Love, the display of God’s nature, is delighted in and enjoyed (ch. 3:14-5:3).
5. Finally, this fellowship on earth is where eternal life is known and enjoyed (ch. 5:6 to the end of the epistle).
I add one word more. The fellowship which exists among men in the world is fully recognized by the Apostle. “The whole world lieth in wickedness.” John wrote his epistles later than Paul, and he has in view the fellowship which came into what we call Christianity, and which no breakdown of the church (as set here in responsibility) can touch. Paul gives us, in 2 Timothy 2, the way in which the breakdown is met by individuals, who, notwithstanding, remain in the good of what John sets forth later as the fellowship which existed in “the beginning.”
The Second Epistle of John is written to warn saints about those with whom they are not to have fellowship and the Third is written to exhort them as to those with whom they are to have fellowship.
I do not know any portion of the Word so occupied with the question of what I may call divine fellowship, and with what belongs to and is found in it, as the three epistles of John. God is seen there coming forth to establish what suits Him. He is the originator of it in the making known of Himself in Christ. He forms a sphere for man, which suits Himself, and two things characterize this sphere. It is exclusive of everyone and of everything that is contrary to Him who is revealed in it; it is inclusive of all that are born of Him, and of everything, therefore, in this world which is agreeable to Him. It is a condition of blessing for the earth with God as its center, wherein all is in moral conformity to Him from whom all in it is derived. The first in it being the apostles, they make it known. Thus it is called “our fellowship.”
May the Lord lead us so into the reality of this holy fellowship to which we are called that as saints we may be helpers of one another in it.
H. C. Anstey, adapted
The Fellowship of His Son
This is a very blessed reality, when seen in its true character. Grace has accorded it to us even here below, and we have the power and conditions necessary to its enjoyment. Let me say first that the words “communion” and “fellowship” (in the passages that will come before us) are the same in the original and have exactly the same sense, therefore, for the English reader. Let us look at what sets this fellowship (or communion) on its highest plane. “If we walk in the light . . . we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). It is a wonderful statement of the Christian position. We must always bear in mind that in John’s writing, light is God fully revealed and known, whereas darkness is God unknown.
Capacity
We walk, then, in the cloudless light of that wonderful revelation, and we have fellowship with all our fellow-believers, as enjoying the same light and partaking of the same life and nature of Him who is light. This gives us capacity for such fellowship. And then the basis of the whole position is brought out in the third clause that states the infinite value of the blood of Jesus — it “cleanses from all sin,” so that, though we “were sometimes [or formerly] darkness,” we are now righteously introduced into this position.
Power
The power for the enjoyment of this fellowship is the Spirit of God, given to dwell within us. Hence, 2 Corinthians closes with the words, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all.” And Philippians 2:2 gives us to see the practical bearing of it on the walk of the saints, as the Apostle so touchingly refers to it in his appeal, “If there be any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit . . . fulfill ye my joy, that ye be like minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.” This is the normal effect of the power of the Spirit, where He is ungrieved in us. He produces this unity among Christians, where self can have no place.
Privilege
It will be helpful also to look at this fellowship in the light of the calling of God. We find it in the preface to the first epistle to the Corinthian saints. “God is faithful” — he could not say they were, as we know too well from the rest of the epistle. But that does not hinder the Apostle in casting them upon God’s faithfulness—“by whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” Here again we find it set higher than if we confined our thoughts of it to “the communion of saints.” It is the communion or fellowship of the Son of God which is the wonderful privilege of those who possess eternal life and which we find in 1 John 1:14. This fellowship with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ, is individual and true of each child of God if there had not been another to enter into it on earth. And the express object of John’s epistle was that we might be brought into what had first been the privilege of the disciples, who had heard and seen the Word of Life when manifested in the world. But in Corinthians it is the privilege of the assembly of God as such. The Son of God has this fellowship of His, on earth, and all Christians are called into it.
Separation
The conditions of enjoyment of it will be found in 2 Corinthians 6, where we are commanded not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers. There must be separation from the world. “What fellowship [or ‘participation,’ as the word is here] hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? . . . wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty” (2 Cor. 6:14-18).
Thus we see what a real thing the communion of saints is. Nothing of what is of the flesh enters into it. It is characterized by the nature of the divine life we possess in Christ and can only be known and enjoyed in the power of the Spirit and in separation from the world.
J. A. Trench, adapted
The Fellowship of the Church
While looking into the subject of fellowship, there is no thought of trespassing on the truth of the believer’s individual responsibility to the Lord, which is so often brought before us in Scripture. On the contrary, there can be no doubt that true fellowship in the Spirit flows out of personal dependence on the Lord and felt obligation to His claims.
The Beginning
It is interesting to observe that when the Holy Spirit came down on the day of Pentecost, a new and distinct character of things was produced. Among others, we read of saints being in “fellowship.” This was not known before, because redemption had not been accomplished. At Pentecost believers were baptized into “one body.” People on earth were thus, by the gift and indwelling of the Holy Spirit, united to a Head in heaven forming one body. Christ was not ashamed to call them “brethren.” Now they were by the Holy Spirit united to Christ and to one another, in a divinely formed unity. All were partakers of resurrection-life in Christ, redeemed by the same blood, and formed into “one body” by “one Spirit.” There was now a basis and a power by which saints could act together and walk in fellowship, such as never could have been known before. Hence, we read that believers “continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship” (Acts 2:42). This does not mean that their individual responsibility to the Lord was lessened, for, when Paul addressed the elders at Ephesus, he admonished them to “take heed to yourselves,” before telling them to care for others.
We have Christian fellowship as a result of the redemption of our Lord Jesus Christ, through the gift of eternal life and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and being made members of one body. Its activities are spiritual. Fellowship is free and unfettered in its operation, but it gives no license to levity or pride. It is serious and gives no occasion to the flesh. It is a divinely wrought work.
Every believer is, by grace, called by God into this fellowship. “God is faithful, by whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Cor. 1:9). Friendly relationship and associations even among Christians, which come short of this calling, should be guarded against. It is easy to have a fellowship of people connected by different motives and objects, which comes from common benevolent or philanthropic interests.
Expressing Fellowship
In partaking of the loaf and the cup at the Lord’s table, fellowship is particularly expressed. The cross brings before us the ground of fellowship; this is why the blood of Christ is mentioned first and then the body of Christ in this chapter (1 Cor. 10:16-21). The blood is the basis of this divine order of fellowship and is enjoyed by those who know the peace-speaking power of the blood, which was shed for many for the remission of sins. Hence we read, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?” It is fellowship: “We bless.” Though our histories may be all different, we were all sinners, we all needed atonement, and now, through the accomplished work of Christ, all are set on the ground to worship and give thanksgiving to God. We thank Him together, we worship God in the Spirit, and we rejoice in Christ Jesus. The weak in faith and the strong, the elder and the younger, find here a common ground of fellowship and praise.
By the one loaf on the table, the character of our fellowship is set forth. It is the membership of one body. It is unlike anything that preceded the church or that will follow after it, for there is only “one body.” In breaking and eating the same loaf, we express our fellowship, or joint participation, in Him: “The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, being many, are one [loaf], and one body, for we are all partakers of that one [loaf]” (vss. 16-17). Thus every time we sit at the Lord’s table and so remember Him, we express both the ground and the character of a divinely-wrought fellowship, based upon an accomplished redemption. The principle of independency is the denial of this and results when people join together on some other ground than the practical acknowledgment of the one body and one Spirit.
The Unity of the Holy Spirit
We are not called on to make a unity, but to keep in practice what God has wrought. We are to endeavor to keep the Spirit’s unity in the bond of peace, with all lowliness and meekness, forbearing one another in love (Eph. 4:24). Nothing less than this could satisfy the heart of the Apostle, because he was assured it was the way by which the Spirit of God was working.
While the truth of our individual responsibility to the Lord cannot be too firmly held, yet nothing can be more contrary to the Lord’s mind than walking independently. It is opposed to keeping the Spirit’s unity, and it ignores the practical action of the one body and one Spirit. Independency is the refusal of the communion of saints which is wrought by the Holy Spirit.
Nor can the ruin of the church, looked at in its place of responsibility on earth with its almost endless divisions, be rightly pleaded as a reason for acting on the principle of isolation, much less for the formation of human associations not according to the Lord’s mind. God has given us the Holy Spirit and revealed in His word that He has formed a unity of all believers in Christ. “By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body.” This unity is as true as ever for all the members of the body of Christ, before the eye of God, though, as to its manifestation before men, where is it to be seen? Alas! The very opposite to this divine character is seen by the world today. Still, the principles of God for our guidance have not been changed because of man’s failure.
Endeavoring to Keep It
The injunction that we should with all lowliness be “endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” has never been abrogated. It is simply a question of carrying out the will of God. If two Christians walk together “keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,” these two persons would be carrying out the will of God, even if no other persons in the church are so doing. They would be not setting up the church again, nor reconstructing what has been practically broken in pieces. If walking in fellowship with the Spirit, they would humbly own that they were part of a church which was in a state of ruin. They would take the place of acknowledged weakness and cast themselves on the mercy and faithfulness of the Lord. They would be obedient to His Word, and they would stand for the true character of the church of God —“one body, and one Spirit.”
God is faithful. His Word is as true as ever, His Spirit abides, and the Lord Jesus is still in the midst of two or three, when gathered together to His name. He is Head of the body, the Sender of the Holy Spirit, the Son over His own house, and He is soon coming to take the whole church unto Himself.
Care for the Whole Body
Fellowship is not limited to the privileges and blessings we enjoy when assembled together; it extends itself into the various details of the state and circumstances of every member of the body. Thus, if “one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it” (1 Cor. 12:26). We are all exhorted to be perfectly joined together in the same judgment, as also to “rejoice with them that do rejoice, and to weep with them that weep,” to “bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ,” and that those “taught in the word should communicate to him that teacheth in all good things.” (See 1 Cor. 1:10; Rom. 12:15; Gal. 6:2,6.)
When souls have really to do with the Lord, everything goes on well; without Him, nothing is right. May we seek only to please God! Where there is the knowledge of divine truth, a single eye and a subject will, there will be acting for His glory.
H. H. Snell, adapted
True Fellowship
Fellowship with God and fellowship with divine institutions are very different things. We may often lose the former in our zeal for the latter. How often have we displayed much zeal in contending for some Christian institutions, while perhaps our souls were barren and void of personal communion with Christ Himself. How often, too, like the disciples going to Emmaus, have we talked much about the things connected with Christ, when, if He Himself were to draw near, we should not know Him. At such times, it might very reasonably have been said to us, “Seek not to institutions — seek not to ordinances — seek not merely the things which are connected with Christ, but seek Himself — His own blessed Person — the divine reality of personal fellowship with the risen Son of God.” Without this, the fairest institutions are powerless, and the most solemn ordinances cold and lifeless. Nor does all this apply merely to human ordinances, but even to that which is of divine authority. For example, the Lord’s supper, the ministry of the Word and Christian fellowship, all of which are like folds of the drapery which may have Christ beneath for a soul that really seeks Him, but which may only tend to conceal Him from the view of those who are engaged and attracted by outward form rather than by truth and spirit and life.
C. H. Mackintosh, adapted
Fellowship With the World
It is possible, even in our interaction with our fellow Christians, that we forget the Lord. It is also possible in our interaction with the world. How often, when we meet with unconverted people, do we slip into the current of their thoughts, and find a theme in common with them! Sometimes this is mourned over, and sad to say, sometimes it is defended. The defense is usually founded upon an erroneous view of the Apostle’s expression, “I am made all things to all men” (1 Cor. 9:22). This surely does not mean that he entered into the folly and nonsense of worldly men. By no means. What then does the expression mean? It means that Paul denied himself among all classes of men, in order that he might “by all means save some.” His object was to bring sinners to Christ, and not to please himself by entering into their vain and foolish habits of conversation.
Let us look at the Master Himself and see how He carried Himself toward the men of this world. Did He ever find an object in common with them in their folly and sin? Never. He was always feeding upon and filled with one object, and of that object He spoke. He ever sought to lead the thoughts of men to God. This should be our object too. Whenever or wherever we meet men, we should lead them to think of Christ, and if we do not find an open door for that, we should certainly not allow ourselves to be carried into the current of their thoughts. If we have business to transact with men, we must transact it, but we should not have any fellowship with them in their habits of thought or conversation, because our Master never had. If we diverge from His path as to this, we shall soon sink into a low and unsanctified tone of spirit. We shall be as “salt that has lost its saltness,” and thus be “good for nothing.”
C. H. Mackintosh, adapted
The Fellowship of His Sufferings
The Apostle kept the goal before him — Christ. He allowed nothing to divert the attention of his heart, and thus he was energized for and sustained in the path of peculiar trial, reproach and labor to which the Lord had called him. To him the end was so blessed, to have Christ for his own and to be found in Him, that he cared not how bitter and rugged the path might be which led him to it. He desired a yet deeper experimental knowledge of Christ and the power of His resurrection (and who knew it better than he?) and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death. To him it was no small privilege to drink of His cup and to be baptized with His baptism. Indeed, the deeper his sufferings, the more he would be like Christ, and that was enough for him.
W. W. Fereday
Happiness in Communion
There is more happiness in the fact of being in communication with Him than in the things He communicates.
J. N. Darby
Confessing and Asking for Forgiveness
“If we confess our sins” (1 John 1:9). There is a great deal of difference between confessing and asking for forgiveness. In confession we do not excuse ourselves. In asking for forgiveness we may say that things might have been different, and if they had been we should not have fallen in this way into the sin.
Now the first thought in the soul of the one that is confessing is not the thought of forgiveness. Forgiveness comes to the one who confesses, but we have to do with the Father Himself, with the One against whom we have sinned, and we have sinned in spite of the grace that would have kept us.
The first thought is, “I have sinned — sinned in spite of the grace, the blessed grace that would have kept me from it.” It is deeper, far deeper, than merely asking forgiveness. Grace would keep us, and if we were always dependent on His grace, we should never sin. But if we have sinned, what are we to do? “If we confess our sins” — come before Him without making any excuse whatever, the soul laying itself before Him in all the blessed realization of what His love is — acknowledging His grace would have kept us, but we have sinned.
Well, I can come and tell Him all that without any thought that anything can change His love to me, and thus I do tell it all out to Him. This is confession, and far deeper and more searching than merely seeking forgiveness. The result is forgiveness, and fellowship is restored.
P. A. Humphreys,
Christian Friend, 13:33
Fellowship in the Light
“If we walk in the light, as He is in the light” (1 John 1:7) — there fellowship exists, according to God. We may try to get up a sort of fellowship among ourselves; God knows no fellowship but “in the light, as He is in the light.” No reserve there at all, no keeping things back, no hiding things, but being in our own souls in the light — simple, transparent, cloudless. We cannot be that, if we have not in our own souls the apprehension of what He is in grace. “We have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin” —that is the blessed remedy for everything the light makes manifest. It will make manifest all kinds of things, but the blood answers to and blots out everything that the light makes manifest.
P. A. Humphreys,
Christian Friend