Q. E. le’P. 1 John 1:7. “We have fellowship one with another,” etc. Does not this mean the saints’ fellowship one with another? Can it, by any possible means, be made to mean our fellowship with God?
A. The simple meaning is, “If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship (that is Christians) one with another” (μετ’αλλήων). The word is a plural one, but one which has no singular. If “with God” were the thought, it would have been said, “we have fellowship with Him.” To say “one with another” would be irreverent and familiar to a degree, when talking of God.
I reject entirely its being with God in 1 John 1:7, not merely think the other right. αλλήων is mere mutuality, and God would have as much communion with us as a companion, as we with Him, which is to be utterly rejected as irreverent and wrong. Scripture never speaks so of God; for God’s having communion with us as between two equals, and αλλήων is thorough mutuality.