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