CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP
[p. 402] CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP
1 Corinthians 1: 9; 1 Corinthians 10: 16 - 21; 1 Corinthians 11: 23 - 26
FER The first epistle to the Corinthians gives us Christian fellowship on the objective side; the second, on the subjective side. In the first you have “the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord” and the fellowship of His death; in the second you find the fellowship of the Spirit, and the object was to bring them into the reality of it; it was there.
The first epistle gives two thoughts of fellowship. Chapter 1: the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord. In chapter 10, the obverse side is given. If the fellowship be that of the Son, of necessity it must be of His death, because He is not here; and His name is the bond of our common fellowship.
The fellowship of the Lord’s table, that side of it, is the fellowship of His death. What binds Christians together in fellowship is the common confession as Lord of “his Son Jesus Christ”. It is not fellowship with Him, but of Him. That bond subsists down here, and we are all equally responsible to maintain it according to God. In John’s epistle we have, in chapter 1: 3, “Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ”; but the “our” there no doubt refers to the apostles. Further on, when it says, “If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another”, we have Christian fellowship in the sphere where all Christians walk.
Ques Were not the saints at Corinth all wrong as to fellowship?
FER No doubt things were in many ways in a bad state. But there could be no other bond of fellowship down here. It has a voice to all the world; because there is not a single person on all the earth [p. 403] but ought to confess Christ as Lord — for “he is Lord of all”.
Ques Are all Christians in this fellowship?
FER They are all called to it. There is not and could not be any other bond of fellowship but that of Christ as Lord, and His death.
In stating it here the apostle appeals to “all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord”. It is the broad ground of Christian fellowship.
In John, as we have seen, what comes in first is the apostles’ fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. We come in as having fellowship with the apostles. They had a great place. The Lord in John 17 prays for the apostles: “That they may be one, as we [are]”. No doubt that refers exclusively to the apostles. We must remember there was what was peculiar to them. It is, I think, taking too exalted a position for us to say, we have fellowship with the Father and with His Son. It was apostolic. The vital part of John’s epistle begins with chapter 3 there we have the privilege of children, and relationship is a great deal more than fellowship; but until you have got fellowship, you will not know much of privilege. Relationship is connected with affection. I think we can hardly connect the idea of fellowship with heaven. I understand fellowship to be our bond of association in a scene where all is contrary to God.
Ques How do you arrive at that thought of fellowship from the Scriptures?
FER How do you understand the thought of fellowship? Is it not that there is something that binds us together? You are called to fellowship, that is moral association. Something in which we have common participation. We own and confess Christ as Lord in the midst of a scene where He is rejected. The apostle John begins with fellowship, and then goes on to privilege. First he takes them on their responsibility, on the ground of their external association [p. 404] here, in a scene of contrariety. Fellowship stands in connection with responsibility, hence tests come in again and again. Chapter 3 brings in the subject of relationship and privilege.
Ques Is there no communion in heaven?
FER You are putting a different meaning on the word, viz., that of intercourse, or common mind. Association is my idea of fellowship — we own Him as Lord.
Ques Did I understand that the first part of John 17 is more connected with the apostles?
FER I should say so down to verse 20, then the prayer widens out: “Neither pray I for these alone”. The first demand of the Lord was as to the disciples. The demand of the Lord is as to unity. The Father and the Son were perfectly one in counsel and mind; and what the Lord prays is, that unity might find expression in the service and testimony of the apostles, and I think we may see how the prayer was answered, for in spite of all prejudice they were maintained in perfect unity as to their testimony.
Ques I suppose where it says in the epistle “We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us”, it refers exclusively to the apostles?
FER It was the test of everybody — if they heard the apostles, they heard God; there was perfect unity in their testimony. As to fellowship, I do not think, as I have said, that you find in Scripture the idea of fellowship in heaven. There is nothing but oneness of mind and affection in that scene; and whilst we shall be with Him whom we know and own here as Lord, that is not the character of relationship in which we shall be associated with Him there. There is no contrary element there. When affections are perfectly pure you do not want a bond of association. If you bring in fellowship you bring in the idea of responsibility. My impression about the difficulties [p. 405] as to fellowship is that they arise from our not accepting the fact of the rejection of Christ. “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me”. This scripture affords an idea of fellowship and its ground.
The apostle in 1 Corinthians brings before the saints the proper Christian bond — that to which God has called them.
Ques Are not communion and fellowship the same thing?
FER Communion may not convey the same idea in English, but there is only one Greek word for both. If you put a person outside, you put him out of our fellowship.
Rem You would say then that our fellowship is on account of all that is around us. In heaven there will be no contrariety.
FER Yes. You will not have Christ in the relation of Lord to us there. All will be the communion of affection. The moment you bring in fellowship you bring in responsibility. The ground of our fellowship is the Lord.
Rem In a happy family you would not speak of their fellowship.
FER Exactly. You would speak of love.
Rem It is more the oneness of affection.
FER The honest truth is, that we should better understand fellowship if we understood better that the Lord is rejected.
Ques Is 1 Corinthians 1: 9 corrective?
FER He tells them what God has called them to, which involved their responsibility.
Ques What do you mean by our fellowship?
FER Christian fellowship. It is true there is local fellowship, but Christian fellowship is not merely local but universal. It is co-extensive with “One Lord, one faith, one baptism”, and embraces “all who call on the name of the Lord”. The state of ruin [p. 406] in which we are does not change the ground of fellowship. You do not speak of a new ground of fellowship.
Ques I suppose what we have in 2 Timothy — that is, the call to separation from evil — is what should characterise the body?
FER Fellowship was first formed, not by the testimony to “the body”, but by testimony to the Lord. There were two great witnesses to Christ as Lord in Acts 2 and 3. First, the Holy Spirit sent down, evidenced in the gift of tongues; secondly, the lame man being raised up. “His name through faith in his name hath made this man strong”. It was the preaching of Christ as Lord that formed the ground of Christian fellowship, and it is what is called the apostle’s fellowship. The first witness was the presence of the Holy Spirit, evidenced in the gift of tongues; and the second, man raised up from the weakness of nature.
My thought is, that the cause of all the difficulty lies in the fact that there are those amongst us that have no spiritual idea of the foundation of the church. Hence they fail to distinguish intelligently between the house and the body.
Ques What about the spiritual foundation of the church?
FER It is built on the foundation of apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone. What is vital is the body, and hence I do not understand our being an expression of the one body. It has been said that, If those called brethren are a testimony of anything, it is to the ruin of the church; but that is as the house. Further, I think it is a mistake to connect the thought of union with the body. Unity is what appears to me to be connected with that in Scripture. I did take up the prevalent idea that union was connected with the body, but from Scripture I learn that unity is the thought which we [p. 407] have in that figure. The most perfect figure I know of union is Adam and Eve. Eve is taken from Adam and then united to him; as being of him (as his body), she is united to him; but the body is derivative. It is important to get the moral thought of union.
The church shares in the exaltation of the Head. She is derived from Him, and being so, enters into the honour and exaltation of the Head. Nothing else would be suited to be united to Him but what is taken from Him — that is strikingly seen in Eve.
Ques What about that passage, “He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit”?
Ans. That is not the body.
Rem Think of what would be the effect on us if we were in the power of the truth, that we are derived from him!
FER People go back upon the scripture, “By one Spirit are we all baptised into one body”; but that is not the moral truth as to the body; the moral truth is, that the body is Christ’s body — it is derived from Christ.
Rem We do not understand that we are of the stock — that we are derived from Him. Unity is connected with the body.
FER The Corinthians are spoken of as “the body”, but the apostle does not touch the subject of the Head in either epistle. They did not properly recognise the Lord, much less the Head.
Ques As to the subject of fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ in John’s epistle, is that in no sense ours?
FER Chapter 1: 3 says, “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you”. The apostles were anxious that believers should have part in all that they could communicate. But they had a full sense of what was theirs specially, and I should not like to invade upon that.
[p. 408] Rem We get the communication of the apostles, but we have not all the place they had.
Ques Would you say a word as to fellowship in the Spirit?
FER Our fellowship is maintained by the Holy Spirit. If it were a mere question of ourselves, we could not maintain it. What you practically find is, that where the flesh works, the fellowship with one another is more or less broken. If you desire to see Christians set free from the confusion around, what you need to do is to get them to the Lord. Get them close to Him, that they may apprehend what is due to Him in a scene where He is cast out; and then their fellowship will be firm and stable.
As regards 1 Corinthians 11, you cannot rightly reach the Lord’s supper except by the Lord’s table; He died to all here, that is what we fail to see. The table is the fellowship of His death. It is Christ Jesus our Lord who has died. All here is of such a character that He has died to it.
Ques Have we not suffered very much from thinking of the Lord’s table as a material thing?
Ans. No doubt we have.
FER Not having come through the Lord’s table to the Lord’s supper, we have not come suitably to it. You must have maintained in your soul that the One you are going to remember has died to all here.
In baptism you are committed to His death; even a babe is; but when you come to intelligent Christians, you are to be in the recognition and fellowship of His death, and you are properly always partakers of the Lord’s table; you come to remember the One who has now passed out of death.
Rem J.N.D. used to say that why the name of Lord was brought in so much in Corinthians was [p. 409] because of the careless way they were going on. There was little recognition of His authority and claim.
FER No doubt the apostle, seeing their state, presents Him in this way; it is in a way indicative of distance. He stands on his dignity.
If we allow disorder at the Lord’s supper, I think we might rightly expect Him to be jealous of His claims.
Ques What is meant by being “guilty of the blood of the Lord”?
Rem I think the title ‘Lord’ brings in the thought of His dignity.
FER The way the apostle deals with the Corinthians, addressing them as to eating and drinking “unworthily”, is not what I could do; as I should not like to assume such a position by reading that portion. We sometimes see brethren shutting their hymn books, and so on, in the meeting. I think there is danger in all this, as we may assume that everything is going wrong, and that the meeting ought to yield to our direction. I am not compelled to sing every hymn, but I have no right to judge everything that is said or done.
The Lord’s table brings in our responsibility, and we are all bound to maintain that in integrity. Because I am in the fellowship of the Lord’s death I have to be consistent with that. How could I go into a Roman Catholic chapel, or recognise anything of the nature of idolatry? If you take the bread and wine, you are identified with His death, and you ought to be in the fellowship of His death rightly to come to the Lord’s supper. He died for us, that we might appropriate His death in order to live.
The great thing in visiting a person seeking fellowship is to get him to the Lord — that is going back to the beginning.
If when everything was in order they wanted the Lord’s guidance, how much more do we need it now?
[p. 410] It is a great thing to consider the good of people. If a person asserted his right to break bread, that is not good. J.N.D. used to say anyone who might break bread casually, was just as amenable to discipline as if he were in fellowship habitually.