FELLOWSHIP WITH ONE ANOTHER
[p. 414] FELLOWSHIP WITH ONE ANOTHER
John 1:7; Acts 21: 1; Leviticus 11: 1 - 3
Reference was made this afternoon to Acts 20, this love chapter, this Ephesian chapter, “And having said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all. And they all wept sore; and falling upon the neck of Paul, they ardently kissed him, specially pained by the word which he had said, that they would no more see his face. And they went down with him to the ship. And when, having got away from them, we at last sailed away”. The note here speaks of the force or wrench of love, anything that would divert us; so to be held together is in mind. So also this chapter in Leviticus runs down as to what is to be eaten, and what not; it is the thought of appropriating one another in love; so the passage ends in, “This is the law of cattle, and of fowl, and of every living soul that moveth in the waters, and of every soul that crawleth on the earth; to make a difference between the unclean and the clean, and between the beast that is to be eaten and the beast that is not to be eaten”, verses 46 and 47.
So I quote this one verse in John’s first epistle, “But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin”. It is not so much to enlarge on the fellowship, as to what may be entered into spiritually, but to use this verse as to our receiving one another. Those who are believers correspond to the clean animals; they are clean and holy and thus suitable for appropriation; that is they are for our food and enjoyment, in that sense. The word “fellowship” of course is used otherwise, and its meaning too, as of course it has other forces too, as in, “the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord” — 1 Corinthians 1: 9, and the [p. 415] fellowship of His death in the Lord’s supper, and here too it is “fellowship with one another”; and then again there is the fellowship or “communion of the Holy Spirit” — 2 Corinthians 13: 14, a very precious word, that we are brought into the fellowship of the Spirit.
What is in mind now is that we are brought into the fellowship of one another. It is enlarged on by the use of the animal kingdom. Its place in the kingdom is typical of persons. Leviticus, in keeping with itself, stresses the character and quality of the beasts. Deuteronomy treats of the same matter, and begins the section, chapter 14: 1 with, “Ye are Sons of Jehovah your God”: in view of the creation being thus dealt with we are to clothe ourselves with our heavenly relationship; we are the sons of God; and the Spirit has His part in this. He is the “spirit of adoption, whereby we cry” (as the Lord Jesus did), “Abba, Father”. Romans 8:15. We are all brought into this wonderful relationship of sons with the Father, always carrying with it our heavenly dignity and relationship. We have to watch our relationships and associations, with what or whom we mingle; all these enter into it, so that it is not so much sons of God or sons with Christ (though that all comes into it), but that we may rightly clothe each other, as sitting together as the sons of God. Not thinking indeed that we may be better than others; we have all been bought with the same precious blood. In Exodus 30: 13, we have “half a shekel after the shekel of the sanctuary”, each one cost so much, hence the similarity; what God has paid; what we have cost Him. Hence we begin on the right footing, humbling ourselves, and kindly affectioned to one another, each with the other. So we have to look around and see the persons with whom we are in fellowship. So it is I read those verses in Leviticus 11,
[p. 416] with the hope that each, including myself, may think aright, and when the time comes to sit down in the service of God, to have divine thoughts of each other. We are no longer in our houses when we are in the assembly; there is no distance here; we have to learn to leave such in its own place, not in the assembly. We have to gather our values from what is in the assembly, the place of light, God’s house as in Isaiah 56, it is “the assembly of the living God”; — 1 Timothy 3: 15; each one has to be reckoned according to the divine values, “the shekel of the sanctuary”. We cannot be always there, but when the time comes, the service is to be marked by divine values.
I venture to link on Leviticus 11 with this; it is the priestly chapter; it deals with the service of God, and the persons who have part in it, persons who are typified in “the sanctuary”. We must get accustomed to that language; “saint” is a word from the vocabulary of the sanctuary; Aaron was “the saint of Jehovah”, Psalm 106: 16. So there were those who “went away back and walked no more with him. Jesus therefore said to the twelve, Will ye also go away?” John 6: 66 and 67; it is the young people who do this, thinking of the world’s prospects. John 6 is a long and testing chapter, where the Lord is speaking of His flesh and blood to be appropriated; we have to understand that; it applies to Christians. “Many of his disciples went away back”, and murmured, as Moses himself did (even the most distinguished may do this, and be governed by the general position, and complaining; a very important point). They “went away back and walked no more with him”, a very strong statement. So it is with young people so often, walking no more with the Lord or His people. I had to do with such a young person recently, who said, ‘he would no longer walk with the Plymouth Brethren!’ It is like Saul calling the Israelites “Hebrews” — 1 Samuel 13: 3, an unspiritual way of speaking of the saints. Later a brother passed his house and heard the radio, and the common sounds that come from it; and so it is that some go away. So the Lord said no word to them as to going away, but to the brethren He says, “Will ye also go away?” We are apt to fall away secretly, hankering after something; and so Peter says, “Lord, to whom shall we go?” You will not get that in the newspaper or the novel; they belong to another world, and so do we! “Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast words of life eternal; and we have believed and known that thou art the holy one of God”, as if to say, ‘We have experienced Thee, Lord, and know who Thou art’; that is Leviticus, the holiness of God’s house, the priestly book. We heard today that priests in the true sense are very scarce. Jehovah says of Aaron, “Is not Aaron the Levite thy brother? I know that he can speak well”, Exodus 4: 14; it is as if Aaron was accustomed to pray, and yet he is not called a priest there, but a Levite. Though to Moses Jehovah says “thou shalt be to him for God”; God was setting up a system, with Moses at its head, ‘Aaron is to be your spokesman or your prophet’, because Moses had said he could not speak well. This is the gracious way that God speaks in His house; ‘I will not set you aside, I will help you, and support you’ God says; so He deals with His servant; God had estimated Moses, and said, ‘I will stand by you, and by Aaron’.
I have been diverted by this in coming to the chapter in Leviticus, the priestly book where you get all the instruction. This chapter is to amplify and adjust us as to animals; they are God’s creatures, and if not used for types, are hardly to be mentioned in scripture at all; but they come in here as types of Christ in the most precious way, and also as types of us. I remind the brethren that these creatures are [p. 418] just persons, and if we say that we have certain persons for our companions, we must answer to God if our companions are not in accord with what is here; so we have in verse 45, “For I am Jehovah who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: ye shall therefore be holy, for I am holy”. I am now speaking of beasts and fowls as types of persons, and I have only in mind to read the verse that speaks of clean persons, verse 3; the chapter is too long, not that it is not worthy to be read, for it is, but not now; there is no time. So it says, “Whatever hath cloven hoofs, and feet quite split open, and cheweth the cud, among the beasts — that shall ye eat”. Notice how wide and how liberal God is with His creation, linking us on with the first order of man; so Adam was just made (the same day as Eve, no doubt), and all the animals and birds (not the fishes) were brought to Adam to see what they were to be called. He did not tell Adam anything as to the types, only as to the naming of the animal, and whatever he called it, that was its name, as if God was pleased with His great creature. We cannot say Adam had been to school, but he had been in God’s school. God says to Job, of behemoth (Job 40: 15), “which I made with thee”; we may as well accept it in lowliness. Adam is distinguished at once, as placed over the animals that God intended to be types of ourselves. If we want companionship, and much is made of this today, we have the clean and the unclean, the believer and the unbeliever, and so Paul says, “what part for a believer along with an unbeliever?” — 2 Corinthians 6: 15, and God takes it up as to mixed marriages, partnerships and the like. I will not be long, so verse 3 speaks only of the clean, not the unclean, and there is not the time to speak of these latter. The “cloven hoofs, and feet quite split open” means a brother, or a sister, or a child at [p. 419] school who has learnt not to make companions of worldly people, and from such to keep aloof, though we cannot go out of the world, as Paul says, 1 Corinthians 5: 10, but this is a question of our companionships, as I read in Acts 21: 1, where they could hardly tear themselves away from Paul, and it was mutual; I want all to notice that. What it means to be in fellowship thus, and not to flout the word of God, His holy page, in mixed marriages and so forth. We are to have the power to divide, to distinguish, and to chew the cud. Let us go home and think it over; it is the truth. But you say, ‘You must understand that I want something more, not only that’. You say ‘we have had a good meeting because Mr. So-and-so was there’, but there has to be the chewing of the cud on your part. Isaac, the type of the heavenly Man, was meditating in the fields towards evening, and he saw the camels coming — Genesis 24: 63; it is the power that carried Rebecca, it is how we reach Christ.
Now there is one other thing in verse 9 that I would speak of. “These shall ye eat of all that are in the waters: whatever hath fins and scales in waters, in seas and in rivers, these shall ye eat”. I am speaking to those who know more about fishing and the sea than I do. God has wonderful things in the sea. The Christian knows of the wonderful things that God did in the Mediterranean, and what that wonderful creature Jonah was carried in means. We get it in the scripture here, and persons who have fins and scales are able to go against the tide or stream, not like dead fish, which go with the stream. There are such things as currents in the oceans, and we may get into the current of trade unions. You need fins and scales to escape them!
Now in verse 13 it says certain birds are “an abomination”, and then in verse 21 it says of winged crawling things they should eat, “those which have [p. 420] legs above their feet with which to leap upon the earth”, that is the locusts, and such like. Then in verse 36 we come to “a spring or a well, a quantity of water”; you say, That is very interesting to me; a quantity of water to purify; we were in the midst of it this afternoon, and we still are! If outside you meet something defiling, you may be carried away, but in here you are safe; that is spiritual power; a little bit of heaven on earth, where the world is banished from us; the assembly means that; hence the importance of getting to the meetings. Then verse 37, “And if any part of their carcase fall upon any sowing-seed which is to be sown, it shall be clean”, that is the thing that is deputed of God to bring forth fruit; we have to learn what these things mean, for “he that toucheth their carcase shall be unclean”, so we must watch them severally, because the power of God is in the seed to be sown; it is not yet affected by the pollution. Now, you say, if water has been put there; well, it is a matter of a newborn state, just sown, as it were, but then bad doctrine pretends to be water, that is, the scriptures, then it is unclean. I want you to read it carefully and to understand what God is after. We must watch the little ones, that they do not get deformed, or they may be damaged all their lives. I am speaking to the fathers and mothers, the older brothers and sisters; the new-born ones are clean, yet maybe, something happens overnight, and they become unclean by some damaging influence. May God bless the word.