THE PRINCIPLE OF CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP
[p. 19] THE PRINCIPLE OF CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP
The mystery was made known to the apostle Paul by revelation, and it was bound up with the glad tidings which he preached, as we learn from Romans 16: 25 and Ephesians 3: 2 - 12 and Ephesians 6: 19. He spoke of it to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 2:7; 1 Corinthians 2:12,13), and to the Colossians. This truth is universal, and is for the enlightenment of all. It is in no way limited to anything local.
Another important part of Paul’s teaching is that the assembly is the house of God (1 Timothy 3: 15). There is one foundation, one corner-stone, and in Jesus Christ “all the building fitted together increases to a holy temple in the Lord; in whom ye also [Gentiles] are built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit” (Ephesians 2: 21, 22).
Paul speaks further of the saints as being called by God “into the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Corinthians 1: 9), and that their fellowship is set forth in the cup which we bless and the bread which we break (1 Corinthians 10: 16, 17). He assumes that all believers bless the cup and break the bread, for he says, “we”. It is evident that there cannot be two divine fellowships.
The apostle, or the Spirit of God by him, gives no hint that the assembly, in a universal sense, was an invisible body. He regards it as one body on earth, gifts being bestowed with a view to its edifying, that it may work for itself the increase of the body to its self-building up in love (Ephesians 4: 1 - 16). The saints are called in one body to let the peace of Christ preside in their hearts. There is no thought of an invisible body.
I Corinthians gives us the truth as it is to characterise each local assembly, for it is addressed not only to Corinth, but to “all that in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”. The saints universally are set in the light of [p. 20] that epistle, which makes known that all saints are baptised in the power of one Spirit into one body (chapter 12: 12, 13). “The Christ” (verse 12) is clearly a corporate designation of the saints as one body, which could not be limited to one locality. The saints at Corinth were “Christ’s body, and members in particular” (chapter 12: 27), but only in virtue of having part in the universal unity of chapter 12: 12, 13.
In that epistle we see that assembly administration is to be carried on locally. The saints at Corinth were directly responsible to the Lord to exercise discipline upon an evildoer in their midst. Such an act was to be done in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and according to Matthew 18 it would be bound in heaven. If, after the Corinthian assembly had acted thus in discipline by the Lord’s commandment, the assembly at Cenchrea had said that the act did not bind them, the latter assembly would have been marked by pure lawlessness. It was binding, if for no other reason, on the ground that there is “one Lord” who had entrusted responsibility to act for Him in such matters to the local assembly, and whose name was connected with their action. In apostolic times “the power of our Lord Jesus Christ” was formally associated with His name when the assembly dealt with evil (1 Corinthians 5: 4).
Now, to pass from the days of the apostles to our own, we find that, in the revival of the truth over a century ago, what was prominent in the minds of the spiritual was the truth of the assembly. We have been told that the light broke into the soul of Mr. J. N. Darby that there was a Head in heaven.
Then, said he to himself, there must be a body on earth. If we read his early writings, such as Considerations on the Nature and Unity of the Church of Christ written in 1828, we find that it is the assembly which is before him, and its moral and spiritual features. The coming together of saints was to be in the light of those features which pertain to the assembly universally. The revival was definitely on the line of Paul’s glad tidings, and of Paul’s ministry of the assembly.
[p. 21] The brethren who were spiritually instructed had no such thought as that it was the divine intent that the assembly in its universal aspect should be, or should become, invisible. On the contrary, they felt deeply the fact that it had become so; that ‘the true Church of God has no avowed communion at all’ was a grievous evil to be mourned over and confessed. They felt that the body is here as a substantive reality to be edified, and to increase with the increase of God. Christ is sanctifying and purifying the assembly, and nourishing and cherishing it. This is not in heaven, but down here on earth.
But alongside this revival of Paul’s doctrine there was developing amongst the brethren an entirely different system of teaching. There were those who held that the assembly in its universal aspect had become invisible, and that nothing now remained but to set up local assemblies, each being a self-contained body, having no responsibility with reference to other such bodies, and free to receive any individual believer supposed to be personally sound in the faith and consistent in life, without taking any account of the associations in which he may have been previously. The truth of the assembly in its general unity, calling for recognition in a practical way by those who have the light of it, thus entirely lost its due place. According to this system of teaching, each separate meeting is an independent ‘assembly’, even if there are several in one town. Scripture never speaks of different assemblies in one city. At Jerusalem, where there were thousands of believers, and where they no doubt met in many different places, it is always “the assembly” — in the singular. The idea of independent churches, without any recognition of a universal bond of responsible partnership, is quite foreign to Scripture.
There are thus two different conceptions in the minds of brethren. One was governed by the thought of the unity of the whole assembly as one body, one house, one temple, and by the thought of all the saints everywhere being called [p. 22] to one universal fellowship. The other was based on the idea of each meeting being an independent ‘assembly’. The moment was bound to come when these two different principles would be found to be entirely out of keeping with each other. It was not long before circumstances arose which brought this to light. But it is important to recognise that what happened at Plymouth did not bring about the difference of principles. It only served to expose what was there before.
Mr. Darby and others separated from the original meeting at Plymouth in 1845 because clericalism was set up there, which they rightly judged was not of God. But the Lord in His wisdom did not allow this particular matter to become the general test. In 1847 it was discovered that Mr. Newton held and taught most serious error as to the Lord’s personal relationships. This false teaching definitely raised the question as to whether fellowship involved a responsible partnership or not. The extreme gravity of false teaching as to the Lord’s relationships ought to have helped the brethren to be very sensitive in their affections, as well as in conscience and intelligence. They ought all to have weighed well that fellowship (or partnership) with such error was most serious in the sight of God. The ground was taken eventually at Bethesda, that the error was condemned, but that fellowship with it by breaking bread with those who held it was no bar to communion, and that no individual believer was to be held responsible for what he might be walking in partnership with, unless he actually avowed the error himself.
Thus where this principle is adhered to, no assembly bond of partnership which involves saints in common responsibility is admitted. Each is regarded as an individual who is not to be held responsible for any associations he may have been in, but only for his personal views and conduct. There is no thought of fellowship in this, for fellowship means a common equal sharing, or joint participation, and this, when it is a question of breaking bread, in a most solemn way as before God.
The fact that defilement is contracted by touching what is [p. 23] unclean is clearly laid down in the Old Testament, and the New Testament expressly says, “Touch not what is unclean” (2 Corinthians 6: 17). It is also clear in Scripture that a much less thing than breaking bread with a person may involve one in responsibility for what he does, for John says that the one who gives a friendly greeting to a man who does not bring the doctrine of Christ “partakes [the verbal form of the word fellowship] in his wicked works” (2 John 11). One is viewed as in fellowship with his wicked works if simply greeting him. This shows what a very small thing, as men would say, involves responsibility as before God for one’s associations.
If to break bread with an evil-doer does not, in the minds of believers, involve any complicity in his evil, neither does breaking bread with faithful saints involve the recognition that we are in the most intimate partnership with them. The sense of the divine bond is lost; persons break bread as so many individuals without any sense of responsible partnership. So that, according to these principles, the local assembly takes independent ground in declining to be bound by any assembly action other than its own, and the individual is held free of any responsibility, even in his own assembly, for anything that may have taken place there save his own views and his own conduct. This principle annuls responsibility in regard of associations, which Scripture so carefully maintains; it entirely sets aside the true thought of fellowship.