1 John 1: 7

1 Corinthians 12: 12

         I thought we might consider fellowship and the body and learn the distinction between them.  It might well be thought that the two different words mean the same but they do not quite do so.  I could illustrate that by drawing attention to the fact that we used to say that ‘someone has come into fellowship’ but they would not want to come into fellowship unless they were already part of the body.  So the two things are distinguishable. 

         I think it is important for us to understand fellowship and its nature.  The most specific reference to it in the epistles, I think, is in the beginning of Corinthians, where Paul says that “ye have been called into the fellowship of His Son”, 1 Cor 1: 9.  The fact that it is ‘the fellowship of His Son’ puts His own stamp on it, and one thing that it does is to take away any thought that fellowship is just a social organisation.  I wonder if we think social relationships form Christian fellowship, but they do not.  It is of great importance to understand, I think, that fellowship is something that is to be worked out and its maintenance demands that we walk in the light.  We are familiar with the idea: John wrote his epistles late (possibly the latest thing written in the scriptures), but what he says in relation to fellowship is that “if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another”.  A lot has been said about what walking in the light means, but one thing that it clearly means is that it is an unmixed condition.  The light shines and you walk in the light.  John does not describe exactly what the light is, but, being John, he would refer you back to his gospel, where, for instance, Jesus says “I am the light of the world” (John 8: 12), and the fact that that light sheds its radiance and its colour on all believers is a test.  You notice that in the epistle where I read it begins with “if” – “if we walk in the light as he is in the light”.  Therefore it is clear that the basis of fellowship is that we walk in the light with one another.  I do not, in referring to these things, have in mind any particular exercise amongst us, but John does not write in relation to circumstances - he writes in relation to principles - and the reality of fellowship according to John is a pure and unmixed relationship between believers who are such already, but believers individually. 

         The one thing I think about fellowship in distinction from the body is that fellowship always has the idea of what is individual in it.  I do not exclude the idea of relationships and that kind of thing because they develop but fellowship is that you and I are governed by the same things and we identify ourselves with the same interests and with the knowledge of the Lord Jesus as the One who governs our lives.  The reality of Christian fellowship is something that is entered into once the word of God has taken effect in you; that is the enjoyment between believers as individuals of their common interest in the Lord Jesus.  That always needs to be asserted.  My recollection of past procedures among the brethren was that if somebody wished to break bread they expressed themselves as wanting to break bread, and they were commended on the basis that they had come into fellowship.  That fellowship, while having common interests among all concerned, was the fellowship of individuals looked at as individuals.  That is at least how I understand fellowship; that it is what you have and what I have and we can share.  Many institutions in the world are a bit like that - in fact some of them are called fellowships - because there is a common interest, and those who have the common interest come together; and that common interest has to be maintained and for believers it is maintained by the maintenance of our common interest in the Lord Jesus and His work.  We would do well to consider, if I may say so, what our brother brought before us, as to the pattern that there is in Jesus - what He was when He was here.  Could any of us say that we must be engaged in His Father’s business?  You might even say it came naturally to Him to be engaged in His Father’s business.  I must be engaged in the things of my Father, Luke 2: 49. 

         I was thinking, however, that the idea of the body goes a bit further than that of fellowship.  The scripture in Corinthians clearly has within it the idea of fellowship - it says ‘we all’.  Paul says ‘the body is one and has many members’ and the members have their own distinguishable histories and they function as members of the body

         But the idea of the body goes beyond what fellowship with one another implies.  You may say the two things are bound up together, and so they are, but in the body you are formed with others into one single entity.  You have the Spirit, and the work of God has bound you into a single entity; not exactly where individualism may shine - although Paul goes on here to point out the distinction between the different aspects of the body - but the body is a single corporate entity and I think that if we understand that it helps us, not only to work out what fellowship is (involving us as individuals) but in the body as expressed the reality of what the Lord Jesus is Himself - not so much in His work but in Himself - one body in Christ.  We hold these thoughts and we treasure them as we hold them, but in the body there is no aspect of the body as I understand which is purely social.  The danger in fellowship is that our sharing common interests tends to promote what is social among us, and I venture to say that that is not enough.  We have to learn our bonds together and the reality of them.  Christian fellowship and that aspect of things is very valuable and important, but the reality of what the body is has made bonds between oneself and every other believer.  I was very interested in the recent reference to the wide scope that we may have in our minds as to other believers, and the body embraces all.  Fellowship may involve just what is available to you.  You may have fellowship with some other believers in relation to certain aspect of it, but what Paul is looking for, and what John is looking for, is a single idea of fellowship in which the interests of all are the same.  I do not think the idea of fellowship can wholly exclude the idea of what is social but Christian fellowship does not depend on social relations between believers: it depends on common, shared interests in the things of Christ and the work of the Spirit, and it depends also, beloved, on you and me walking in the light.  If I have any parts secret I am damaging the fellowship that there is.  It is not to say that we all want to know everything about everybody - we have a certain tendency to do that - but we have no dark parts because we are walking in the light.

         These thoughts just occurred to me because I sometimes think that some terms that we learn from scripture and which have been developed in their meaning in ministry get taken up in a slightly superficial kind of way without our penetrating to the reality of what is included in them and I make a distinction myself between fellowship and the body, although they should include all the same people but fellowship can be a bond between individuals.  The body does not exactly retain the idea of individuals; it is a single corporate entity in which Christ is represented and that representation maintained. 

         I had not thought these things out, but I was just impressed with, perhaps, a need for us to understand, to be established in just what some of the words that the Scripture uses actually have in mind to be worked out and demonstrated in believers in the present time.

         Perhaps the Lord would give us to think about this.  

London

18th September 2007