God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of His Son.
The faithfulness of God
Onthis eternal, self-existent fidelity we can repose with safety.
I. It is well that we have something sure, for talk as we will of the fidelity of man and woman, there is much to say also of their infidelity.
1. Who can say--in friendship, in love--what a week, a month, a year may not bring forth? In the very strength of human affection lies its frailty. And it is in hours when this is realised, when we seem to toss upon a shifting sea in sailing over human love, that we turn to the everlasting firmness of God’s fidelity.
2. But even more than in others do we recognise this faithlessness in ourselves. How often are we only faithful because we are ashamed to be otherwise, and how often have we betrayed that which was given us to keep? We look into our own hearts and know how slight and fluttering, how changeable we have often been, how we even enjoyed our change. What wonder, then, if we turn from the weakness of our own fidelity to seek a centre for it and a power of it in the unalterable strength of the faithfulness of God, and cry, “Faithful Master of fidelity, enter into my life and make it all fidelity.”
II. What answer does God give us to that? Not that we should at first expect. We have fled from man to God, God sends us back to man. If a man find not fidelity in his brother whom he hath seen, how can he find fidelity in God whom he hath not seen? We have been looking on the unfaithfulness we have found in man. Nothing can be worse for us. He bids us search for faithfulness, and we shall find it.
1. In the hearts of those that love us. And the moment our whole position is thus changed, and we look on a new side of facts, we remember all the uncomplaining patience of long love that mother and father, wife and sister, have bestowed on us. We recollect that there are friends who have never failed us, to doubt whom would be a crime.
2. With this new light we look within our own hearts, and we are conscious that we have been true to many. Surprised, we ask ourselves, What is this faithfulness in the midst of unfaithfulness, this stability in human nature that accompanies instability? Oh! it is what we searched for, it is what we fled away from man to find. It is the fidelity of God Himself that moves and lives within His children. The kingdom of God is among you.
III. Having learnt that lesson, we learn from it--
1. To love and honour men much more. We are not so ready to impute unfaithfulness, and we are kinder and more gracious, and being so, we find that men and women are more faithful to us, for we have lost the evil and unpleasant qualities which made people tire of our love. By believing in faithfulness we make it grow. Then our power of creating faithfulness has a reflex action on our own faithfulness. That which we cause to grow in others, grows by that very effort in ourselves.
2. An ideal of God’s fidelity. The beauty of human fidelity forces us to aspire to a more beautiful fidelity, the real leads us onwards to the ideal.
IV. Still an ideal remains always somewhat in the vague. But to our wonderful comfort the fidelity of God is realised in humanity, in Christ, the image of God in man. “He who hath seen Me hath seen theFather.” He who hath seen the human faithfulness of Christ hath seen the Divine faithfulness of God.
1. His faithfulness was faithfulness to duty. At twelve years of age it was clearly conceived. “Wist ye not that I must be about My Father’s business?” For eighteen years He brooded on His duty, and at thirty it was accepted, and never let go. The imperative of His later saying, “I must work the works of Him that sent Me while it is day,” was said with the same fervour as it had been said by the joyful enthusiasm of the boy; and when the supreme hour of life came He could say, “It is finished.” What? tits Father’s business!
2. That is the outward aspect of Christ’s faithfulness to duty; its inner aspect was Eternal Truth. He had a few clear, dominant conceptions on which His whole life was built. To these ideas--such as the universal Fatherhood of God, the union of the Divine and human, the existence of a spiritual kingdom, and the necessity of man being a believer in these things, and being made at one with God through Him--Christ’s whole inner life was faithful. He could say, with absolute truthfulness, feeling that His whole inner life had been faithful to them throughout: “To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should hear witness unto the Truth.” This was Christ’s fidelity, the image of God’s.
V. But what duty can God be said to have to which He is faithful? There can be no duty imposed on Him from without, else there were another greater than Himself. But there can be an imperative within His own nature which is to Him that which duty was to Christ and to us.
1. With regard to us, that duty is the duty of a Father to His children. By that imperative of Fatherhood He can never cease to care for us, watch over us, educate us, and finally perfect us.
2. That is the outward form. But the central idea of which it is the form, and to which in His own inner life He is for ever faithful, is this: “I am the eternal spiritual All. I give Myself forth in all that thinks, and loves, and acts, and is.” That being such, it is inconceivable that He should ever be unfaithful to His thought, for that thought is His own realisation of Himself, and were He unfaithful to it, God were unfaithful to God, which is absurd. To this idea, then, and to all the duties it brings with it, God is absolutely faithful; He cannot be otherwise. “I am,” He says, “because I am.” Conclusion: That is our security. We have arrived at the conception of it through Christ, through our own humanity taken up into and filled with divinity. And once we have grasped it, it transfigures life and gives us a rock to stand on amid the shifting sands of our own feeling, amid the wavering of human faithfulness. The foundation of God standeth sure. (Stopford A. Brooke, M. A.)
The faithfulness of God
I. Results from, or stands connected with, all His other perfections.
1. His power (Psa_146:6). This enables Him, without the possibility of failure, to accomplish all His promises and threatenings. Honest men may be prevented keeping their word by unexpected difficulties; but the designs of the Almighty cannot be frustrated (Mat_19:26; Gen_18:14; Rom_4:20-21; 2Ti_1:12).
2. His holiness; without it, indeed, He could not be holy (Psa_92:15; Tit_1:2; Heb_6:18; Num_23:19). Well might the Psalmist say, “God hath spoken in His holiness: I will rejoice” (Psa_60:6), for the holiness of God is a pledge of His faithfulness.
3. His unchangeableness. Angels have changed, and become devils; man is changed, and become a rebel; but God changes not (Mal_3:6). Men frequently change their minds, sometimes from good to evil, at other times from evil to good; their second thoughts are best: but God’s thoughts can neither be improved nor depraved (Jam_1:17). The promises and vows of men (like Jephthah’s and Herod’s) are sometimes unlawful or incautiously made, so that “there may be more honour in the breach than in the observance of them.” Not so the engagements of Heaven (Job_23:13-14).
4. His wisdom. Among men, the non-performance of promises is frequently occasioned by circumstances which human prudence could not foresee; and therefore good men should not make promises hastily, and never without reference to St. James’s caution (Jam_4:15). But no provisions are necessary when God makes a promise. No difficulties, no disappointments, can occur to Him; His instruments are always at hand, and shall all subserve His holy designs.
5. His mercy, love, and goodness (Psa_138:2). His love inclines Him to make the promise, and His veracity induces Him to fulfil it.
II. Our confidence in it is confirmed by the following facts.
1. The promises are made in and to Christ, as the Head of His Church; and faithfulness to Him, as well as to us, insures their fulfilment (2Co_1:20; Tit_1:2; Eph_1:6).
2. God has confirmed His promise by an oath (Gen_22:16; Heb_6:13; Heb_6:17-18).
3. The experience of the people of God in all ages.
(1) The first promise (Gen_3:15) has bees fulfilled (1Jn_3:8; Gal_4:5). Remember that there is nothing like distance of time in the mind of God between the promise and the fulfilment (2Pe_3:8), and hence some events are spoken of in the prophets as present, or even as past, which are yet to come.
(2) Was the universal flood threatened, and Noah with his family to be secured? The event corresponded with the threatening, though one hundred and twenty years intervened.
(3) Was Abraham, when one hundred, and childless, to have a vast posterity? Every Jew we see is a witness that the promise has been fulfilled.
(4) So with the deliverance of Israel, &c. Conclusion:
1. Learn the unreasonableness and sinfulness of unbelief (1Jn_5:10).
2. Let God be honoured in His faithfulness by a suitable confidence in it.
3. Let us, in our humble measure, try to imitate God in this His glorious attribute (Eph_5:1). (G. Burder.)
Faithful is He that calleth you
Consider--
I. How God deals with you, in so calling you as to unite you to His Son. Faithfully throughout. He is faithful--
1. In discovering to you your case.
2. In commending to you His Son.
3. In presenting Christ to you, in free gift, as yours.
4. In not repenting of His call.
II. The end of this calling. You are united to His Son, and to such an effect as to have all things in common.
1. Common interests. The interests which Christ has as--
(1) God’s ally, are identical with those of the Father.
(2) His Son, are identical with ours.
2. A common character.
3. A common history. With respect to--
(1) A birth.
(2) A baptism.
(3) A work.
(4) A cross.
(5) A crown. (R. Candlish, D. D.)
The special call and the unfailing result
I. Your calling.
1. Its Divine origin. The text says, “God called you”--does not your experience prove the same? We thought that we had had no other call than that which came through our Bibles, good books, &c. But did we not read the same books years before? but they never touched a chord in our hearts; therefore we conclude that that time it must have been the finger of God. We had been called scores of times before, but we always turned a deaf ear. But when this particular call came, we threw down our sword and said, “Great God, I yield!”
2. Its graciousness. What was there in you to suggest a motive why God should call you? Some of you were drunkards, profane, injurious. John Bradford, when he saw a cartful of men going off to Tyburn to be hanged, said, “There goes John Bradford but for the grace of God.” A good Scotchman called to see Rowland Hill, and without saying a word, sat still for some five minutes, looking into his face. At last Rowland asked him what engaged his attention. Said he, “I was looking at the lines of your face.” “Well, what do you make out of em?” “Why,” said he, “that if the grace of God hadn’t been in you, you would have been the biggest rascal living.”
3. The privileges it brings.
(1) Pardon.
(2) Righteousness.
(3) Sonship.
(4) Heaven.
II. To what end did God call you? That you might have fellowship with Christ. Now the word “koinonia” is not to be interpreted here as a society, but as the result of society; i.e., fellowship lies in mutual and identical interests. A man and his wife have fellowship with each other, in that which is common to both and enjoyed in communion accordingly. Now when we were called to Christ we became one with Him, so that everything Christ had became ours. This was the act of faith. Now we have fellowship to Christ.
1. In His loves. He loves saints, sinners, the world, and pants to see it transformed into the garden of the Lord. What He loves we love, and what He hates we abhor.
2. In His desires. He desires to see multitudes saved, the glory of God, that the saints may be with Him where He is--we desire the same.
3. In His sufferings. We do not die a bloody death; yet many have done so, and there are millions ready to do so. But when He is reproached we have learned to bear His reproach too. Some few drops of His cup we drink, and it has been given to some more than to others to “fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ for His body’s sake, which is the Church.”
4. In His joys. Is He happy? We arehappy to think Christ is happy.
5. In His riches. If He has riches in pardoning, supporting, instructing, illuminating, sanctifying, preserving, or perfecting Christians, they are all ours. Is His blood precious, His righteousness complete, His merits sweet? They are mine. Has He power in intercession, has He wisdom, righteousness--has He anything? It is mine.
6. In His glory. There is not a crown He wears but we have part of it; nay, there is not a gem that sparkles in His crowns but it sparkles for us as well as for Him. For us the golden streets, the chariot, the crowding angels; the shout of “Hallelujah! for Thou wast slain,” &c., the second advent with all its splendours, universal reign of Christ, the day of judgment.
III. All this leads us to perceive our security. Saints must be saved--
1. Because God has called them. “The gifts and culling of God are without repentance,” Because--
2. God has called them into fellowship with Christ, and that fellowship, if God be faithful, must be complete. You have shared His sufferings, His faithfulness secures the rest. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The fellowship of God’s Son
1. The apostle writes as a peacemaker. Party strife had weakened spiritual life, and a weakened spiritual life had been fruitful in other evils. St. Paul would remedy all evil and restore harmony. He finds his potent spell in the Name which is above every name, and recalls Corinthian Christians to the consideration of the common Saviour, and their one hope which is by Him and in Him. Christ Jesus is all to each and to everyone of them. Thus it is that throughout these opening verses this name occurs againand again.
2. Divine fellowship is often spoken of in the Scriptures. In the New Testament it is naturally most familiar, for there God has come nearest to man, and therefore man may come nigh unto Him. This is the gospel message that,“made nigh by the blood of Christ” there is, for all, “boldness to enter into the holiest.” “No one cometh unto the Father but by Me.” Between God and men there is but the one Mediator. Fellowship with God must needs be first of all the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ.
3. But what is this high privilege? Ordinarily the term suggests the interchange of sympathy and thought, or association in acts of Christian worship and participation in common joys and sorrows. The word itself has a meaning which, in its application to ordinary affairs, is very definite andclear. The sons of Zebedee are twice spoken of as “partners” of Simon. Without any violence, therefore, we may read: “The partnership of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord” (cf. Heb_3:14)
. In this busy life, partnerships are common; but never in human commerce did men look upon one like this. Suppose a firm utterly and hopelessly ruined. A wealthy man asks to be admitted as partner. As honest men, the bankrupts must needs protest that the offerer knows not what he is doing. Then comes the reply that all is known, that wealth is available more than sufficient to meet all the need, and that practical wisdom also whereby the ruin may be reconstructed on a safe and enduring basis. Yet this, and more than all this, is in the gospel. A ruined race may scan the present, or peer as they will into the dark future. Sin hath wrought shame and death. Yet now, in the midst of the utter wreck, there stands One who offers much, as He offers life--who giveth all, as He gives Himself. This is true for each and for all, without respect of persons, and without limitation of gift.
4. What has this communion brought to the Saviour Himself? The answer is soon given. He took upon Himself our nature, “the likeness of sinful flesh.” He shared to the utmost its weakness, weariness, pain, and death. One burden He shared not; for Himself hath borne it all. “By Himself” He “purged our sins.” Beyond this He had nothing. Joy became His, “the joy that was set before Him,” that of presenting “faultless before the presence of His glory” the redeemed sons of men. Glory has been given to Him, but it is the glory of “power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life.” And these things He hath “received of the Father,” and not from mankind.
5. But let us turn to the other side, the relation of man to this fellowship. In the commercial world, partnerships are not all alike. Modern society, under the pressure of altered circumstances, has invented the contrivance of “limited liability.” But in olden times when any man entered a firm he took in with him all that he possessed. Thenceforth none of the things which he had could, in presence of the common need, be called his own. From such a partnership the young ruler recoiled: “Sell that thou hast,” &c. Into such a partnership the early Christians gladly entered, for they “had all things common.” Into such a partnership are we called--one of unlimited liability. Entire consecration is the first requirement. “Ye are not your own.” “Whether ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” Christ will have all, or nothing. On this essential condition, the partnership is open to every man. He came “to call sinners to repentance,” and, when sinners come, they are accepted just as they are. No man may bring less than his all to the fellowship of Christ; but no man can bring more. So the trembling servant comes with his burden of conscious liability. His all is a debt of ten thousand talents; but the Saviour admits him to the partnership. The poor wasteful and wasted wanderer comes, with rags and shame as his only contribution, but he meets with no denial. Penitent, needy soul! Lay thy gift thyself, whatever thou hast been, whatever thou art--lay it all upon the altar. It is His will, it is His command; therefore, for once, obey. The gift is accepted, for He hath promised. For “God is faithful, by whom” thou hast been called unto this fellowship.
6. Once admitted, “all things are yours.” In earthly partnerships, though there may be unlimited liability, there is only a limited supply. It cannot be that every partner shall have power to draw as he may upon the common resources. The banking account is strictly guarded; and the available funds are doled out to eachand to all, not according to need, but according to legal claim. For sinful men, all this is blessedly otherwise. The treasury of grace is the fulness of God. There is “enough for all, enough for each, enough for evermore!” “But all He hath for mine I claim.”
7. If, now, we would learn something of the wealth which we share with and in Christ Jesus, we may read His own words (Joh_17:22-23). The glory of Christ is the possession of His people. That glory consists in what He is, and what He has; the riches of life and the gifts of love. (G. W. Olver, B. A.)
Fellowship with Christ
I. Our distinctive position as Christians is that we have fellowship with God’s Son. Men are often marked out from others by the particular fraternity, corporation, or firm to which they belong. We as Christians are members of the firm of the Son of God; for the word here means co-partnership.
1. The grounds of this fellowship are--
(1) The Divine acceptance of Christ’s work.
(2) “The consequent Divine grant to Christ of all the power and gifts of salvation for the benefit of all who should become co-partners with Himself.
2. Its terms or conditions--entire self-surrender. Faith receives Christ “as He is presented in the gospel,” i.e., in all His relations. To Christ as a Saviour trust is reliance, as a Teacher trust is teachableness, as a Ruler it is obedience, as a Leader following, as a King homage, as a Man sympathy, as God worship. Let there be no mistake here. Many put their trust in Christ as a Saviour, but not as a King; as man, not as God. They will take all He has to give, but give nothing in return, or if anything their money, but Hot themselves. But Christ seeks not yours, but you. He requires not large capital, knowledge, skill, art, &c., although He will receive them when offered; what He does require is your whole affection and unlimited trust.
3. Its prospects. Our position is that of partners--in spiritual life, brotherhood and service; but not on equal terms. We take nothing into the concern but weakness and poverty. Without Him we can do nothing, but with Him we shall jointly realise God’s ideal of humanity. Military or commercial companies have often proposed to themselves the conquest of the world; this society has the same object, and will achieve it, only in a nobler sense.
II. God has called us into the fellowship of His Son. In the invitations of the gospel God is calling men to become co-partners with Christ; but mere invitation does not come up to the full meaning of the term, and our hearts must say what that full meaning is. The heart makes God the author of its whole salvation. “By the grace of God I am what I am.” That grace makes all the difference between a stranger to and a partner with Christ.
III. Everything must depend on the faithfulness of God. This fellowship from first to last is His creation; on Him it depends to render it a failure or a success.
1. Therefore our confidence rests immediately on God. In worldly affairs men usually contemplate success through natural laws and material properties. Farmers trust to the virtues of the seed, &c., merchants to the winds and waves, warriors to the spirit of their troops; but even in such cases a devout spirit will recognise the presence of God in all secondary causes, and make Him at least the basis of its hope. But in this great co-partnership we have no interventions to distract our faith. We go right to God at once.
2. We rest upon the most Godlike thing in God--His faithfulness, which supports the universe. Our fellowship with Christ is thus placed beyond the possibility of failure in God. No storm can shatter our bark, no blight destroy our harvests, for God is faithful. And what a stimulus to endeavour we have in this! Because God is so faithful to me I will be faithful to Him. Consequently the fellowship of Christ becomes to us the one permanent interest in this uncertain world. There is no possibility of bankruptcy; we cannot be outbidden or undersold; for ours is the capital of God’s unsearchable Fiches. His name is pledged to every acceptance in which cur safety is involved, and so long as His throne shall stand our safety and glory is assured. (Prof. J. M. Charlton.)
The Divine call, and its design
I. The call comprehends all the purposes, decrees, providences, and means of salvation.
II. The design of this call of God is, that all who obey it may for ever have “fellowship” or communion with His Son our Saviour, Communion signifies joint participation in anything, good or bad. Here all is good. Godcalls the believer--
1. To communion with His Son, in His miraculous formation in the womb. The Spirit creates believers anew “in Christ Jesus unto good works.”
2. In His purity from sin. The Spirit keeps our new nature from sin.
3. In growth in grace. The Spirit brings “unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.”
4. In fitness for every duty. The Spirit anointed Him, and He anoints the believer.
5. In working miracles. The Spirit enables the believer to conquer Satan, sin, the world, death, and hell.
6. In comfort. The Spirit comforted Him, and He comforts real believers.
7. In death.
8. In the state of thedead. The Spirit preserved His holy body that it saw no corruption. The Spirit will keep the bodies of believers “still united to Christ, till the resurrection.”
9. In the resurrection. The Spirit raised Him up; and the same Spirit will raise up the believer.
10. In glory. The Spirit glorified our Lord; and He will also glorify the true believer. (Jas. Kidd, D. D.)
Sonship and fellowship
Let us consider his fellowship or partnership with Christ in the following aspects:--
I. Partnership with Him in what He was. He was crucified, He died, was buried, rose again. In all these we have part.
II. Partnership with him in what he is. He has not only risen, but He has ascended. We share His present dignity; for we are said to be seated with Him in heavenly places, and are treated by God as such. We share His offices; we are prophets, priests, and kings; heirs of God and joint-heirs of Christ Jesus.
III. Partnership with Him in what He shall be. Much of His glory is yet in reserve; for now we see not yet all things put under Him. (H. Bonar, D. D.)
