Verse 9 says, “God is faithful, through whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” To be called into the fellowship of God’s Son is to partake of the fellowship of the union with God’s Son, Jesus Christ, and to participate in Him. God has called us into such a fellowship that we may enjoy Christ as our God-given portion. The phrase into the fellowship of His Son, like the word in verse 2 concerning Christ’s being theirs and ours, stresses again the crucial fact that Christ is the unique center of the believers for the solving of the problems among them, especially the problem of division.
The faithful God has called us into the fellowship of, and the participation in, His Son, Jesus Christ. That is, God has given His Son to us as our portion that we would always enjoy Him. The entire book of 1 Corinthians presents the details of our enjoyment of Christ. This book unveils to us that the Christ, into whom we have all been called, is all-inclusive. He is the portion given to us by God (1:2). He is God’s power and God’s wisdom as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption to us (vv. 24, 30). He is the Lord of glory (2:8) for our glorification (v. 7; Rom. 8:30). He is the depths (deep things) of God (1 Cor. 2:10). He is the unique foundation of God’s building (3:11). He is our Passover (5:7), the unleavened bread (v. 8), the spiritual food, the spiritual drink, and the spiritual rock (10:3-4). He is the Head (11:3) and the Body (12:12). He is the firstfruits (15:20, 23), the second man (v. 47), and the last Adam (v. 45); as such, He became the life-giving Spirit (v. 45) that we may receive Him into us as our everything. This all-inclusive One, with the riches of at least twenty items, God has given to us as our portion for our enjoyment. We should concentrate on Him, not on any persons, things, or matters other than Him. We should focus on Him as our unique center appointed by God so that all the problems among the believers may be solved. It is into the fellowship of such a One that we have been called by God. This fellowship of God’s Son became the fellowship that the apostles shared with the believers (Acts 2:42; 1 John 1:3) in His Body, the church, and should be the fellowship that we enjoy in partaking of His blood and His body at His table (1 Cor. 10:16, 21). Such a fellowship, which is carried out by the Spirit (2 Cor. 13:14), must be unique because He is unique; it forbids any division among the members of His unique Body.
This word fellowship is profound and exceedingly deep. It means that we and Christ have become one, that we enjoy Christ and all He is and that He enjoys us and all we are (Phil. 1:18; 2:17-18, 28; 3:1; 4:4, 10). As a result, there is not only a mutual communication but a mutuality in every way: all that Christ is becomes ours, and all that we are becomes His. We have all been called by God into such a mutuality between us and the Son of God, a mutuality in which we enjoy what the Son of God is, and He enjoys what we are, and in which we are one with Him, and He is one with us. We have been called into such a oneness, in which we enjoy what Christ is, and He enjoys what we are.
In keeping with this, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:17, “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” The word joined in this verse is a synonym for fellowship in 1:9; the joining is actually the fellowship. The fellowship into which we have been called is Christ as the life-giving Spirit. To experience this fellowship we must be one spirit with Him. In our spirit we are one with the life-giving Spirit.
The fellowship of Christ is actually carried out by the Spirit; thus, in our experience, the fellowship of the Son is the fellowship of the Spirit (2 Cor. 13:14; cf. Phil. 2:1). The way to enjoy the Lord experientially is through Him as the Spirit in our spirit. Today Christ is the life-giving Spirit, and we have a regenerated human spirit. When we are joined to Him, we become one spirit with Him. Whenever we are one spirit with the Lord, we are in the fellowship of Christ, and we experience Him as the all-inclusive One.
This fellowship involves not only the oneness between us and the Triune God but also the oneness among all the believers (John 17:21-23; Eph. 4:3). Fellowship implies a mutual flowing among the believers (1 John 1:3). In the New Testament, fellowship describes the flowing both between us and the Lord and between us and one another (Phil. 2:1). The flow, the current, that we have in our spiritual fellowship involves both oneness and life. Our fellowship is a flow in oneness; it is an intercommunication of life among us as believers in Christ. This fellowship is the reality of the church life (1 Cor. 1:9, 2).
Because we have been called into such a fellowship, we should not say that we are of Paul, of Cephas, of Apollos, or of any other person (v. 12). Neither should we say that we are of a certain doctrine or of a particular practice. God has not called us into the fellowship of any person, doctrine, denomination, or practice. We have not been called into our preference, either in persons or denominations. Rather, we have been called uniquely into the fellowship of God’s Son. We have all been called into Christ, called into the fellowship, enjoyment, and participation in Him. This means that Christ alone must be our fellowship. God is pleased only with Christ; in God’s economy there is room only for Christ. God has only one center—Jesus Christ—and He has called us not into the denomination of our choice but into the fellowship of His Son. No individual or group must be our preference. Our only preference must be Christ as the unique center, the Christ who is theirs and ours, the Christ into whose fellowship we have been called by God. The all-inclusive Christ must be our unique choice, preference, portion, taste, and enjoyment (vv. 24, 30; 2:2). We should all be able to say that our only preference is the all-inclusive and all-extensive Christ.
In summary, Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:1-9 impresses us with the fact that in God’s economy, Christ is the unique center. God’s intention is to make Christ His Son the center of His economy and also to make Him everything to all the believers. For this reason Paul tells us that Christ is both theirs and ours and that we have been called into the fellowship of the Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. In His economy God’s intention is to make Christ everything, to give Christ to us as our portion, and to work Christ into us.