The fellowship of the divine life is a fellowship between the believers and the apostles (1 John 1:3b; Acts 2:42). This means that there is a joint enjoyment of the Triune God among the believers and the apostles. The believers and the apostles need to have contact with one another. When there is the proper contact, there will be a two-way traffic, and this traffic is fellowship, a common participation. When we have this two-way traffic, we enjoy the divine life that is within us. This means that when we have fellowship, we have the enjoyment of the divine life. The more two-way traffic we have, the better it will be. The more we contact the apostles, the more we will enjoy the divine life. Whenever we come to the apostles’ writings, we may have the sense of being brought into fellowship with the apostles and enjoying the two-way traffic between us and them. Then in this traffic we enjoy the divine life together with them. John says that first the believers have fellowship with the apostles through the divine life. Then he says that the apostles have fellowship with the Father and the Son. By this we see that fellowship joins the believers to the apostles and to the Father and the Son. Therefore, in this fellowship there is the full oneness of the divine life.
The fellowship in the Body is the fellowship of the apostles. Acts 2:42 says, “They continued steadfastly in the teaching and the fellowship of the apostles.” We cannot have any fellowship other than the apostles’ fellowship. Among the saints there is only one fellowship because there is only one life, one source of life, and one Lord of life—Christ Himself. The Lord Christ is the unique source of this unique life; hence, in this unique life we have the unique fellowship. In the universe all the believers throughout time and space have only one fellowship, the fellowship that comes from the unique life, which is Christ Himself.
The divine fellowship is between us and the Father and also between us and all the members of the Body. Just as in our body there are many members but one circulation of blood, so also in the Body of Christ we are the many members of His Body with one fellowship in Christ as our life. The life-giving Spirit is flowing within all the members of the great, universal Body of Christ. Within His universal Body there is one flow, the flow of the divine life, the current of the water of life. The water is the divine life, and the divine life is the Triune God. The more we remain in Christ, the more we have this fellowship.
Our Christian life is a life of the fellowship of the divine life. The New Testament reveals that the Christian meeting, the Christian married life, and the Christian work are just the divine fellowship. The divine fellowship is everything in the Christian life.
In 1 John 1:2-3 the apostles wanted to have fellowship with the believers; this is horizontal fellowship. Then the apostles stated that their fellowship was with the Triune God; this is vertical fellowship. The vertical fellowship brings us into the horizontal fellowship. The horizontal fellowship then brings us into the vertical fellowship on a larger scale. This larger scale of fellowship is the meetings. In the proper church meetings, everyone should be full of the enjoyment of Christ, participating in the vertical and horizontal aspects of the divine fellowship. All the functioning in the meetings should be an expression of the divine fellowship. To prophesy is an expression of this fellowship. To testify is also a part of this fellowship. To read a verse from the Bible to the saints in the Lord’s table meeting may also be a small part of this fellowship. The entire meeting should be a fellowship.
Eventually, in this divine fellowship God is interwoven with us. This interweaving is the mingling of God with man. All the meetings should be an interwoven fellowship with both the vertical and horizontal aspects. Our married life should also be an interwoven fellowship. The husband and the wife should not only be interwoven with each other but also with the Lord. The real Christian marriage should be the divine fellowship. In addition, our coordination and work together should be the divine fellowship.
We must realize that when fellowship disappears, God also disappears. God comes as the fellowship. Today our meetings, our married life, the coordination among the co-workers, and the fellowship among the local churches are abnormal because we are short of this fellowship. The divine fellowship is everything in the Christian life. When we live in the divine fellowship, our Christian life becomes very living, active, and full of impact. We need to fully enter into the experience of the divine fellowship in its two aspects by the two spirits.
As we have seen, the fellowship of the divine life in the Body of Christ corresponds to the circulation of the blood in the physical body. It is this circulation which unites all the members with the head and with each other. The body and the head are one because of this circulation. All the members in the body are kept in “fellowship,” or oneness, with each other by this same circulation. Circulation is not something other than the blood itself. When the blood flows in the blood vessels, there is circulation; when the blood is stationary, there is no circulation. Once the blood flow stops, death and detachment result, and the members are no longer related to each other or to the head. Likewise, the fellowship of the divine life is the flow of life through all the members of the Body of Christ. “Fellowship” is not our greeting each other and engaging in conversation. The church is not a social club or a charitable organization; it is the Body of Christ. In this Body flows the divine, eternal life, which is the living person of God Himself. Apart from this flowing, there is death and detachment.
Simply speaking, fellowship is the flow of life, the flow of the Holy Spirit, within the children of God. Again this flow, this fellowship, is illustrated by the circulation of the blood in our physical body. The Word says that the life of the flesh is in the blood (Lev. 17:11). This means that the circulation of blood is the flow of blood, the “fellowship” of the body. We cannot say that the blood in our body is the blood of our hand or the blood of our feet. If the blood in a person’s hand stops moving and remains in that particular place, then the hand becomes dead. When the blood flow has a problem, the body is in an abnormal situation. Likewise, the fellowship of the Body is the circulation of the life of Christ in us, which is also the circulation of the Spirit of life in us. The circulation of the Spirit of life has at least two functions: it brings in the spiritual supply that we need, and it discharges all the improper, useless, and dead things from within us (Titus 3:5). Whenever there is a lack of fellowship among God’s children, there is a lack of spiritual supply among them. Furthermore, there is the accumulation of many improper things within them, which creates problems. As a consequence, the Body of Christ becomes ill. We need to see that in order for the life of Christ to be continually living and strong, we, as the children of God, need to have continual fellowship among us. Whenever this fellowship is stopped, the supply of life is stopped, and death is brought in. Thus, the Body of Christ suffers loss related to spiritual death.
If we do not see the believers and do not attend any meetings for a long time, although we may pray and meditate, our spirit seems to become sick, lacking vitality. This is because although we may fellowship with the Lord and have no problem with Him, we are cut off from the fellowship of the Lord’s Body. Yet as soon as we resume our fellowship with the believers, we are refreshed, revived, supplied, happy, pleasant, and bright. This is the fellowship of the Body, and grace is brought into us through fellowship.
In the church meetings, such as the prayer meeting and the bread-breaking meeting, there is a fellowship in the depth of our spirit. The prayers and praises of the saints flow into us. We may feel somewhat despondent before a meeting, but during the meeting we spontaneously sense a flow in our inner being. Once there is a flow, we are altogether enlivened and refreshed in our spirit. We may not listen to many messages, yet we are enlivened simply by praising and praying together with all the saints. This is fellowship and the function of fellowship.
Fellowship indicates a putting away of private interests and a joining with others for a certain common purpose. Hence, to have fellowship with the apostles, to be in the fellowship of the apostles, and to have fellowship with the Triune God in the apostles’ fellowship is to put aside our private interests and join with the apostles and the Triune God for the carrying out of God’s purpose. This purpose, according to John’s subsequent writings, is twofold: (1) that the believers grow in the divine life by abiding in the Triune God (1 John 2:12-27) and, based on the divine birth, live a life of the divine righteousness and the divine love (2:28—5:3) to overcome the world, death, sin, the devil, and idols (5:4-21); and (2) that the local churches be built up as the lampstands for the testimony of Jesus (Rev. 1—3) and consummate in the New Jerusalem as the full expression of God for eternity (Rev. 21—22). Our participation in the apostles’ enjoyment of the Triune God is our joining with them and with the Triune God for His divine purpose, which is common to God, the apostles, and all the believers. In this fellowship we enjoy God, the apostles, the believers, the universal church, and even the local churches. All this enjoyment depends on the fellowship of the divine life, and this fellowship issues out of the divine life itself.