Fellowship in Christ is that blessed and glorious state or relationship into which we are called by the gospel. All who are immersed into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, as believing penitents are in that fellowship. We are holy brethren because we share in a heavenly call (Heb. 3:1). We are fellowheirs and members of the same body, because we are partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel (Eph. 3:6). In view of this we arc to live "in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together we may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. 15:6). In order to do this we must "welcome one another, as Christ has welcomed us, for the glory of God" (Romans 15:7).
We are joined and knit together as a body (Eph. 4:16). We have access in the one Spirit to the Father (Eph. 2:18). We must be "eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" seeing that there is only one body and one Spirit (Eph. 4:3). So long as the Holy Spirit dwells in any man he is bound by an invisible cord to heaven; and by the same token, he is bound to every other person in whom the Spirit abides. This is "the fellowship of the Spirit" (Phil 2:1). It is created by the Spirit, and it is maintained by the Spirit. Any alliance of those who are not indwelt of the Spirit is a selfish and useless one. Any fellowship that is of the Spirit is at once meaningful and active.
Because we sustain that relationship we are urged to "complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind" (verse 2). We complete the joy of the apostle when we are able to walk and work together in the same mind. This does not mean to be of the same opinion. It does not mean that we are cut out by a kind of divine cookie cutter. But we have the mind of Christ. We do not come into the fellowship because we are of the same mind, or have the same love but we come to be of the same mind and have the same love, because we are in the fellowship. It is the beautiful garden in which we "grow up into Him in all things." It is the atmosphere in which we "grow in grace and in knowledge of the truth." God brings us into fellowship through grace; we grow together by mutual eagerness to maintain that unity.
One of the greatest tragedies of this age has been the lack of eagerness to maintain unity. There has been an eagerness to divide. It has become almost an obsession. It is a passion which engulfs us and fragments us, but there seems to be a decided reluctance to unite. Men have no fear of separation, but live in mutual dread of ending it. Nowhere does the word of God counsel division among believers. In scores of passages unity is urged. Yet we could not be more divided if the word of God had commanded it. No one is so unpopular in some circles today as he who speaks for unity. Brethren take counsel together to stop the mouth of one who pleads for it, and if they cannot stop his mouth, they stop their ears.
This is the sad state to which Christendom is reduced by our littleness, fears, frustration, bigotry and hatred. Is it any wonder that under such circumstances we seek and earnestly look for scriptural warrant for our ungodly procedure? We are a Bible believing people. We have boasted so long that we do nothing without scriptural backing. So it becomes necessary that we search the scriptures to justify what we are doing. We have charted our course by ourselves; we must alter God's chart and map to condone it. We now place a ban upon unity and a blessing upon division. "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight" (Isa. 5:20).
Think of the frightful cleavages that invest the realm of Christendom. If you disregard the great division between Romanism and Protestantism, and regard only the latter as filling the nominal Christian domain, behold the almost three hundred sects and cults which cumber our own fair country. If you restrict your narrowed vision to the heirs of the restoration movement, you must contemplate no less than twenty-five splinter parties, each one belaboring all of the others as sects and factions. Nor is the end yet, for the germ of the seed which has produced this state is not dead or dormant, and there must follow more division, factionism, strife, contention and bitter debate. We will bequeath to our children and our children's children a legacy of hate and intolerance, so they will bite and devour one another, and long after our bones moulder in the earth, the feuds will go on and damn our offspring to the flames of hell. With all of our modern skills and scientific acumen we have not yet solved the problem of how all believers in Christ can be one. Is it any wonder we cannot solve our national and international problems? The greatest challenge to Christendom today is to find an answer to the prayer of Jesus. There has to be one!
Those who love God and revere His word will seek for the answer in that word. But they must learn how to handle it properly. It is a sword, and such a weapon in an unskilled hand may slay more friends than enemies. We want to deal in this essay with one passage of scripture which we have used in a factional sense. It has been used over and over to create and widen schisms in the body of the Lord. We refer to 2 John 9, 10. "If there come any unto you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him Godspeed, for he that biddeth him God-speed is partaker of his evil deeds." This is the handle that has been shaped to fit every factional tool man has invented. It is the seasoning which flavors every partisan pot.
In Tennessee, a man reaches the conclusion that it is a sin to teach little children the word of God in a Bible class in the meetinghouse. This is made his party test of loyalty to Jesus. "If any man bring not this doctrine, receive him not." In Texas, a man decides that the fruit of the vine must be passed to the congregation in one container. To do otherwise would be to negate the value of even partaking of the Supper. This is made his party test and "if any man bring not this doctrine, receive him not." In the same factional strain, one in his congregation concludes that the fruit of the vine passed in one container must be fermented. This becomes his party test, and "if anyone bring not this doctrine, receive him not."
To one "this doctrine" means a special way of breaking the bread, to another it refers to the support of orphan homes, to another our relation to civil government, to another it has to do with certain regulations of marriage. But whatever the party test, one must bring this doctrine, or he is an outcast, and must be given the cold shoulder, disregarded as a brother and treated like a pagan. Schools have arisen to be identified with one facet or another of this doctrine, and the students go forth gleefully preaching their peculiarity and fragmenting the body of Christ with gusto.
Did the apostle of love intend to create such a conglomerate mess as we now behold? Did he who wrote that "we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren" also give instruction to club the life out of them or to drive them forth when they could not conscientiously agree with some childish point of interpretation? Did he who said "Any one who hates his brother is a murderer," provide us with a verbal dagger by which to stab our brethren to death doctrinally? Did he who condemned Diotrephes because "he refuses to welcome the brethren, and stops those who want to welcome them and puts them out of the church," lay down a principle which would propagate the Diotrephesian cult in every congregation? Did the holy apostle initiate the beginning of a Russian-type purge which would make every congregation the lurking-ground for fright and terror? Was he referring to individual cups, Bible classes, leavened bread, fermented wine, a special method of breaking the loaf, orphan homes, colleges, radio programs, instrumental music, tuning forks, baptisteries, collection plates, and a host of other items too numerous to mention? Was this a concealed blast against the congregational support of Herald of Truth whether such support is justified or not?
Whatever this doctrine was, the man who did not bring it was not to be welcomed when he came, nor speeded on his way with good wishes when he left. We are of the opinion that we can only understand what John was talking about in consideration of the background and circumstances under which he wrote. John spent his final days in Ephesus, laboring in the vicinity of Asia Minor. Ephesus was the home of Cerinthus, a Jew who studied in Alexandria, and who is credited with being the original propagator of the theory which was destined eventually to divide almost every congregation in the Greek world. He was a contemporary with John. It is a conviction of ours that John was spared to deal the death blow to this cult of Greek mysticism, even as Paul was destined to save the church from the inroads of legalism derived from a mistaken idea of the role of Judaism in God's plan.
The first and second epistles of John were written to deal with this problem. No one can rightfully understand them if he ignores this fact. We cannot here enter into a full analysis of Gnosticism, its origins, nature and effects. The word is from the Greek gnosis, i. e., "Knowledge." Paul alludes to it in warning Timothy to avoid "the contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge (gnosis)" and affirms that "by professing it some have missed the mark as regards to the faith" (1 Timothy 6:20). Timothy was in Ephesus, which was "the eye of the storm" when that was written to him. Although, because of its speculative nature, gnosticism finally took many forms, it generally denied the pre-existence of the Son of God in some fashion. It clearly affirmed that he did not come in the flesh.
Cerinthus taught that God was exalted above all contact with the world of nature and sense, that the world was created by angels, and presided and ruled over by one of them, who was the Sovereign and lawgiver of the Jews. He affirmed that Jesus was born of Joseph and Mary by the natural process of birth, and developed and grew in such a degree of wisdom, and of favor with God and man, that he was deemed to be worthy of divine honor. At his baptism by John, the Logos, that is, the divine wisdom and energy, descended upon him, thus making him the Christ (the anointed one). By this supernatural endowment of the divine pneuma he was permitted to work miracles and reveal the divine purpose, which the Logos could penetrate. Cerinthus further taught that when Jesus was arrested, the Logos left him and returned to the Father, so it was just the man who died, and not God, or the Son of God. It was affirmed that man could not kill God and that anyone who could be killed thereby proved he was not God. One who is familiar with the teachings of the Jehovah's witness cult will at once recognize the similarity in their doctrine and that of the Gnostics.
John wrote to refute this dangerous theory which had already infiltrated most of the congregations during his lifetime. It was aided and abetted by the philosophic turn of mind of most Gentile converts. This will explain many of the statements and emphases in his gospel record. The great representative of the Alexandrian school was Philo. He was contemporary with Jesus and was born about a quarter of a century before him. In attempting to synthesize a system which would bring together the best in Aristotelian philosophy with Christianity, he affirms that God is the absolute, eternal and invisible Being. This God is separated from the material universe by an abyss which excludes all idea of immediate contact.
He was not the creator of matter. Matter existed from all eternity. It was not permitted, it was not possible, for the blessed God to come in contact with matter. He has arranged the universe by means of the Logos, which is represented, now as one, now as manifold, and in which the Mosaic creative word, the King of Israel's personification of wisdom, and Plato's world of ideas appear to coalesce. So John starts out in his account of the Good News with the affirmation, "In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God." One can only imagine what a controversy this aroused. It was like throwing a lighted brand into a barrel of gunpowder.
But he then declares that "The Logos became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14). The idea that the Logos came and brought his own tent with him cut across all of the philosophic brilliance of that day. It was impossible, according to the philosophic idea that God could become material, for all matter was essentially and inherently evil by nature. So John begins his first epistle by asserting that he had personal audible, manual and visible witness of the word of life, that this life had pre-existence with the Father, was manifested to the witnesses, and proclaimed to others so they might also have fellowship with the proclaimers, the Father and His Son Jesus Christ (1 John 1:1-3). The message of the proclaimers was that God is light! To say that one has fellowship with God while denying the manifestation of God (in Jesus Christ) is only to lie, and to walk in darkness. "To walk in the Light" (i. e., to be in God) is to be in fellowship with one another and in contact with the cleansing power of the Son of God (1:5-7).
No one can be in the light (that is in God) who is not in the Son, for they sustain a divine relationship. "No one who denies the Son has the Father. He who confesses the Son has the Father also . . . If what you have heard from the beginning abide in you, then you will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is what he has promised us, eternal life" (2:23-25). What was it they had heard from the beginning which must abide in them, so they could abide in God? "The life was made manifest, and we saw it . . . and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest unto us."
To say one is in fellowship with the Father while denying the pre-existence and revelation of the Son makes one a liar (1:6). "Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son" (2:22). There are many kinds of liars, but the one with whom John was dealing while writing this epistle was the one who denied the Messiahship of Jesus. The Gnostic was not a follower of Jesus, but an antichrist. These men had created a party or heresy, for we read, "They went out from us because they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us, but they went out that it might be plain that they were not of us" (2:19).
The saints were not to believe every spirit. They were to test the spirits, because many false prophets were abroad. The criterion was simple. "Every spirit which confesses that Jesus is come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God." By this the Spirit of God could be identified (4:1-3). "Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God" (4:15). "Every one who believes that Jesus is the Christ is a child of God, and every one who loves the parent loves the child. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and obey his commandments" (5:1, 2).
We are now ready to appreciate 2 John. It was written to a sister in the Lord. Some of her children were followers of the truth (verse 4). The congregation may have met in her house. John wrote the same thing to her in verses 5 and 6 that he wrote in 1 John 2:7-9. He tells her that many deceivers have gone out into the world (verse 7) as he previously had said, "Many false prophets have gone out into the world" (1 John 4:1). He identifies these as "men who will not acknowledge the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh" (Cp verse 7 with 1 John 4:3) and labels them in both instances as "antichrist."
In verse 9, he tells the sister, "Any one who goes ahead and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God; he who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son." The doctrine of Christ is the testimony "that the Father has sent His Son as the Savior of the world" (1 John 4:14), that is, that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh (4:2). Those who go ahead and do not abide in this conviction do not love God, but those who retain this conviction, have both the Father and the Son. As phrased in 1 John 2:23, "No one who denies the Son has the Father. He who confesses the Son has the Father also." To "deny the Son" in this expression is equivalent to the expression "does not abide in the doctrine of Christ" in the other place.
The instruction is "if any one comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into the house, or give him any greeting: for he who greets him shares his wicked work." The abuse of this passage by men motivated by a partisan spirit is indescribable in its awful effects; only eternity will reveal the tragic loss of souls caused by such abuse. It has been quoted to justify driving out into the cold those humble souls who would not bow to clerical domination; it is the whiplash that has cut into the hearts of sincere believers in the Lord who would not do abject obeisance to an arbitrary interpretation of some despotic and tyrannical faction. It is the sword that has spilled the blood of the saints, the axe that has wrecked the house of God; and the rude hand that has torn the fabric of fellowship into a hundred bits and flung the pieces into the face of Christ of Calvary who died that we might be one in Him. Dear Lord, forgive us the sin of mistaking zeal for your kingdom with the blood lust of the sectarian spirit! Let us know your will.
Most of our brethren are better than their creeds. Their hearts transcend their practices. They will not only receive into their houses those to whom they profess to apply this scripture, but will ardently canvass a community seeking to get them to come. They bring in a bevy of eager-beaver college students to work the area and get as many as possible to attend. They put out flyers and stick advertisements in the paper with the blatant notice "Everyone Welcome!" They compass land and sea to make one proselyte.
In their preaching they do not hesitate to apply 2 John 9, 10 to a preacher who believes in instrumental music. He is guilty of the Number One sin. Yet, when one attends he is greeted with a toothy grin and a huge smile and given an old-fashioned down home greeting. An usher will scamper half way across the auditorium to give him a songbook open to the proper hymn. He is encouraged to "participate in the worship" along with other sinners who are present. However, if someone makes the mistake of calling on him to lead in prayer, it creates a furor of gossip, and the man who did it will lose his job, for compromising truth with error. It is alright to pray provided you have a tune to it, but it is wrong to do so to four-four time without a melody attached.
Such is the mixed-up mess and the messed-up mix to which our puerile reasoning has brought us. We could not be farther from the truth or more hypocritical in our application of it, if it were God's will. The book plainly tells us not to receive into the house a false teacher of the kind John had in mind. It specifically tells us to give him no greeting. Whoever you apply the first part to, you are obligated to apply the second part to. I do not believe that most of our brethren are willing to apply the remedy prescribed to one whom they have diagnosed as needing it. I have never seen them give "the bum's rush" to one who disagreed with them. I have seen them argue with one until after midnight, with everyone so sleepy no one was really listening. The only one I have ever seen conducted to the door and sent on his wobbly way was an occasional drunk who was staggering by and dropped in to take a rear seat and start crying in his suds.
The thing that strikes most of the brethren is the phrase "Receive him not!" It is right down their alley. This furnishes them the right to reject anyone who is bold or simple enough to assert an opinion contrary to the unwritten creed. It affords them ground for renouncing the scripture which says, "Accept one another, then, for the glory of God, as Christ has accepted you" (Romans 15:7). For the glory of God. If it is to God's glory to accept all whom He has accepted it contravenes His glory not to do so. But our brethren are selective. If a really prominent Baptist, one who has been president of a Baptist school, shows an interest, they can get together in a back room and agree to spirit him in on his previous baptism. A run-of-the-mill, common, everyday, garden variety Baptist will have to be baptized "scripturally," that is by one of our preachers, to get into the Lord's church. Politics make for strange bedfellows, and strange bedfellows make for politics.
Men may have God, and God may have men, who sincerely differ on Bible classes, individual cups, leavened or unleavened bread, fermented or unfermented wine, lesson leaves, baptisteries, and a host of other things. Men may abide in the "doctrine of Christ" of which John speaks, and hold conflicting views about implementation of God's will for us in this age. It is a matter of our attitude toward truth. But those who split, tear and rend the body of God's Son, then try to call heaven's blessing upon their destructive ways, by quoting as justification, "If any come and bring not this doctrine, do not receive him into your house, nor give him a greeting," are the real factionists and troublers of Israel. Such a spirit is more dangerous to the well-being of the church of God than some "innovations."
Those who profess to be defenders of the faith, those who pose as champions of orthodoxy may be intolerant advocates of unwritten human creeds. We are not apologists for error, nor do we excuse divisions in Christ, of those who are earnestly striving to know His will, but we do not propose to settle our problems by driving out of the house our brethren who disagree. We shall not throw the baby out with the bath water! The members of the present factions and dissident groups need to get on their knees before the Savior lest they he forced to do so before the Judge of all the earth. It is time to repent. Reformation must precede true restoration. Let us all love the brethren, and in that spirit resolve that we shall end factionism and party strife. The night is far spent, the day is at hand!