“Believers are called into the fellowship of Christ and fellowship means communion. The life of faith is one of living union and communion with the exalted and ever-present Redeemer.
Faith is directed not only to a Redeemer who has come and completed once for all a work of redemption. It is directed to him not merely as the one who died but as the one who rose again and who ever lives as our great high priest and advocate.
And because faith is directed to him as living Saviour and Lord, fellowship reaches the zenith of its exercise. There is no communion among men that is comparable to fellowship with Christ—he communes with his people and his people commune with him in conscious reciprocal love.
‘Whom having not seen ye love,’ wrote the apostle Peter, ‘in whom though now ye see him not yet believing ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory‘ (1 Peter 1:8).
The life of faith is the life of love, and the life of love is the life of fellowship, or mystic communion with Him who ever lives to make intercession for His people and who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.
It is fellowship with Him who has an inexhaustible reservoir of sympathy with His people’s temptations, afflictions, and infirmities because He was tempted in all points like as they are, yet without sin.
The life of true faith cannot be that of cold metallic assent. It must have the passion and warmth of love and communion because communion with God is the crown and apex of true religion.
‘Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ‘ (1 John 1:3).”
–John Murray, Redemption: Accomplished and Applied (Glenside, PA: Westminster Seminary Press, 1955/2024), 180.
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