What does the Bible say about interdependence?

While we are directly dependent upon the Head for all, He has made us interdependent as members of the body.

The recognition of the second truth, that there is unity in diversity, would exclude the principle of independency. The members, though each having its special function, are dependent upon one another. The truth, then, of the body of Christ is that no believer has the pre-eminence and all are dependent upon one another.

Paul goes on to show how the various members composing the church of God are dependent one upon another. There is an interdependence between all those who make up this holy body of Christ. — No one person, no one member, can isolate himself from the body, and maintain an independence, "If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?" The seriousness of such a spirit of independence lies in the effort to get away from practical connection with the body of Christ. It is not only that a foot assuming to have no connection with the hand does an injury to the hand, but the whole body is affected. The apostle asks, "Is it therefore not of the body?"

We can therefore take assurance and comfort from the remembrance of this fact. But we must also bear in mind that the active care exercised by the Lord does not remove from us all responsibility in connection with the church. This is enforced by scripture also. We have our own responsibility as members of the body of Christ, and in this twelfth chapter we have brought out the activities that go on amongst the saints of God for their edification, for their spiritual joy, for their peace, for their power to witness for the truth in the world. The Spirit of God shows us here that all the saints of God are mutually dependent one upon another; that their common welfare and spiritual growth rest upon individual effort, individual faithfulness, individual communion with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Verse 25 - "The members should have the same care" - proves that all the saints ought to have a care one for another; and that would include every member of the body on earth. "The same care," he says: it is not simply his taking a care for them, but I ought to care for you in the sense of love, and interest and heart being there; it is not "taking care of," but a different idea. We are all one body: my hand is interested in my eye, and my eye in my hand. All are dependent one on another, in spite of themselves, though it ought to be in love.

But this implies similar activity on the part of the members, in relation to each other. Hence, “if one member suffers, all suffer.” Do we appreciate this touching fact as we should? Or this—“If one member be honoured all rejoice”? What mutual affection, regard, sympathy, and unselfish consideration, if we do. What withering up of mere party or sectarian animosities there would be. But the church as the body of Christ has lost, in leaving her first love those family, nay those corporate, affections that shone in fervent reciprocity in early Pentecostal days. Iniquity abounds and love waxes cold.

The first great principle is that it is a unity, the body of Christ. This, no doubt, is a figure, but it is one which the Holy Ghost constantly employs, and that to show the union of members with one another as well as with Christ, their dependence upon one another as well as upon Christ. If the Church is the body of Christ, believers are "one body in Christ, and every one members one of another" (Rom. 12:5). Therefore, "the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee; nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you" (1 Cor. 12:21). Nay, more, if "one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it" (v. 26). The body, therefore, though a figure, is not a mere fugitive metaphor, true to a certain point, and then failing in its application. It is a figure constantly recurring, and used to show the closest possible union among believers. Since, however, the Church is one body, the body of Christ, part of the testimony which it is called upon to bear is the manifestation of this oneness on earth. This much we may safely infer, for the Church down here, as instituted by God, was the reflection to the world of what it was in His own thoughts, and man's responsibility was to keep it such. The Holy Ghost, however, has not left us to inferences. Knowing the immense importance of the point, and the effort which Satan would make to divert man from God's thoughts, He has given us the clearest instructions on the matter.

Romans 12:5, is the application of the figure. With all the diversity to be found among Christians with individual exercises and activities. they are nevertheless an organic unity in Christ. That is. we are not thinking of a mere congregation of individuals, but of organs and members in a body. This is a wholly spiritual idea: it is not administration in a Corporation or Regiment, where all through training are unified, and as unified work together to a common end: but a body with differing members functioning with a common life. Hence this verse adds we are all "members of one another." Each is incomplete without all the rest, you cannot possibly say this of any aggregate of individuals even though unified.

Let us now turn to the first epistle which speaks of the Body. "For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another" (Rom. 12:4-5). You have Assembly truth alluded to here, but it is not unfolded. Here is the first teaching in the New Testament as to the Body of Christ, and the youngest believer can take in its meaning. "As we have many members in one body" alludes to our arms, fingers, and feet, etc. — the many members in the human body, which is the figure Paul is going to use. "All members have not the same office." There is a great lesson in that. Each has its own function. "So we, being many, are one body in Christ." Who are the "we"? All Christians. You must not think of it as a society, a club, a mere organisation, as men would say. Take the thought of the members of the human body, and then ask who compose the one body? "Many," in fact all Christians on earth today are of it, and compose the Body of Christ in its time aspect. What body do you belong to? In Scripture we only read of the one Body of Christ. All Christians are of it. "And every one members one of another" — I think that means, I cannot get on without you, and you cannot get on without me. Therefore what you see all around you today — the universally consented-to distinctions, differences, and dissensions among the people of God who are split up into numberless so-called "bodies" — is only the work of the enemy, and you will find that what had produced these things is not that saints rally round the truth, but round some little difference. The uniting bond is some doctrine, or creed, or ordinance — it is not the glorious, wonderful truth of the unity of the Body of Christ, formed by the Holy Ghost here upon earth, and Christ, the risen ascended Man, the Head thereof in glory.

When we go back to the beginning, we learn that the first thing in Christianity is the acknowledgment of the Lordship and Headship of Christ, and then, that believers, indwelt by the Holy Spirit and forming Christ's body are necessary to each other; that they are all dependent one upon the other, and that each contributes to the prosperity or harm of the whole. This truth is solemnly taught in 1 Corinthians 12:12-27. The help we render to each other is also most blessedly shown in Ephesians 4, the chapter in which the Lord's glorious supremacy over all things is declared. We read there: “But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into Him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body UNTO THE EDIFYING OF ITSELF IN LOVE” (vv. 15-16).