What does the Bible say about solidarity?

All this is exceedingly interesting as showing the common life and common interests that throbbed through all the Church. It was, it is one Body. Let God's people do likewise now. Let the needs, the joys and sorrows, of one assembly be known and felt by all. Let there be interchange of loving greetings, of visits. Let them share their joys, and double them; their sorrows, and halve them. Let us make the precious truth of the one Body of Christ so real and practical that none dare say it is but a theory. "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another."*

I need not go through these verses in detail. The gist of them is that all the various members have their duty and relation one to another, and they are all helpful to each other. All the members need to "have the same care one for another." We are put together in a spiritual association by the power of God and the action of the Spirit of God; and being there, we have a responsibility, not only to the Lord, our Head, but we have also a responsibility to one another. We have by love to serve one another. We have to help one another in the things of the Lord. We have to contribute to one another's spiritual joy and peace. Where anything can be done to advance another's knowledge of scripture and of the Lord Jesus Christ, it is our business to do what we can in that respect.

When, then, we speak of Christ our Head, it is not an individual relationship that is signified, but a relationship which we share in common with every believer who has received the Holy Ghost. As, therefore, we are in common united to Christ, we also are united to one another, members of His body, and consequently members one of another. What an overwhelming thought, as we tread this scene — and yet what solace, what strength it imparts, that we are livingly associated with Christ at the right hand of God; and that also we are livingly associated with all our fellow-believers! And this twofold thought covers the whole ground of our responsibilities as members of the body of Christ — our responsibility to Christ as Head; and our responsibility to one another, to all believers, as being with us members of that body. We. may profitably consider both the one and the other.

Nor is it merely that Christ feels with the members, but that the members are nourished by Christ. Thus the Colossians are warned against the seductions of those who are "not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increases with the increase of God" (Col. 2:19). The teaching of this passage will come before us presently. I would only just notice, in passing, the variety of forms in which the same figure is used, and the variety of purposes to which it is applied. It is again employed in exhortation: "Let the peace of Christ [not God] rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body" (Col. 3:15). Why are the Colossian saints here reminded of this truth? To give point to the preceding exhortations, in which they are entreated to put on "bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering," to forgive like Christ Himself, to show "love, which is the bond of perfectness," and to "let the peace of Christ rule" in their hearts. In like manner the Ephesian believers are exhorted to put away lying, and "speak every man truth with his neighbour, for we are members one of another" (Eph. 4:25). This oneness of the body was no theoretical creed, received as a doctrine, but rejected as a fact; no visionary abstraction, to be realised in heaven, but unsuited for earth. It was a practical thing, for the maintenance and display of which believers were made responsible down here, a living truth to be recognised and acted upon in daily life. The Christian's conduct is to be conformed to his relationships. Why, then, is he to show kindness, forbearance, and love, to his fellow believer? Why is he not to lie to him, but to speak the truth? Because they are called into one body. So real was the oneness in and with Christ to the hearts of the early disciples!

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.

No member of the human body suffers in isolation; the suffering of any one member affects the whole body, and every individual member of it. Thus it is where the truth of the one body in Christ is known and entered into; any trial or sorrow sustained by a saint of God is felt by every other member of the assembly. We suffer with them because they are bound up with us in a divine unity that binds us more closely in life and affection than any other bond of fellowship known in this world. The ties that bind men together in fellowship here are bonds that death snaps, and links that pertain to their natural pursuits and temporary welfare; but in the one body saints of God are bound together by the Holy Spirit in a unity of divine life that death cannot touch, where the interests of God hold us, and where we are occupied with each other regarding eternal things. Is it then any wonder, where these things are truly entered into, that we feel so intimately the sorrows and sufferings of our fellow-members? In the same way we enter into the joys of our brethren. The relationship is so close and so real that we can confide in saints in a way that we cannot with the most closely related in nature; and this because we know and feel the divine character of the ties that bind us together.

It would be for the profit of all, if we often questioned ourselves as to whether we are really owning our duty in this particular, whether practically we confess to the responsibility of having "the same care" for all the members of the body whom we know. A very manifest tendency with many of us is to form our own circles within the Church of God, and sometimes, it is to be feared, circles of friendship rather than of spiritual fellowship. It is not forgotten that of necessity those who are closest to Christ will be themselves drawn closer together, and those who are farther from Christ will also be mutually attracted. This is true; but the responsibility here enjoined is based upon common membership of the body, so that I owe care to my fellow-members simply because they are of the body. Family relationships might teach us this lesson. The parents care for their children because they are their children, and not at all on the ground of their answering to their own mind. So we must have the same care one for another on the ground of common membership of the body. Hence, too, our responsibility goes out far beyond those who are gathered on the ground of the body. There will be certainly more frequent opportunities for the exhibition of the care towards those who are associated together, but the debt is owing to all, wherever they may be found; for we must not forget to claim them as Christ's members, even if they do not recognise us as such. Indeed, we must express the heart of Christ, and in the same circle; and His affections embrace all who are His.

What a blessed unity, one with the Head above and one with every member here below! Yes, every member, every Christian on earth! How precious the will of God: “And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it. Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.” (1 Cor. 12:26-27.)

I Corinthians 12 teaches us the marvelous unity that exists among all the various and diverse members of the Body of Christ. "For even as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of the body, being many, are one body, so also (is) the Christ" (i. e. Christ and the Church) (v. 12, New Trans.). "But now are they many members, yet but one body. And 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 . . . God hath tempered the body together ... that the members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it., or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular" (Verse 20, 21, 24-27).

Secondly, we are taught that being members of the body of Christ, we are also members one of another; and it is essential for us to apprehend this truth, if we would understand the character of our relationships with all the children of God. The same bond, then, that unites us to Christ, unites us also to all believers; for the same Spirit that unites us to Christ has united us also one to another. This is what is meant by "the unity of the Spirit" (Eph. 4:3); i.e., the unity of all the members of Christ which has been formed on the earth by the Spirit of God.