What does it look like to have fellowship with one another (1 John 1:7)?

But what is this walk in the light? It is not the same thing as walking according to the light. It does not mean to live a perfect and sinless life. Walking in the light is not the question of how we wait but where we walk, and the place where the believer walks is the light. It means to walk daily in His presence, with our will and conscience in the light and presence of God, judging everything that does not answer to that light. Whatever is not right is brought at once in His presence, exposed to the light, confessed, judged and put away. Such is the walk in the light which fellowship with God demands. The result of such a walk in the light is mutual fellowship among believers, because each has the same nature of God and the same Spirit, the same Christ as the object before the heart and the same Father. It cannot be otherwise. Then there is another thing stated, "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin." Walking in the light shows us what we are and we cannot say that we have no sin. But we have no consciousness of sin resting upon us before a holy God, though we know that sin is in us, but we have the assurance of being cleansed from it by His precious blood. Such is the blessed position of a true Christian. Fellowship with the Father and with His Son, walking in the light as He is in the light, fellowship one with another and the cleansing power of the blood.

We have in verse 7 the three parts of our Christian condition, looked at as men walking down here. First, we walk in the light as God is in the light, everything judged according to Him with whom we have fellowship. Next, what the world does not know anything of, "we have fellowship one with another." That is, I have the same divine nature with every Christian - the same Holy Ghost dwells in me; so that there must be fellowship. I meet a perfect stranger travelling, and there may be more communion with him than with one whom I have known all my life, just because the divine life is there. It is a natural thing to the new creature: there is fellowship. But, besides these, I am cleansed - "The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin." We are in the light as God is in the light; we have fellowship together; and we are cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ.

Next we have, on the contrary, the other and blessed side in verse 7. The apostle states the real place of the Christian, and puts it in a striking point of view. As there are three different ways in which professing Christians may belie Christianity (for this is just what he is showing in these latter verses, and what has come out now near the harvest of what was then only being sown by the enemy), here we find three great and essential marks of the true Christian. First of all is walking in the light — "But if we walk in the light." We may illustrate the truth by the figure here employed. Consider one in an entirely dark room, how he flounders about, fails in what he seeks, and injures himself and the things he knocks against. Let a full light enter, the perplexity ceases, and he walks with ease, comfort and certainty. So it is with the spiritual light which shines on the Christian's walk, and there in Christ it shines. It is here a question not of "how" but "where." Every real Christian by grace walks in the light. It is therefore of high moment that all such should be aware (far as it is from the mind of many) that they do so. It is a great universal Christian privilege. It is not a mere sentiment or idea, but a conferred reality; and also a practical reality that God would have appropriated and enjoyed by every Christian. There may be, and there is, falling short in detail as already said; and we are responsible to feel our failures, and to acknowledge them all the more because we walk in the light.

"But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light" (meaning as God is in the light), "we have fellowship one with another." There is the second distinctive mark. Not merely do we walk in the light, but because of this very thing, we have fellowship with one another in the Christian circle. When we meet with a child of light, if we only heard on the street a few words from a man or a woman which revealed the fact that God had shone into that soul, and that it was no mere dream or theory but one walking in the light as a real Christian, our hearts are at once attracted. We are drawn together more by far than to our own brothers or sisters who do not walk in the light. For many know this sorrow too well. The nearest to them may hate the light, and Him who is it, instead of walking there by grace.

Firstly, we have fellowship one with another. In the every-day life here we have separate and selfish interests, but “in the light” of the full revelation of God we have common joys and interests. We come into a fellowship in the knowledge of divine Persons marked by life and light and love. This fellowship remains true for us in spite of all the failure of the Church in responsibility. Time cannot touch it and death will not take it from us. The day of Pentecost gave a bright illustration of this fellowship. Jerusalem was in darkness, but on that day three thousand souls came into the light of God revealed in Christ. They spake different tongues and came from “every nation under heaven”, but at once they found themselves in a common fellowship, for we read that they “continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship.”

As walking in the light of the knowledge of God, we have fellowship with one another. All true believers have communion with each other in the precious communications given to them by the Son. They are bound together with living, indissoluble ties: they possess the nature of God and the life communicated by the Son; therefore the things belonging to the Father and the Son, the things pertaining to the life that is theirs as children of God, naturally engage them when they meet together. This must be distinguished from ecclesiastical fellowship, from what belongs to the testimony of the church. Church fellowship has broken down, and is in ruins today; but here is an aspect of fellowship that abides amidst the ruins of the church. So that when we meet true believers, wherever they may find their church fellowship, we instinctively become engaged with the things of Christ, with the realities of the divine revelation presented to us in Jesus.

Is not this marvellous? I challenge you to produce a more important subject in the Christian life than that of our fellowship with God. Fellowship with one another, apart from fellowship with the Father and the Son, would be but a poor human affair, doomed to disappointment and failure spiritually. But fellowship first of all with the Father and the Son makes fellowship with one another easy and spontaneous, pleasant and joyous.

What is meant by fellowship? Two persons or more in fellowship have common thoughts, common feelings, common purposes, common desires. Briefly, those in fellowship are "at one" in all concerning them that matters. Now think of our fellowship with God from this standpoint. I, a poor worm, a creature of the dust, a mote in life's sunbeam, I am by grace enabled to have common thoughts, feelings, and objects with the Father and the Son. Is not this incredible, apart from Scripture?

“ With the Father .” This life on earth was the object of the Father's perfect complacency. “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” There were none then to share the Father's joy, because Christ must be in all, before He can be all. We must have the life before we can understand or appreciate it. Now, however, we have fellowship with the Father in His pleasure in Christ. Again, “ with the Son ,” His Father was ever His object. We too have now an object out­side ourselves. His will is ever our delight. In this we have fellowship with the Son. “ With one another ,” in our life, our hopes, our aspirations, our objects, our worship. Now, if God has given us no less an object than that which fills His heart, it is evident it must overflow ours. Therefore, if occupied with Christ, our hearts must overflow, and the overflowing of the heart is called praise.

Is it your practice and mine to sit down quietly in the peace of God's presence? Do you esteem such fellowship more than other experience? To be rapt with wonder and worship in the presence of the Father and the Son — this is communion. And this unique privilege belongs to those who walk in the light, as God is in the light. Moreover, in the exercise of this fellowship with Him, we have "fellowship with one another."

"If we walk in the light, as he is the light, we have fellowship one with another" (1 John 1:7). Fellowship and companionship with other Christians are also vital for feeding and developing the divine life. The new nature desires fellowship and companionship with God and with fellow believers Association with fel low Christians draws out the new nature and strengthens the divine desires. "Two are better than one . . . for if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow" (Eccl. 4:9-10). If one is weak in the faith and liable to fall, companion ship with stronger Christians will lift him up and strengthen him. "Iron sharpeneth iron; so man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend" (Prov. 27:17). This is especially true in Christian companionship.

We are told in Hebrews 10:24-25 to "Consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together." By associating with other Christians we stir up each other unto love and good works and in attending Christian meetings our souls are fed together and built up in the faith. When two or three gather together unto the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, He is there in their midst (Matt 18:20), and special blessings are obtained thereby which strengthen and develop the new nature. Therefore fellowship in the light with other Christians is vital for the Christian life.

At the beginning, those who believed continued in the Apostles' fellowship; and for us this is in relation to the full knowledge and revelation of God in Jesus. It is true that the Apostles had a special place in fellowship with the Father and the Son, as sent by the Son to make the truth known, but we also have our part in praising the Son before the Father, and in speaking to the Son about the Father. But, at all times, wherever we meet a true believer, we can speak together of what has been made known to us in the Person of the Son. In this divine fellowship the Apostle desires that our joy may be full. What can bring joy to our hearts like speaking together of all that we have found in Jesus.