Why is church membership important?

Coupled with the apostles' doctrine is fellowship. Fellowship is a beautiful word, and one of peculiar significance to the church of God. Briefly it just means that everyone who is in the church of God has a common interest and a common title founded upon the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Hence those who are in the church of God are irresistibly drawn together; and the Holy Spirit works in them all for the spiritual well-being of the community as a whole.

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.

The assembly enjoys communion with God, is fed, and grows by means of that with which its different members supply it. It preserves, and, in its confession, bears witness to the truth. It maintains holiness, and, by the grace and presence of the Holy Ghost, enjoys mutual communion; and, in love, cares for the temporal need of all its members.

Where there is a healthy spiritual state in the saints — where the flock of Christ is fed, and whore they can retire from the chilling influences of this world, and be in the enjoyment of heavenly things, there the graces, feelings, and tastes of the Lord Jesus are in activity, and there is mutual support and a godly character amongst the saints. No Christian can stand alone, the opposition is too strong, the devil's system is all around, and the workings of the flesh easily carry one away, hence the great importance of meeting together.

God shows then in His word, that the church is the union of believers — one with Christ, by the Holy Ghost, after He died and rose and went to heaven. The consequence is, that we must consult what God enjoins on the members of that body, if we would know how we are to walk and worship; how we are to act and feel towards the other members of Christ; and how to behave in "the house of God."

Only those who have believed the Gospel of our salvation regarding the atoning work of Christ, and His resurrection, have the blessings of Christianity, and only they are entitled to the privileges of the fellowship of God's Son. We are living in a day when there is a great profession of Christianity, when many who know not the Lord partake of His Supper, but they have no title to this privilege if they are not sheltering beneath the blood of the true Paschal Lamb. In the assembly of God we partake of the precious privileges that belong to the body of Christ. There we worship by the Spirit of God; there we sing our praises to the Father and the Son; there we pray in divine liberty, and there we have the ministry provided by God for the comfort, edification and encouragement of His people. In the assembly the members of the one body function under the control of the Spirit of God, and under the direction of the Lord, for the pleasure and glory of God, and for the joy and delight of His saints.

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.

Secondly — and arising out of our mutual needs — there should be mutual care. The apostle says, "And those members of the body, which we think to be less honourable, upon these we bestow more abundant honour; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness. For our comely parts have no need: but God has tempered the body together, having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked: that there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another" (Vers. 23-25). Here it is plainly seen that our responsibility flows from what God has done. He has tempered the body together, adjusting it in all its parts for mutual help and blessing, and we are to act in the line of His purpose to preserve that which He has made, thereby having His own mind, and fellowship with His own thoughts and aims. He teaches us our duty from our own bodies, which are also the work of His hands. We all lavish our greatest care upon our weakest members, and all the resources of the other members are brought to their aid. The care of the weakest is the concern of all; and so it should be in the Church of God. Is there no danger of forgetting this truth? — of our caring chiefly for prominent members of the body — splendid gifts — to the neglect of those members of the body which we think to be less honourable? It is, indeed, by no means infrequently the case that the assemblies that have the most distinguished gifts are spiritually the weakest. For their danger is of losing their sense of dependence on the Head, and also upon one another, and of looking too much to the gift or gifts which command their admiration. Gifts may thus easily become a snare to the Lord's people, and always do become so, when they possess undue prominency, obscuring the principles of God's assembly, or when in any measure they come between the assembly and the Lord. But if we have learned the truth already insisted on, that those members of the body which seem to be more feeble are necessary, we shall then escape the danger, and own our responsibility of exercising the same care one for another.

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.

We have, lastly, mutual sympathies. "And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it: or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it" (ver. 26). Suffering with one another has two aspects. We do this in one way necessarily — just as, for example, our whole body suffers with the suffering of the least of its members. So in the body of Christ, if one member be suffering spiritually from lukewarmness, backsliding, or through falling into temptation, all the members, though it may be unconsciously, will be affected. The state of the whole is the state of its individual members. Take, for instance, a bason of hot water, and if you add but two drops of cold, the temperature of the whole will be lowered. It is so also in the Church. Let there be but one who is cold at heart in the assembly, and its tone will be affected — all will suffer with the suffering member.

And you little know, beloved friends, what you lose by practically ignoring the unity of the body of Christ. The apostle writes: "Whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it." Suppose now a "member of another church" in the same town fall into sin, what do you know of suffering with him? You will, no doubt, be affected by his sin if you hear of it; for if he is a member of Christ, the whole body must suffer loss; but what do you know of entering intelligently into his condition before the Lord, and seeking his restoration? Nothing; for, in fact, you may not have heard of his declension and fall; or if you have, you will not make prayer for him in your meetings, for he belongs to another "church." On the other hand, when you are gathered as members of the body, the sin of one is felt to be the sin of all. Thus I have seen a whole assembly, in this neighbourhood, on their faces before the Lord on account of the sin of a believer in a distant part of London; and it would be impossible to describe the blessedness of this practical realisation of suffering with another member of the body of Christ. The unity of the body of Christ is thus a real thing, and apprehended in the power of the Spirit.

It is impossible that any member of the body can walk healthfully alone. When any choose to do so, it is because there is something wrong in the state of their souls; for we are members one of another, and can no more do without each other's service, than one member of the human body can dispense with the assistance of the others. Those who have cultivated this fellowship have proved its blessedness. Nothing, surely, can more completely deny the ground of the church of God, than the habit of going on in the various details of life, outside the public gathering together of the saints, independently of the other members of the body. Such a state of things is to be deplored, not only as dishonouring to the Lord, but as damaging to souls. It is, however, to be feared, that many, who have sat at the Lord's table for a course of years, have known but little, or nothing, of this practical fellowship in the Spirit. Such things ought not to be. When saints of old were in primitive freshness and fervour, when "great grace was upon them all," we know how lovingly the fellowship extended itself, even to the things of this life. We read, They were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness. And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and one soul; neither said any of them that the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common … neither was there any among them that lacked … and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need." (Acts 4:31-37.)