Entering Into the Vertical and the Horizontal Aspects of the Fellowship of Life

These coming few weeks we are getting into a very solid topic in our morning watch, The Experience, Growth, and Ministry of Life for the Body. We are the disciples of the Lord Jesus, which means we are continually learning. We need to experience life, grow in life, and minister life for the Body of Christ to be built up.

Specifically, this week we are in a topic called, Living in the Fellowship of the Divine Life. We need to continue learning, enjoying, and experiencing. We need to be poor in spirit so that God would give us Christ as the kingdom of God. We want to learn Christ continually!

We don’t account of ourselves to have laid hold of – but this one thing we do: we forget the things which are behind, and we stretch forward to pursue the Christ which is before. We want to forget the bad and the good things behind, having no hindrance in our fresh and new experience of Christ (Phil. 3:13)!

Now, today, right now is the well acceptable time for us to be fully reconciled to God (2 Cor. 6:2)! Now we need to be in the fellowship of the divine life, having no distance or separation between us and God!

May the Lord really open our eyes this whole week (and for the rest of our life) that we may see what it means to live in the fellowship of the divine life.

What is the Fellowship of the Divine Life?

For us to live in the fellowship of the divine life we first need to know what this fellowship is. John speaks of it in 1 John 1:2-3 and 6-7, and it is a joint participation, a common participation in the divine life.

The apostles have received the divine life from God through Jesus Christ in their spirit at the time of their regeneration, and they were faithful to report to us what they have seen of heard of the divine life.

As we hear the gospel and we believe into the Lord, we also receive the divine life and enter into the fellowship of the divine life! This fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ, and it is also with all the believers (1 John 1:3, 6-7).

The divine fellowship is the fellowship of the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 13:14), the fellowship of the apostles (Acts 2:42), and the fellowship of spirit (Phil. 2:1). The fellowship of the divine life involves the Triune God, the apostles, and all the believers in Christ.

It is a mutual fellowship, it is in spirit, and it is typified by the flowing of the river of water of life from the throne of God and of the Lamb in Rev. 22:1.

The Father as the light is in the Son as the lamp (and the Lamb) on the throne, and the Spirit flows out as a river of water of life to reach out to all the believers in Christ, bringing them all into the one unique divine fellowship in spirit.

Fellowship Keeps us in Oneness

There are two illustrations that help us understand at least in part what the fellowship of the divine life is: the flow of electricity and the flow of blood in our human body.

Electricity is like fellowship: mysterious, yet very real. You can see the manifestation and the effects of electricity, but you can’t see electricity itself. Electricity is manifested in the light bulbs, the electrical appliances, and anything that’s connected to it.

Just as appliances are living “an electrical life” when they are connected to electricity, so we live a life of “the divine fellowship” when we remain in the fellowship of the divine life, the flowing of the Triune God. Just as the electrical appliances and light bulbs, etc, are one in the electricity, so we are one in the divine fellowship flowing in and out of us.

By the flow of the eternal life, the fellowship of the divine life, all the believers are kept in oneness.

The blood in our human body is also a good illustration: it keeps the whole body in oneness and takes care of each and every member of the body through it’s continual flow. The “blood in the Body of Christ” is the Spirit (Eph. 4:4), and the circulation of the blood in the Body of Christ is the fellowship of the divine life.

Without the fellowship of life there’s no reality of the Body, just as without the flow of blood in the human body we have a corpse. The Body of Christ cannot exist without the divine fellowship flowing all the time, and even we personally cannot have a proper Christian life without this fellowship.

But when we are in the fellowship of the divine life, when God in Christ as the Spirit flows in and out of us, we are kept in oneness with all the other members in the Body of Christ.

The Vertical and Horizontal Aspects of Fellowship

The divine life was manifested, and the apostles have seen (vertical fellowship) and testified and reported to us the eternal life (horizontal fellowship), which life was with the Father and was manifested to us.

God is life, and when we receive God as life into us through other members of the Body we are brought into the fellowship of the divine life. This fellowship has two aspects: the vertical aspect (we have fellowship with God) and the horizontal aspect (we have fellowship with one another).

If we walk in the light as God is in the light – having a good vertical fellowship with God – we have fellowship with one another – horizontal fellowship with the believers.

After we have initially received the divine life, we need to continue to remain in this fellowship of the divine life by contacting the Lord and dealing with anything that would hinder our relationship with Him.

If we have a proper fellowship with the Lord, we will have a good fellowship with our fellow believers. But if we don’t have a proper fellowship with the Lord, we cannot have a proper fellowship with our fellow believers. In the same way, it is difficult to have fellowship with the Lord if we don’t have a proper fellowship with the other believers.

There’s a relationship between the vertical and the horizontal aspects of the divine fellowship. We need to take care of our vertical fellowship with the Lord so that we would have a good horizontal fellowship with all the saints.

Lord, thank You for bringing us into the divine fellowship! Thank You for flowing into us right now. We open to You, dear Lord, that You may have a way to continually flow in us. Keep us in the divine fellowship, the flow of the divine life. We want to have a proper fellowship with God and with our fellow believers. Lord, may we walk in the light, as You are in the light, that we may have a proper fellowship with one another.

References and Further Reading

• This sharing is inspired from brother Ed Marks’ sharing in this message and portions in, The Triune God to Be Life to the Tripartite Man (ch. 17), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, ITERO spring 2013 “The Experience, Growth, and Ministry of Life for the Body“, week 1 entitled, Living in the Fellowship of the Divine Life.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Christ has come to be life, the processed divine Trinity. / God the Father’s the source, a fountain emerging to be. / God the Son as a gushing up spring, / And the Spirit’s a river for life imparting / Oh how can this miracle be? The Triune God flowing in me!
  # The flowing of life divine, / In spirit so sweetly flows— / The overflowing life divine, / Nourishing my spirit so— / Bringing the Triune God’s fullness, / In spirit operates and moves, / Bringing me all of His supply— / Life as my supply.
  # O God, Thou art the source of life, / Divine, and rich and free! / As living water flowing out / Unto eternity!