Fellowship in Faith
Via “The Glorious Blessing of Brotherly Fellowship in Faith,” Thesis I
All Christians are in inner, invisible fellowship with one another, because through the working of the Holy Spirit they altogether believe on Christ as their Savior and through this faith are bound together with Christ as the only Head of the church and with one another into one spiritual body. Also those Christians who are in heterodox churches are in this fellowship (unitas ecclesiae interna sive fidei in Christum, the internal unity of the church or by faith in Christ). The first thesis points to the basis or necessary presupposition of the external fellowship of faith. This is the inner, invisible fellowship which all Christians share with each other through faith in Christ. Because all of them believe in Christ as their Savior and are children of God and heirs of eternal life and members of the one body of Christ, therefore they can and should practice fellowship in faith with one another here in the world. Of course, at all times there have been people who have participated externally in the fellowship of faith without being in the inner, invisible fellowship of the church. But that is then only external pretense, conscious hypocrisy, or self-deception. From that has arisen a repulsive caricature of true fellowship in faith. External fellowship in faith always has an inner presupposition, a presupposition in the heart: that is faith, faith in Christ, fellowship in the gospel. Those whom God has called to the fellowship of his Son can also practice fellowship in faith with each other. Those who want to practice this Christian fellowship in faith properly with each other must be “in Christ.” Otherwise the fellowship in faith becomes hypocrisy and a Judas kind of friendship. The apostle admo-nishes those who are one body and one spirit “to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (Eph 4:3). All Christians are in this inner, invisible fellowship, in spite of their great external differences. As far as their natural life in this world is concerned, there are great differences among Christians. Christians are different in their sex and age, in their earthly property and education. Among them there are male and female, old and young, poor and rich, educated and uneducated. They are different in race: there are white, black, yellow, and copper-colored Christians. They dwell in various places: they live in the wilderness and on the sea, in the forests and on the prairies, in the cities and in the country. They are separated by oceans and high moun-tains. They live in completely different civic situations: they live in republics and monarchies; they are princes and subjects, employers and employees; they are Democrats and Republicans. But there is a powerful, wondrous unity among them in the midst of all external differences: they have one faith. And what kind of faith is that? It is not the faith according to which one is convinced that there is a god. The heathen also have this faith. It is also not the faith of the old and new rationalists and Unitarians, who certainly still speak of Christ but deny Christ’s deity and vica-rious atonement and therefore see the essence of Christianity as morality. It is also not the faith of the Roman Catholics, who confess Christ as God and Man, but want to be saved not only through faith in God’s grace in Christ, but also through the so-called infused grace, that is, through their own works. It is also not the faith of the Arminian sects and of synergistic Lutherans, who certainly confess Christ’s deity, his divine-human work, and partially also faith in Christ as the only means for obtaining salvation, but in addition want to make out of faith itself a partially human work, and make the works of the law, good behavior, and lesser guilt into the basis of sal-vation. It is also not intellectual faith of those who are externally in the orthodox church and can speak correctly about faith, but their heart does not grasp or embrace Christ as the Savior of sinners (fides acquisita). No, the faith which forms the inner, invisible unity of the Christian church is faith in Christ worked by the Spirit; it is the faith which has Christ alone in his vicarious atonement as the object for obtaining righteousness and salvation; it is the faith which grasps the Christ outside of us in the promise of the gospel; it is the faith which trusts only on God’s mercy in Christ. In other words, it is faith in the Christian doctrine of justification which the apostle describes with the words, “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law” (Ro 3:28). Only this faith, which is produced in hearts by the Holy Spirit without human cooperation, makes a person into a member of the Christian church, as Scripture says, “Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord (pisteu/ontev tw|= kuri/w|) and were added to their number” (Ac 5:14), namely, to the congregation or church. This faith is the great equalizer in the Christian church. Through this faith all are justified before God, as it is written, “We … know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ” (Gal 2:15,16). Through this faith all are equally children of God: “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:26). Through this faith all have received the Spirit: “Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard?” (Gal 3:2). Through this faith all have peace with God and the hope of eternal life: “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,… and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God” (Ro 5:1,2). Through this faith all differences of gender, age, position, nationality, and education are abolished before God. The Holy Spirit did not become tired, as it were, of enjoining this is Holy Scripture again and again. After the apostle Paul told the Christians “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:26), he continued, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28). A still fuller enumeration of the members of the church is given by the apostle, “Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian (ba/rbarov), Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all” (Col 3:11). Through faith in the gospel those who are heathen according to their descent become “Abraham’s seed,” “children of Abraham”: “Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham” (Gal 3:7), and “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed” (Gal. 3:29). The prophecies of the Old Testament speak of a great assembly of peoples on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, e.g., Isaiah 2:2f; 60:3f and often. Through faith in the gospel the peoples, without changing their location, have come to Mount Zion; the Old Testament prophecies about the assembly of the peoples are made explicit, “You have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God” (Heb 12:22)… All Christendom on earth has just one mind. All Christians in the whole world really have one mind in spite of their different view-points in earthly things. Insofar as they are Christians, they have exactly the same thoughts about themselves and about God. They regard themselves as damnable sinners before God; they regard God as being gracious to them for Christ’s sake. The heavenly flame of love glows in all their hearts, for faith is active or works through love (Gal 5:6). Connected with the invisible unity of faith, of thoughts, and of mind is, as Luther expresses it, also the invisible unity of being. Through faith they are all one body, namely the spiritual body whose head is Christ. The apostle says, “We, who are many, are one body” (1 Co 10:17), and “You are the body of Christ” (1 Co 12:27), and “He [Christ] is the head of the body, the church” (Col 1:18). That is the wonderful, inner, invisible fellowship of the Christian church. Luther writes:
Christendom means an assembly of all the people on earth who believe in Christ, as we pray in the Creed, “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the communion of saints.” This community or assembly means all those who live in true faith, hope, and love. Thus the essence, life, and nature of Christendom is not a physical assembly, but an assembly of hearts in one faith, as St. Paul says in Ephesians 4:5, “One baptism, one faith, one Lord.” Accordingly, regardless of whether a thousand miles separates them physically, they are still called one assembly in spirit, as long as each one preaches, believes, hopes, loves, and lives like the other. So we sing about the Holy Spirit, “You have brought many tongues together into the unity of faith.” This is what spiritual unity really means, on the basis of which men are called a “communion of saints.” This unity alone is sufficient to create Christendom, and without it, no unity—be it that of city, time, per-sons, work, or whatever else it may be—can create Christendom.”