Unchanging Principles of the Fellowship
Ministry by E. J. Hemmings
Part Two

G.A.R.

In the chapter we have read from in Acts, we find the first gospel preaching produced a large number of persons whose hearts were affected by the word and who took on the truth immediately;

• each of them answered separately to the truth and they were found together with one heart and with one soul, as the scripture says.

• So I would refer to this inauguration of Christianity as the one and only position which is according to the truth involving remission of sins, and the gift of the Spirit, and the teaching of the apostles.

• The word ‘position’ has been used a great deal in recent months and years and great importance attached to it, although the word itself is not in scripture.
  • Hence the need of not being governed by any words of man but by the words of scripture.

• In Corinthians the apostle refers to our being called into the one and only fellowship which is true Christian fellowship.

• Certain conditions are necessary in regard to the maintenance of it practically but there cannot be two fellowships as has often been said. You cannot have a fellowship within a fellowship and call them both Christian fellowships.

• Then a good deal of misunderstanding exists in the minds of many in regard to the Lord’s table; such expressions as ‘keeping a person away from the Lord’s table’, or ‘setting up another table’, neither of which is possible.

R.H. Mr. Raven said he knew no position save that which involved the work of God in its entirety.

E.J.H. Exactly. If we use the word, we want to understand what scripture means in regard of such an expression and, as I understand it,

• the position can only be what is established on the basis of the truth which is unchangeable. That is the only position.

• If man adds to the truth or takes away from it he creates another position which is not the original one.

• Hence the need of being governed by scripture at the present time when it is so often misquoted and misused.

R.H. When asked what he was attached to, Mr. Raven said “The church of God”. Would you go with that?

E.J.H. Surely. There is only one church. There is only one assembly and there is only one truth, only one fellowship, and only one table.

• If certain persons claim that they have a special fellowship, or are in a special position, or have a special table they are really denying the scripture.

What I think we need to observe in the first passage, is the effect that the word had upon the hearts of the hearers.

• Peter could have said at the beginning of his address that these persons needed to repent and be baptised;

• but he presented the work and the Person of the Lord so attractively and with such power that persons were deeply affected in their hearts by the word and wanted to answer to it and to answer to it quickly.

• They ask “What shall we do, brethren?” Peter was only too ready to tell them, and we see that each one had to be baptised, each one would be forgiven and each one would receive the Spirit.

• So you get the establishment of a company that is of one heart and one soul, bowing to one truth and there is no reason why that should not continue to the end.

• I am sure it will, in some persons; whether we shall be one of those persons, of course, is our own individual matter.

E.L.G.C. Should the matter of repentance engage us as having been connected with something that has not represented God according to the truth?

• Do we need to be repentant in regard to the breakdown that has come in and our part in it? Would that help us to be with God over matters?

E.J.H. Yes, as we often say, repentance is taking sides with God against yourself, so that you have the mind of God about the matter.

• Therefore, if we have been connected with something that is not in accord with the mind of God we would repent of it; we would acknowledge the wrong, which involves repentance.

• Baptism would signify that they were to be publicly separated from all that they had been linked with hitherto.

• It has been said that there are only two blessings in Christianity; one is forgiveness of sins and the other is the gift of the Spirit.

• In the gift of the Spirit we have the unfolding, as we are subject to the Spirit, of every Christian blessing. Apart from Him we should neither understand what the blessing is nor enjoy it nor be led into it.

• Has it not been well said this book might have been called “The Acts of the Holy Spirit”? They were the acts of the apostles but energised and directed by the Spirit.

E.L.G.C. So at the present time is there a great need for making room for the promptings and the teachings of the Spirit, who would bring to us the preciousness of the Lord Jesus?

• He is that “other Comforter” so needed at the present time in a world full of sorrow and breakdown amongst God’s people. Do we need to take advantage of His service?

E.J.H. Well the Lord comforted His disciples as He was about to leave them with the promise of “another Comforter”.

• He would be in glory but He would leave them in charge of One just like Himself.

• We may say another Divine Person was to take charge of them on the earth when the Lord had ceased to be with them,
  • and He would continue the service, acting as the Lord had acted and serving them as He had served them, so that they should be comforted and guided and strengthened.

R.D.C. So is it a blessed thing to see, that as a result of His having come and being here, there is an administration of divine blessing that has never failed throughout the dispensation?

E.J.H. Well, that is clear as to the gift of the Holy Spirit; Peter does not go beyond that in the sense that there is nothing more.

• The unfolding of the blessings and the enjoyment of them will come as we are subject to the Spirit.

• He is the One who is in charge, in that sense, of the dispensing of the blessings. It is He who makes them real and living and precious to us.

• Apart from His service all these blessings would be words only, and doctrine, but not reality and substance.

R.H.C. And taking into account His holy, sensitive character, would we be careful and watchful as to any move we might take, particularly at a time of breakdown and difficulty such as the present?

E.J.H. His own service is perfect, but it is rendered in reality to sensitive spirits. If we are unimpressionable and self-willed we do not get the the benefit of His service.

• So the scripture speaks of grieving the Spirit and quenching Him. Grieving the Spirit would be a personal matter; quenching the Spirit would be more in relation to His service publicly.

H.B. Would the Spirit then direct the mind and the heart?

E.J.H. Yes, indeed, and He is the One – I think we need to lay hold of this great truth – He is the One who makes good to us in a living way, what is seen as teaching and doctrine.

• Mr. Darby once said that there was no record in the Gospels that the disciples ever understood one spiritual thought that the Lord had communicated to them.

• They heard the words, but they did not understand the spiritual significance of them, because they had not the Spirit;

• which means that we as sitting down in this room today, are in a better position than the apostles were in the Lord’s lifetime. I wonder whether we believe it!

H.B. Their service was more or less directed by their eyes, was it not? They had the Lord with them, they could see Him and as far as their heart and mind were concerned, they were directed by what the Lord taught at the time.

E.J.H. Yes, and you see one example of it at the end of Luke. The Lord said – Luke 22: 35 – “When I sent you without purse or scrip or sandals did ye lack anything? And they said ‘Nothing’ ”.

• The Lord then says “… he that has not let him sell his garment and buy a sword”. The disciples said, “Here are two swords”, and Peter uses one of them and cuts off a man’s ear. The Lord says “It is enough”.

• He evidently was referring to the need of making personal sacrifices in order to have power in testimony – “the sword of the Spirit which is God’s word” – but the disciples took it literally and Peter cut off a man’s ear, which was completely foreign to the Lord’s thought.

• One just quotes that because it is a very striking example, that when the Lord speaks about a sword in a dispensation of grace, it is immediately used. One wonders why Peter had a sword. A sword is not the weapon of a fisherman and it is not the weapon of a shepherd.

N.W.W. Are you reminding us that the basis of all that we hope to speak about or that we hope to learn is, as you said, each one having to do with God in the gospel, and each one being the subject of the Spirit’s operations?

• It is from that basis that things are worked out, not from what many of us may have absorbed in a mental way from our youth, we might say.

• We might seek to work things out with that as a base, but the base is the work of God in the soul and what He is doing and what the Spirit is directing in, is it not?

E.J.H. That is it exactly and there is no change in that. It is important to see that neither the truth nor the fellowship nor the Lord’s table changes.

• We change and we attach thoughts to these truths which are not in accord with the Word; therefore we change the position, we change the fellowship and we change the table.

• But there is no change in them. We must get back to what the scripture says and be governed by that; so,

• as you say, it is the Spirit who makes it real and living and present to us; so that it is not just what is recorded in the scriptures, it is what is worked out in persons in our own day and it is to be worked out in ourselves.

R.G.B. You made a remark about grieving the Spirit. Now just what would that mean?

E.J.H. If I am subject and not double-minded the Lord will direct my thoughts and communicate precious things to me.

• If any feature of the flesh is working in me, the Spirit does not take charge of my workings in flesh;

• He takes charge of the substance that there is in my soul, according to what God has wrought there. He takes charge of that and makes use of that and adds to it,
  • but I may obstruct Him by my own will – by my own selfishness or by jealousy.

R.G.B. He would still remain with us but we would grieve Him – is that right?

E.J.H. Just so. Take parents and their children. If the children are wilful and disobedient, the parents are not the same to them as if they were obedient,

• and the children very quickly sense that they have displeased their parents.

• They may continue in wilfulness but they know when they have displeased their parents, without their parents ever saying a word to them.

C.C.M. I was thinking about transparency. If we are not transparent it would show that we are not right with God.

E.J.H. Well I would say that you would begin by being honest in the sight of God, and

• if you are honest in the sight of God, you will be honest in the sight of your brethren.

• So the Lord speaks about keeping the word “in an honest and good heart”.

• Honest, I take it to be that we are not double-minded, and a good heart means that you are cleaving to what is good and refusing what is evil.

• Those are the persons who take on the ministry.

R.H.C. It is a wonderful thing to get, what we might speak of as a direct word when you are waiting for it. We have instances in scripture of that.

• Many have been waiting for an indication of how to move rightly and we know from scripture and in our own souls, that the Spirit makes it as clear as noonday if our spirits are rightly sensitive and wait sufficiently long on His direction.

E.J.H. That is a very important feature of the truth and it is a very challenging thing that ministry in itself accomplishes nothing. Ministry is effective where the state is right.

• If my state is wrong; if I am fleshly or clinging to something of man, ministry has no effect on me at all.

• Therefore after a meeting someone will say, ‘I hope Mr. so and so got help because it was as clear as noonday what the truth is’ and you find he is just the same as be was before.

• The ministry was all right but the state was wrong and that is a very challenging thing.

• So that it really is only those whose state, or shall I say sensitiveness, is right who profit from the ministry. That is why so many make no progress at all.

E.L.G.C. Are we still then, in the presence of the perverse generation that Peter speaks of and prone to it as after the flesh; and is the antidote to it subjection to the will of God and the promptings of the Spirit?

E.J.H. Yes. Baptism is the negative side. It means that you make a clean break with the past,

• and the Spirit is the positive side unfolding wealth in the new position.

• If one can speak of it in that way, it is separation from what is old and an introduction into what is new,

• and that new position, if we may use the expression, is governed by the teaching – of the apostles – the teaching of scripture.

G.B. I was thinking of what is possible in the power of the Spirit.

• We have often thought of the matter of conversion and the reception of the Spirit and baptism and the breaking of bread as things that perhaps are far apart in our lives
  • – perhaps a matter of weeks or months, or sometimes years in between.

• I was interested to notice that all this happened within a very short time. The remission of sins and the reception of the Holy Spirit and the closing verse that we read,
  • “they persevered in the teaching and fellowship of the apostles, in breaking of bread and prayers”.

• So that in the power of the Spirit the whole matter is available to us and can be accomplished in a very short time, would you say?

E.J.H. I am sure that is most encouraging and do you not think that baptism signifies a complete break with the past,

• so that having received the word gladly or receiving it in full – or with gladness and thankfulness – they were able to take on things quickly.

• I am quite sure what you say is very important. We think we have to wait a long time to consolidate a position before we move on.

• We well remember a man in his thirties coming up in the gospel and saying, ‘I’ve been converted tonight and I’d like to break bread’.
  • I think the brethren said ‘Well we do not usually do things as quickly as that; you will have to wait a little while and we will have to sort it out a bit’.

• But I would say that normally where the word is received and everything else let go, there is no reason why you should not take on the whole truth quickly.

• Of course it is a very subtle effort of the enemy to delay movement. I fear that some of our dear brethren have delayed movement and they may never move at all now.

R.G.B. I was thinking of the Lord speaking to His own – those that He loved. He says “if anyone love Me he will keep My word”. Does love enter into it?

E.J.H. Surely. “If ye love Me keep My commandments”. It is a matter of answering to love all the time, and love does not put upon a person things that cannot be responded to.

• If it is a question of the appeal of love there should be no difficulty in answering to it.

E.L.G.C. So is it a proof that we love Him? We may say quite glibly sometimes that we love the Lord, but are we keeping His word?

E.J.H. That is the only test you have of love; that is how scripture puts it. Again we need to be governed by scripture. The Lord says

• “If ye love Me keep My commandments”.

• The keeping of the commandments is a proof of love, and if we feel unable to respond to the commandments we need to look at the basis of love;
  • and as we have already suggested, if we feel that our love is weak, let us read the Gospels over and over again, especially what refers to the sufferings of Christ. If that does not stimulate our affections for Him, nothing will.

• What is important and instructive here, I think, is to see that each person had to travel the same road; each had to repent, each had to be baptised and each had to receive the Spirit.

• In that sense, although they came together as a large company, they had all had the same exercises, and that makes the strength of the position. They did not just agree to walk together.

• Each one being subject to what had been presented, found himself on new ground; but when he was on this ground he found that there were many others who had travelled the same road and were on the same ground with him.

• So as we sit together today, we would like to feel that we have travelled the same road and therefore are on the same ground, and that is true fellowship.

C.C.M. Would that take in the thought of David in the cave? They all had their exercises and some were a little slower than the others but they reached David.

E.J.H. Yes and it says “he became a captain over them”. They did not appoint him a captain and he did not appoint himself;

• but the longer they stayed with him the more they loved him; and the more they loved him the more ready they were to do what he bade them do.

• So he “longed and said” – he did not shout – he did not command and he did not order. There was a breathing of his heart –
  • “O that one would give me to drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem, which is in the gate”.

• Three men answered immediately to the longings of the heart of David, without command and without demand.

C.C.M. There is no record that these three great men slew anyone.

E.J.H. No, that is so. They broke through twice did they not? They broke through going out and they broke through coming back,

• and gave to David what he wanted and that is a beautiful example of fellowship. David asked for one and three men said in effect separately,
  • ‘If nobody else is going – I am’.

• What a joy it was for three of them to move together with the same end in view and to prove how wonderfully God could cause them to overcome in the presence of their enemies.

R.D.C. So is this moral road, which you have just referred to, the one highway by which we all individually arrive at the truth of God?

E.J.H. Quite so, and there is no change in it. It is men who have brought in so many changes; the truth does not change.

• The apostles’ teaching has never changed, and you see how necessary it is to accept the teaching – all of it – to be found in fellowship together. The acceptance of the teaching precedes the fellowship.

• One of the privileges of fellowship is to break bread, and the verse in Acts 2: 42 closes with prayer, that we might be maintained throughout our whole lives, worthy of the teaching and the fellowship.

E.L.G.C. So that the breaking of bread would answer in our day to the longings of the Lord Jesus. We are to remember Him – that He is looking for a portion from our hearts in a world where He is despised and cast out and rejected.

E.J.H. One has often thought, that when the Lord chose the way by which He should be remembered, He had the whole world to choose from.

• He might have chosen something difficult of attainment; but when the Lord chose the way by which He should be remembered, He chose the two simplest things in the universe, because if you can eat and drink, you can remember the Lord.

• We have seen a sister 102 years of age, deaf and dumb all her life, breaking bread, and I am quite sure it would be right to say that when the Lord chose the way by which He should be remembered,
  • He thought throughout all generations, of such persons: the very aged, and the paralysed, and the blind, and the dumb, and the children;

• and He brought within the range of all, the possibility of showing love to Himself.

• Now it is a question of persevering in the teaching. The idea of persevering seems to mean that there will be ups and downs, so to speak, in the working out of things,
  • and there will be all kinds of influences brought to bear upon us, and we have to be persistent, or persevering in the truth.

E.L.G.C. What would help us in that feature?

E.J.H. I am sure first love for the Lord; that would lead us to keep His commandments; and then the understanding that only by the teaching being accepted will the position be strong as we walk together.

E.L.G.C. Would the word in Hebrews, “Consider well Him who endured” bear on this matter of persevering?

• Feeding upon the way in which the Lord Jesus overcame in the difficulties of His pathway here, as a Man. Would that help us?

E.J.H. It would indeed. “He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem”. So in Hebrews 12 to which you have referred, it is “running with endurance the race that is set before us, looking steadfastly on Jesus” – the footnote says “looking away from other things and fixing the eye exclusively on one”.

E.L.G.C. Would that preserve us from the teachings and the influences of men; so prone to come in in these last days?

E.J.H. Exactly. It is fixing the eye upon One Person only and that is not on men – that is the Lord.

If we go on now to the next scripture; Paul, in Corinthians, is referring to Acts 2, I would say, in a certain way; that God is faithful, who has called us into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

• Therefore there is only one fellowship.

• We use the words “in fellowship” and so on, but we have to learn to use them in a restricted way.

• If we use the expression we need to be intelligent as to what we mean by the word, and to see what the scripture means by the use of the word.

• In this sense there will be no fellowship in heaven, because fellowship is a binding together of kindred spirits in a hostile world.

• So that Romans speaks of the gospel being concerning God’s Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. If I could put it in this simple way,
  • believing the gospel brings us into the best of heaven,

  • and coming into the fellowship brings us into the best on earth, and that is open to every believer because it has been provided for him.

• But the terms are, “His Son Jesus Christ, our Lord”, and we would like to maintain the terms, each one of us individually, so that we are able to move together.

N.W.W. From the divine side every believer is called into it is he not?

E.J.H. Quite so. He may not answer the call, or he may not be aware of the divine calling, but there it is; it has been established by God in His faithfulness.

• In other words, God knows how very difficult it is for one of His children to stand absolutely alone, and he has provided companions so that we are not alone.

• What has been so sorrowful in the present distress is that persons that have found themselves outside the former position, had such a great yearning for companionship and fellowship that
  • they linked on quickly with other persons who are not really governed by the whole of the truth.

E.L.G.C. Would you say a word then, about the faithfulness of God in this passage in Corinthians?

E.J.G. I think it means that we cannot stand alone. Who can stand alone?

• God, in His tender ways, and in His loving consideration has provided like-minded persons, as we have seen in the second of the Acts.

• They were all like-minded – they had all travelled the same road, and they were all in fellowship.

• So, in a broken state of things the truth remains the same – the fellowship is the same, the terms are the same;

• and if one individual accepts the terms, and another does the same thing, they find themselves walking together in the truth and in the joys of the fellowship – the fellowship of God’s Son.

N.W.W. So, it is not a question of all agreeing to agree, but it is a question of the truth having its bearing on each of us individually, and therefore we are set together are we not?

E.J.H. That is the position exactly. What should be said is not that certain persons have been put out of fellowship;

• the right thing to say is that we can no longer walk with that person.

• The expression, ‘putting a person out of fellowship’, was, I suppose, only known in the apostles’ day.

• In Corinth a man was put out of fellowship. He was separated from the companionship of those who were walking in the truth, but then the fellowship still remained for him to come back to.

• What should first govern us in the present position is “How can two walk together except they be agreed?”

• That is the word for today I am sure, and if a person is not prepared to bow to the whole of the truth you have to say, ‘Well, I cannot walk with you’ – you do not say you put him out of fellowship.

R.G.B. I was thinking how marvellous it is that God should, by the Spirit, draw our attention to the Son. The fellowship is of His Son, bringing out the greatness of the Son.

E.J.H. Yes. “His Son” is the dignity of it and “Jesus Christ” the character of Man who is to shine in it; “our Lord” the authority that obtains in it.

• Now, if a believer accepts the dignity of the position, eclipsing the very best in men’s fellowships, and is prepared to express Jesus Christ in the fellowship and acknowledge His one authority – the authority of his Lord who is our Lord – all such persons can walk together and are very happy to.

• If a person joins an association of men for mutual profit and benefit, he has really suggested that there are other fellowships as good as the one into which he has been called;
  • so he is really denying the dignity of the fellowship into which God has called him.

• If we express features of the first man, we are denying the truth that Jesus Christ is to shine there;

• and if man’s authority is introduced, which overthrows the authority of the Lord, the fellowship is broken into – two authorities obtaining – the authority of the Lord and the authority of man.

R.H. How thankful we are for the word that “God is faithful”! How much we have proved it! It does not depend on our faithfulness.

E.J.H. No, it does not. “If we are unfaithful, He abides faithful; He cannot deny Himself”.

N.W.W. We may, as you have just said, break in on the dignity, or the right character of what is expressed in the fellowship by our failure; but from God’s side it cannot be broken in upon.

• The preciousness of Christ, as shining in that realm, is God’s thought and ever will be as long as it exists, will it not?

E.J.H. Quite so. These things remain. There is no change in the dignity of the Son, nor could there be;

• there is no change in the features of the new man expressed in Jesus Christ,

• and you cannot substitute another authority for the Lord’s authority.

• All these things remain from the time this word was written, to the day in which we live, here sitting together.

N.W.W. So the scripture speaks of the day of Jesus Christ, and that will surely come to pass; but just as surely is it in God’s mind to characterise His realm with that order of Man before that time-now. It cannot break down can it? God’s side is sure.

E.J.H. Not at all.

R.D.C. So, what a wonderful thing it is, in these days of departure and breakdown for the faithful soul, in whom the work of God is, to fall back on God’s faithfulness and find that what he needs is provided for and remains.

• It says of Jacob, does it not, that he came to Beersheba on the way to Egypt and he offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. Does that suggest that he fell back on God’s faithfulness?

E.J.H. Yes it does indeed, and there is a word in Deuteronomy which often comes into my mind in regard to this matter.

• It says that when they were come into the land, if a man saw his brother’s ox or his ass straying, if he knew the owner, he was to take it back to him because it was his property – he was not to deprive his brother of his lawful property;

• but if he did not know to whom the ass or ox belonged, he was to keep it and nourish it, hoping one day the owner would come along and say ‘I have lost some of my property’, and his brother would say ‘I have been looking after it for you all this time, hoping one day you would come and ask for it’.

• Now, that is all we would like to do humbly, that is, to maintain what is true of the fellowship, hoping that more of our brethren will come along and say, ‘I feel I am not getting the best the Lord would have me to’, and you say ‘We have been looking after it for you and we would be very glad to share it with you’.

R.H.C. We are deeply thankful for that word, and the dignity and character of the fellowship to which we have been called; and I was thinking of the word,

• “Bind these things as frontlets before your eyes” – keep them there, because God will be faithful to what He is if we are faithful to the truth as we know it. Is that right?

E.J.H. And He says that we shall have the days of heaven upon the earth.

• Now that is what has been sorely missing in the last few years; but there is never anything less than that in the mind and heart of God for His people.

• He wants them to have the days of heaven upon the earth, where brotherly love is operating and where it is a joy to be together, and where we all ought to be able to say with the psalmist,
  • “I was glad when they said unto me, ‘Let us go into the house of Jehovah’ ”.

• How many of our dear brethren in the last two or three years have almost been afraid to go to the meetings, and many have stayed away because they felt that to go would only add to their sorrows.

• That is absolutely the opposite to what God has in mind for His people; and if such gatherings exist, where the brethren are broken-hearted at the thought of having to go to the meeting, we may be sure that the Lord is not there.

R.H. In connection with Deuteronomy, they were to keep the way to the cities of refuge. Do you think that would be the attitude of all – to keep the way, not to close it up?

E.J.H. Quite so.

E.L.G.C. So, this thought of fellowship involves also the enjoyment of the precious love of God as set forth in Jesus?

• We have been called into this precious fellowship of God’s Son. He has fully expressed the Father’s love in all its blessedness and all its sweetness.

E.J.H. So it is, and should be, a circle of divine love with the warmth of love operating in every heart, and we are very close together then.

N.W.W. What a real fellowship it is, where the features of Jesus Christ shine, and have free course – the love and the meekness and gentleness and patience and tenderness that was seen in Him!

E.J.H. Well, that is what is intended to shine for the glory of God, who has called us into the fellowship in His faithfulness, and for the comfort of every member who is there in it.

R.H. One side of the fellowship would be discipleship would it? Hence “by this shall all know that ye are disciples of mine if ye have love amongst yourselves”, John 13 : 35. That would be in evidence, would it not?

E.J.H. Does that scripture show the necessity of our continually feeding on the word and being governed by it, and not by man’s word?

• “By this shall all know that ye are disciples of mine if ye have love amongst yourselves”,

• love one toward another, meaning in that sense, to one another and amongst yourselves, that there is no partiality – there are no preferences – there are no likes and there are no dislikes.

• Everybody is loving everybody else whether they are weak or strong or old or young.

R.H. That is the body is it not, according to the 12th of Romans? In the early days they took note of them that they had been with Jesus.

E.J.H. It was said of the very early Christians when thrown to the lions,

• ‘See how these Christians love one another, they are all prepared to be devoted to death. Before they go into death individually, there is love amongst them of such a kind that the world knows it not’.

• We were speaking of the features of Jesus Christ. I am quite sure that we do not realise the possibilities there are in flesh and blood conditions, for the expression of God as seen in Christ.

G.B. As called into this fellowship is there the work of God in me that responds to the work of God that is in my brother?

• I was thinking, we might say we have been called into a certain fellowship, but naturally we are unable to get on together; but there is the work of God in each one of us.

E.J.H. That is the touchstone, is it not? It is like the magnet. It will only draw a certain kind of metal to itself;

• so the work of God in each other really becomes the magnet that holds us all together. We are all drawn to the same thing by the same power.

N.W.W. While we are on this subject, might we refer to the fact that in this circle all that is done in it – I was thinking especially of ministry – is to be in dependence upon God and on the Lord, and on the Spirit too.

• There is not to be any activity in the power of man’s mind, is there? So that the apostle goes on early in this epistle to rule out all that side of things.

E.J.H. As I sometimes say to persons who are exercised,

• ‘Well, I am not going to persuade you to make a move, because if I could, somebody with greater powers of persuasion than I have could persuade you out of it tomorrow’.

• It is a question of moving according to the work of God and in response to the ministry.

N.W.W. And I was thinking also of the responsibility of those who essay to minister in it. It requires that we should seek to be free from the activity of the human mind and of human means in ministry, does it not?

E.J.H. That is definitely so. The true servant and minister, of course, was John the baptist.

• “He must increase and I must decrease”.

• When he saw the Lord Jesus walking he stood still as if he were saying, ‘I have told you a great deal about Jesus and now He is here before your very eyes. I will stand still, and I want you to watch Him’.

• And his disciples immediately followed Jesus, but he did not tell them to follow Jesus. It was the substantive effect of his ministry, in which he himself was hidden and Christ shone.

G.B. In relation to the name of the apostle Paul in Acts it says, “But Saul who also is Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit”

• – I was thinking of his name being changed, the one meaning great and the other meaning small, and immediately the change comes he is filled with the Spirit.

• Is that a test to us, that as we are prepared to be small and go out of sight, the Spirit can take charge of us?

E.J.H. That is very helpful. When his name is pronounced as being “little” which is Paul, immediately the connection is that he was filled with the Spirit,

• and the smaller we are, the more the Spirit will take charge of us and shine in us. The bigger we are the less He shines.

C.C.M. Would we see that in King Saul when he was small in his own eyes?

E.J.H. That is very interesting. “When thou wast little in thine own sight thou wast made head of the tribes of Israel”, but he outgrew his littleness and lost his kingdom; hence the need of not only beginning small but remaining small.

Now in regard to the table, I feel this is a matter that is very little understood. We have referred to expressions used in regard to ‘the position’ and ‘the fellowship’.

• Erroneous expressions are also used in regard to the Lord’s table,
  • such as ‘having no right to keep anybody away from the Lord’s table’, which means an open fellowship;

  • also that a certain person has ‘been put away from the Lord’s table’,

  • and that some body of Christians has ‘set up another table’.

• All these expressions are unscriptural; there is no foundation in scripture for anyone of them, yet they are constantly made, and they deceive unsuspecting persons.

N.W.W. You had in mind to tell us what the scripture does seek to convey to us?

E.J.H. It is quite clear from this chapter that there are two tables, and every Christian is a partaker of the Lord’s table.

• The word ‘table’ is similar to the word ‘fellowship’.

• Every heathen is a partaker of the table of demons, and what Paul is saying in effect is, ‘How can you, being a Christian, a partaker of the Lord’s table, also be a heathen and partaker of the table of demons?’

• Nothing is said, you notice, in this chapter about breaking bread; that is in the next chapter.

• Every Christian is a partaker of the Lord’s table. How could you keep him away from it? And how could you set up another table, when there is only one which never changes?

N.W.W. You mean that he is a partaker of it, because the expression involves the portion that God has called us to, and does not exactly convey the thought of actually breaking bread?

E.J.H. Quite so. You see, there are many Christians in the world, in such circumstances as preclude them from breaking bread. They are incapacitated physically, on beds of sickness, but they are still in fellowship and they are still partakers of the Lord’s table.

E.L.G.C. So it bears on the one loaf, does it?

E.J.H. Quite so and there is only one loaf; there is only one body; there is only one table.

• Many of the brethren are held by such suggestions as there being only ‘one position’ and you cannot start another one. Well, of course you cannot!

• And there being only one fellowship, and you cannot start another fellowship. Of course you cannot!

• There is only one fellowship and you certainly cannot set up another table.

• You may say that certain persons have begun breaking bread separately from others, but it is not scriptural to say they have set up another table.

C.C.M. How can we help our brethren who are confused? We can speak together and get the gain of the Spirit’s presence, but how can we help these beloved brethren?

E.J.H. You may desire to help them but, of course, it needs two persons to bring about a solution. That is, one is willing to impart a thought and the other is willing to learn.

• If you take the scriptural example of Aquila and Priscilla, they were able to tell Apollos things that he did not know.

• Apollos did not say ‘I have been preaching all this time and it is well known that I am eloquent in the scriptures and I know a great deal more than you about them!’

• He was willing to recognise that Aquila and Priscilla were better taught in the truth and the way of God than he was, and he took it on. So you have, first of all, the teacher and then the teachable.

• It is the easiest and happiest work in the world to try to help a person who wants to learn, but it is most disappointing to try to help a person who wants to stay where he is and thinks he has got something better than you have. What can you do?

R.H. A word from God is called for, do you think? God gives a word. One wonders if a word from God can be refused.

G.B. Would you say something as to the Lord’s table and the table of demons? There is also “the believer” and “the unbeliever” The idea of one thing set over against another seems to run right through scripture and there is no middle way.

E.J.H. That is just what the scripture is seeking to point out; you are either a Christian or you are a heathen.

• You cannot unchristianise a person – you cannot put him away from the Lord’s table – or turn him from a Christian into a heathen. How can you do that?

• You may say ‘I cannot break bread with him because I do not agree with him’ but that is the next chapter.

• It has been said by some, alas, that those that have left the old position have linked on with the table of demons.

• Mr. Darby remarked “as to the sects’ table being the table of devils it is simply monstrous folly. The apostle is speaking of idols. I have heard an individual saying it but only proving his own ignorance. It is a simple absurdity in the plain defiance of scripture”.

• It shows how important it is to keep to the scripture and to see what the scripture says.

• We often refer to the Bereans, “They searched the scriptures whether these things were so”, that is, what Paul was saying; and it was the Old Testament scriptures not the New Testament. That is remarkable.

C.C.M. Paul was a true leader and a teacher. He knew that he could make a mistake but the scriptures could not.

E.J.H. That is very good. One has noticed when some matters have been raised that brethren will say, ‘Well, here is the past ministry and here is the present ministry and they just do not agree. What have we got to do?’

• You so often find that brethren will give you a book of past ministry and a book of present ministry, and the Bible is not there at all!

• We read ministry in the light of the scriptures and that is where we get confirmation; from the word of God – the written word of God.

E.L.G.C. So in that way the scriptures are what have been from the beginning. In one sense they are, are they not?

E.J.H. Yes. Paul says of Timothy that “from a child thou hast known the sacred letters” – or the holy scriptures. That would be the Old Testament again.

• Some say ‘Oh, that is in the Old Testament’ but the Lord does not say that, but He says it is in the scriptures. What do the scriptures say?