#151 True brotherly love and fellowship
From Meditations on the Epistles of John, by Samuel Froehlich
We should love one another and indeed not with only a common love, because publicans and heathen can also love one another.
Matthew 5:43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy.
and in doing so still live in hatred, but with a holy, inviolable love in Christ, which, as such, is something entirely new—a fellowship of the saints, a bond of perfection—which unites the children of God as brethren in Jesus Christ and members of His holy body, the church; into which we must enter here, on earth, by true conversion and rebirth, and through which we enter into the inseparable union and spiritual relationship with all the saints who have been from all time and whom we do not yet know, until their manifestation with Christ. But a desire and longing to learn to know them all should live in us because God makes His manifold wisdom known to His church by unfolding His wonders of grace in guiding every single one, "which things [even] the angels desire to look into." (I Peter 1:12)
Ephesians 3:10 To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God,
The little we learn about these things here should urge us on to learn to know the great whole, in eternity. For now we see in part, and darkly, but then from face to face, and herein will the blessedness of the perfected righteous consist, that they will know the wonders of God in His elect and saints and will be known as a part of the whole. For every redeemed one is a wonder of God because God’s ways with His children are not our own ways and we ourselves would not have so chosen things.
Upon this foundation true brotherly love and fellowship of the saints now rests, so that all may be sanctified in Christ by the new creation, because love is not from men but from God, for which reason also it is not to be found with men but only with the children of God. For the true fellowship of Christ is still hidden, and what one in this world calls the Christian church is not at all the church of Christ, but the devil has thus imitated it to deceive men, lest they should become converted from darkness to light, and instead of being saints the false Christians carry on their mockery of them. Therefore we may not continue to remain in this false church if we wish to belong to the community of the saints, but must go out therefrom by a real conversion from the power of Satan to God.
Those, really, are not true believers and children of God who, as far as they themselves are concerned, wish to remain alone and have no desire for fellowship, and consequently have no brotherly love either, for they are sick. For the blessedness of the children of God subsists in their fellowship, that they may reciprocally communicate with one another for their edification in the love of the brethren. This holy brotherly love is the treasure of the children of God, of which they would not let themselves be robbed at any price and for which they are zealous that it may not be destroyed by the cunning of the devil.
And yet, even where a child of God should stand alone, the love of Christ would compel him to impart God’s way and truth to others so as to have co-partners of the same salvation that he himself has received. And even though one hardly gets along with this communication (because the natural man neither understands nor willingly accepts the things of the Spirit of God), one must nevertheless not become weary in patience and intercession, which resists the devil. But God rewards enduring faithfulness. And how could he who has been saved himself see others perish at his side?