Distance and Fellowship
By Robert Roberts
Some inaccurate ideas appear to be entertained by some on the subject of fellowship. The think they are not in fellowship with a meeting or ecclesia if they do not pay or receive a visit from it, and that they are only in fellowship with those actually in their midst.
If this were correct, there would be no "fellowship one with another" in personal absence, whereas John declares this to have been the case with those from whom he was personally absent (1 John 1:7).
Fellowship is that recognized mutual relation of harmony that only waits the opportunity of personal intercourse for its fullest enjoyment. This harmony exists, or does not exist, quite irrespective of the opportunity of its practical illustration.
Suppose, when an ecclesia is asked, "Are you in fellowship with the Mormons?" it should answer that they cannot settle the question as to the Mormons as a body, but must wait for individual Mormons to apply for each individual case to be decided on its own merits.
SUCH AN ANSWER IS AN EVASION OF THE QUESTION.
And what holds true concerning the Mormons, is true of the Church of England, or of those who will not avow their faith in the infallibility of the Scriptures.
An ecclesia that is not able to say whether they are in fellowship with such, but must wait for individual applications, is evidently in such a doubtful relation to the question as to prevent confidence on the part of men of straight purpose.
Men do not require to come within so many yards of each other to know whether they are friends. Friendship of this circumscribed order would be a relapse into barbarism. And so a body of men professing to receive the Truth in its uncompromised fullness and integrity do not require to pay or receive visits from another body or members of it (who are in a doubtful attitude), to say whether they are or are not in fellowship with it.
A little reflection on this ought to clear honest men of all difficulty
in defining their position--a process which had become necessary before
the apostle John had closed his eyes.
