I Believe in the Communion of Saints

“Yet she on earth hath union
With God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won…”
—Samuel J. Stone, “The Church’s One Foundation”

The confession known as the “Apostles’ Creed” is one of the most ancient statements of faith in Western Christendom. It originated in the first or second century A.D. and developed into its present form by about 700, and it is now held in common by Roman Catholics, Western-Rite Orthodox, Lutherans, Anglicans, Presbyterians and the Continental Reformed, Methodists, many Baptists, and others.

Not only is the Apostles’ Creed itself a signpost to unity among different denominations of Christians, but it also contains a ringing testimony to the unity of Christ’s people. Like most ancient Christian confessions of faith, the Creed is divided into three main sections—one on the Father, one on the Son, and one on the Holy Spirit. The third section begins: “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints.” Now, we know that the Spirit is the third Person of the Holy Trinity, the breath of God the Father and the gift of the Son. And given our heritage of covenantal theology, the Church is not foreign to our thinking. But what is this “communion of saints,” and what do we mean when we say that we believe in it?

The words that make up this phrase are not hard to grasp. “Communion” is the Greek koinōnia, “having or being in common,” a word that is often translated as “fellowship” or “sharing.” “Saints” are simply “holy ones,” that is, people who are set apart (the root meaning of “holy” or “saint”) as God’s own. Basically, the communion of saints is fellowship with the holy ones, sharing together with all God’s people. A simple concept—but when we understand the true meaning of fellowship and of holiness, the implications are profound, and the consequences stretch to eternity.

Let us begin at the beginning. Having communion or fellowship with the saints must always start with God Himself, the Holy One. What is said about Christ in Hebrews is a true description of the Triune God: He is “holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens” (Hebrews 7:26). God is glorious, supreme above His creation and absolutely free of all defilement of sin. He is His own being, eternally existing of Himself and not dependent on anyone else. All goodness and rightness are ultimately defined by Him without need for any other standard above or beside Him. He is who He is, an eternally burning flame of love and light that illuminates the whole universe and consumes anything that stands opposed to it. All this is what we mean when we confess that God is holy.

But the attribute of holiness is not limited to God alone. It is His both to have and to give, and He gives it to whom He chooses. He once set free the nation of Israel from slavery in Egypt, in order for them to be “a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). He told them, “You shall be holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:45). The apostle Peter quotes the same words to the New Testament people of God (1 Peter 1:16), agreeing with the words of Paul that Christians are “called as saints” (Romans 1:7). Being God’s people means being people who love what He loves, who hate what He hates, who seek what He seeks. In this life no Christian is yet completely holy, but every Christian is called to total holiness and is led by God to become what He intends. It is for this reason that we who live the Christian life (with all our remaining weaknesses and doubts) are described in Scripture as “holy.” That is, Christians all over the world—whether old or young, wise or immature, sophisticated or simple, black or white or yellow or brown—are every one of us “saints” in God’s eyes.

Now if Christians who still struggle with the trials of earthly life are saints and holy to the Lord, how much more is this true of those who have completed their work here and gone on into His presence! “He who has died has been freed [literally, ‘justified’] from sin,” writes Paul (Romans 6:7). Whoever dies in the Lord gets the best of all worlds—they are freed from their sins and yet still able to practice righteousness; they rest from their labors and yet the fruit of their good deeds follows them (Revelation 14:13); and best yet, they die to this world only to live with the Lord and await the fulfillment of life in the Resurrection (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:1-10).

For all of the reasons just given, Christians throughout history have given great honor to those who went before us. We know by faith that we are in Christ, but they already see His face and experience gloriously what we still know only dimly and long for. And yet we have the same Lord and the same salvation as they; we share with them the same hope of resurrected glory; and we are joined together with them in the life of God the Trinity. Therefore we know that we belong to them and they to us. Everything they have is already ours by faith and in hope. While their past example points the way for us to follow, we are motivated to righteousness in the present by knowing that they surround us as a “great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1).

In fact, it was in just this way that the creedal phrase “communion of saints” was originally understood. The early Christians suffered severe persecutions that included the loss of many of their friends. It was especially important for them to know that those saints who had already finished the race were present with them constantly through their common Lord, Jesus. Christians who faced everything from ridicule to martyrdom for their faith could look to those who had already “fallen asleep” as examples, as forerunners, as fathers and mothers in the Way, as partakers together with them of the constant stream of life that flows from God.

In these more secular and earth-bound times, we need to pay attention to the real fellowship we have with Christians who have finished their earthly life. We are not to worship them, because after all they are still only our fellow servants, and worship is due to God alone (see Revelation 19:10). But we ought to honor and respect them, learn about their lives and seek to imitate them as they imitated Christ. We know that just as we are joined to them in the “communion of saints,” they also are joined to us. The future of the holy Church that they worked to build up during their time on earth is now in our hands. The full fruitfulness of their past labors depends on our faithfulness in the present to carry on their work—and we will pass it on to those who will come after us.

While our communion with all the saints binds us closely to past believers, it also has profound meaning for the present life of Christians. John’s Gospel records the Lord Jesus speaking again and again about the need for unity among His followers on earth. The unity of God’s flock was a key part of Jesus’ own mission: “Other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd” (John 10:16). Love for one another would be the essential mark of Christ’s disciples (John 13:35). God has declared that He will not give His glory to another (Isaiah 48:11), but He gave it to His own Son who is the exact representation of Himself—and the Son gave glory to His disciples. Yet He did not lose any glory in giving it away, because the purpose of the gift was to join all of them together with one another and with the Father and the Son, in a perfect unity that would prove to the world that Jesus was sent by God (John 17:22-23).

This divine glory is what we share in here and now—not only with our brothers and sisters who have gone on to their eternal reward, but also with those who struggle together with us in this world. The Apostle Paul (whom we are told to imitate, as he imitated Christ) was one who knew the communion of the saints as a living reality. He wrestled daily and hourly in prayer for the Christian people who were so dear to him. His concern was not only for those he knew, but also for those who had never seen his face in the flesh (Colossians 2:1). His very life was tied up with the Thessalonian believers’ steadfastness in the Lord (1 Thessalonians 3:8). Whenever any Christian was weak, he felt it in himself; any stumble by a fellow believer, and he himself was burning up (2 Corinthians 11:29).

The communion of saints means that no Christian is exempt from fellowship with any other Christian. The public actions of Christian leaders, from the Pope of Rome to charismatic televangelists and from Chinese house-church pastors to the Anglican Archbishop of Nigeria, reflect on all Christians everywhere. On the local level, a well-educated and wealthy church that glories in its own theological attainments but turns up its nose at the simpler brethren down the street is just as much a disgrace to the Gospel as a church that denies the foreknowledge of God or the deity of Christ—perhaps more so, because it adds hypocrisy to all its other sins.

If you truly love the Lord, and know that the church is His body, how can you be detached from the life of all the Lord’s people? Can you be satisfied with anything less than the intense agonies of Paul, in prayer for the churches and in labor with them until they are fully formed in Christ? Can you do anything other than remember the prisoners, as if you yourselves were chained with them (Hebrews 13:3)? Can you ignore the Holy Spirit’s voice telling you to “rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15)? In this age of information, how can you not seek to know about—and uphold with your prayers and resources—your fellow Christians in Africa, in Asia, in Australia and the Pacific islands, in Europe, in Latin America, in the Middle East?

We are in fact joined to all who are in Christ—past and present, near and far, old and young, of all tribes and languages and cultures. Let us devote ourselves wholeheartedly to the communion of saints, to know and honor our fathers in the faith, to love and serve the Christians of today, and so to glorify God in His Church as it expands throughout the world.

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