Can you please explain to me what 1 Corinthians 1:9 means?
1 Corinthians 1:9 reads, “God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” This letter to the Corinthians was hard for Paul to write, for there were many failures that he had to address. But before he begins enumerating the problems that existed in this assembly, he reminds them that “God is faithful.” They were “faithless” in many areas, but “God is faithful.”
In the verse just before this, Paul spoke of what God, in His faithfulness, would accomplish. It says, “Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Again, the saints at Corinth were to be blamed for many things that were bringing dishonor upon the name of Christ, yet Paul knew that what the grace of God had begun He would finish in that coming day when Christ translates His heavenly people to glory. These words remind me of Paul’s words in Philippians 1:6, “Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.” Because of God’s faithfulness every born again believer will indeed reach heaven, and though we may fail on our way there we will be, as Peter wrote in 1 Peter 1:5, we are “Kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”
Our verse goes on to say, “by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” What does this mean? It means that not only has God saved us by His grace and promised to finish the work He started in each of us, but He has also brought us into a wonderful fellowship with other believers, a fellowship that is centered on His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus spoke of this fellowship in Matthew 16:18, “Upon this rock I will build my church.” In Acts 2:1-4 we have the fulfillment of that verse, for on that blessed day the church was born when Christ sent the Holy Spirit down from heaven to indwell all believers and to form the church, the body of Christ. From that day forward every soul that is saved is made a member of the church, as we see in Acts 2:47, “And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved” (NKJV). The church is not a building of bricks and stones, nor is it an organization formed by men; the church is a living organism made up of all who have been saved by God’s grace. In our verse the church is referred to as “the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord” because every believer has been called into a “living partnership” with each other based on our union with Jesus Christ. As members of the church, the body of Christ, we should all worship and work together as the Lord Jesus, the Head of the body, directs us. Praise God for calling us into this fellowship with each other and praise be to Christ for building His church and for being its glorious Head! (174.9) (DO)