This article is an attempt to sketch some salient features of the relationship between Christians. The Christian church is not a crowd, not even a crowd made up of devotees of a particular football club to take an example. It is a community and yet the persons who compose it are persons, because of their interrelationship, and individuals, because often their particular qualities or gifts are intensified.

They are a community ‘in Christ’, the body of Christ and this fellowship is not so much horizontal between the different members as vertical because they are ‘in Christ’ or alternatively we could say they share a common life, that imparted by the Holy Spirit the Life Giver. This viewpoint, while not provable from the New Testament, receives support from it.

The members who share this common life remain persons, indeed their individuality is developed and enhanced. In relationship lies the differentia of being person; this has vertical and horizontal links, with the Holy Spirit and with other people, especially often Christians. Personality, growth to mature persons, is realised in response to Him, and in fellowship with life in all its varied aspects. Aspirations can be met, self-realisation achieved, self-expression maintained. For the Christian, becoming a person is the practice of divine sonship.