Fellowship Is Fundamental Series

No one can doubt that this is an age of ecumenicity. Everybody

is talking about getting together with someone else for dialogue or

merger. Even those who are opposed to the ecumenical movement

are merging and uniting. In other words, wherever you are today

you are involved in a complex world where everybody is trying to

make it more simple. The Apostle John gives us some guidance by

teaching about fellowship. This will help us to know what to do in

all relationships of life. If we know what Christian fellowship really

is, we will be able to determine which relationships in life are

consistent with fellowship with the Father and Son. Verse 3 supplies

us with these three things: 1. The essence of fellowship; 2. The

essential of Christian fellowship; 3. The extent of Christian

fellowship. We will consider them in that order.

I. THE ESSENCE OF FELLOWSHIP.

What does the word fellowship mean apart from any Christian

content? This word did not just fall out of the sky into the Bible, nor

did John make it up, nor did God give it to him as a new word. It

was a Greek word in wide usage long before it became a part of the

Bible. Koinonia is the Greek word. It was used to refer to many

relationships by the Greeks in which people shared a common bond.

Business partners, trade guilds, and burial societies were all called

fellowships in the first century. Those who had a common social

relationship had fellowship, and those who shared a belief in a

common god had religious fellowship.

The basic idea is a relationship persons have because of what they

hold in common. This meaning is clearly seen in the New

Testament. This verse, for example, has that meaning for John. He

is saying, we are declaring what we have seen and heard to you,

because once you also know it, then we will have a common

knowledge and belief. This is the very essence of fellowship.

Without something held in common between two persons there is no

possibility for fellowship.

In all four cases of the use of the word communion in the KJV it

is a translation of koinonia-the same word translated 15 times as

fellowship. There is no distinction between the two at all in the New

Testament. Sometimes we hear, "May the fellowship and

communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all," as if they were two

different words, but they are not, for they are identical. Paul says

in II Cor. 6:14, "What communion has light with darkness?" In

other words, what koinonia, or fellowship, can there be, for what do

they have in common? On the other hand, the Lord's Supper is

called communion. The meaning is clear, for when we partake of

the elements symbolizing the body and blood of Christ, we

remember together the common basis of our salvation. What do

believer's have in common? They have salvation through the shed

blood of Christ on the cross, and, therefore, this most basic and

common factor in our lives is called communion, or fellowship.

II. THE ESSENTIAL OF CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP.

John says, "That which we have seen and heard declare we unto

you." This is what distinguishes Christian fellowship from all other

forms of fellowship. It has one foundation and that is the historical

Christ. Nothing else can constitute a basis for Christian fellowship.

If we did not have an objective record of what the Apostles saw and

heard, we could have no common basis for fellowship. The very

reason the Bible is in print is not just to satisfy our curiosity about

the past; it is the only way that the revelation of God can be a

common factor in the lives of all believers. The Word of God in

print makes it available to all men, and thereby increases the basis

for fellowship.

The Gnostics, whom John was opposing, had just an opposite

attitude. They said, keep the truth in the hands of the elite. Do not

make it common knowledge, or it will be contaminated. The truth is

only for the intellectuals. The vulgar masses are unworthy of it. But

John says, I am putting down in writing what we have seen and

heard so that anyone can read and believe, and then enter into a

common union with us and God. The basis of Christian fellowship

is not locked up in a temple vault. It is not confined to any priestly

class or body of intellectuals. It is not composed of mystical or

magical incantations learned only by the elite. It is found in the

form of paper and ink-the most common means of communication in

the world. Christian fellowship is based on fact, and not fantasy,

fiction, fallacies, or force. That which was seen and heard is