The Crux of Christianity

Fellowship with God. The concept alone is enough to blow our minds if we have the right view of God and the right view of ourselves. Yet this is what the Apostle John wants his children in the faith to understand and know. In fact, it is the theme of his epistle in 1 John. He says, “You can have this fellowship. You can know that you have this fellowship. And there are things that must be in order if you are to realize this fellowship.” Yesterday we saw that sin is one obstacle to our fellowship with God.

I alluded to the next thing in one of the first blogs when I was talking about having true fellowship in the Church. Before you can have true fellowship with God, true communion, there must be likeness. There must be a sameness. What do I mean by that?

We all have acquaintenances in our lives, people who we like well enough, but we just don’t seem to have that much in common with them. We don’t have the same interests . We don’t have any depth of communion with them – there is a kind of superficial relationship with them. For the Christian living in this world, he finds that he has a multitude of acquaintenances as compared with those he has true fellowship with. Why? Because true fellowship demands like natures.

Paul is very clear about this when he says in 2 Corinthians 6:14 that there can be no fellowship between righteousness and unrighteousness, no communion between light and darkness. These things, logically, cannot mix or be blended. Light is no longer light when there is darkness. Darkness no longer is darkness when the light is turned on. Literally, these are issues that are black and white. There are two realms – light and darkness – in this world. People are in either one of those categories, but can never be in both.

This same principle applies to people in their relationship with God. Before a person can really know God, to have fellowship and communion with Him, he must be made like Him. All throughout Scripture we see that as Christians we have become partakers of the divine nature. This is what makes us children of God. To have the nature of God is to share His life. Christ made this possible for us. A believer is one who has the very life of Christ living inside him.

Another characteristic of fellowship or communion is that the two parties love the same things. We must love one another as John repeats over and over in all his letters and his gospel. When two people truly love each other there can’t be any suspicion or doubt. There must be complete understanding and complete confidence and no lack of trust. There is no fellowship apart from true love.

This is why people who ‘say’ they love God yet do not know who He is as seen in the Lord Jesus Christ, are liars. They believe they love God but their god is not the God of the Bible.

Why is this world in the state that it is in? Because the world is not in fellowship with God. The world is at enmity with God and hates the things of God. There is no likeness or sameness. The kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness under the power of the prince of darkness is light and dark, black and white in contrast.

The Christian, on the other hand, lives in the same world, the same environment with the same chaos and conflict going on all around him, yet he has peace because he has fellowship with God. His joy is not found in circumstances or his surroundings, but in Christ alone. He knows that this world is passing away and all its lusts. But he also knows that what will last cannot be taken away from him.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones says this: “‘Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.’ Here, let me repeat, is the very acme of Christian experience and at the same time it is a goal; it is the whole object of Christian experience and of Christian faith and teaching.”

What is your overall concept of the Christian life as you examine yourself? Do you see Christianity as more or less primarily concerned about the application of certain laws and principles and Christian teaching of doctrine? There definitely is a need for Christian teaching of doctrine, and I don’t want to discount that in any way, but it is not the crux and heart of Christianity. The heart of Christianity, of the Christian life is fellowship or communion with God Himself. That is to be the focus of our life. To know Him. While it is important, even crucial, to hold to orthodox teaching…there are, without hesitation, certain things that every Christian must believe, even to be defenders of these right doctrine… this does not necessarily equate with Christianity. In other words, I may hold to all the right doctrine and not be saved. Why? Because right doctrine is not the essence of Christian life. It is fellowship with the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.

I will swing to the other side and adamantly stress that apart from right doctrine, one cannot be saved, either. Further, right doctrine should lead us to this fellowship with God based on our knowledge of Him which produces love for Him. Christianity is not only intellectual but it also involves the will, the desires and the emotions.

Again quoting Lloyd-Jones: “There have been people in the Church, alas, many times in the past, who have fought for orthodoxy and who have been defenders of the faith and yet they have sometimes found themselves on their deathbeds coming to the realization that they have never known God. They have only held opinions; they have only fought for certain articles of creed or faith. The things they fought for were right, but, alas, it is possible to stop at the negative position and to fail to realize that the whole object of all the things they claim to believe is to bring them to this central position. This, let me emphasise again, is the essence, the summum bonum, of the Christian life; it is the theme, the objective of everything that has been done by the Lord Jesus Christ.

I have been confronted many times by people who I think I am out of balance on this whole issue. They see me fighting for certain doctrine or truth and believe that my Christianity is nothing more than intellectual, but they do not see the other side of my heart which is every day crying out to Him to help me know Him more. My heart’s passion is to know Him. He is the beginning and the end. He’s everything! In this world, however, there is so much profession by people not holding to sound doctrine who claim to love God that there is great need to fight for truth. People are perishing for lack of knowledge. They are deluded, deceived, blind and walking in darkness. We must give them the truth about our God and pray that He removes the veil from their eyes enabling them to see with the eyes of faith.

Christ came to bring us into fellowship with the Father and with Himself. So what exactly does fellowship look like? We’ll see next time.