True Fellowship Beyond a Social Gathering

Another post today that begins with with a question: Are you looking for fellowship, or just a nice religious social environment? The one you can find anywhere in abundance, while the other is almost non-existent. You guessed it, I am saying that true fellowship in Christ can be found very close to nowhere. Yes I know, this is once again a very hard saying. Seems like I remember some other guys who were given to the same kind of words that seemed hard to those who heard them (Jn. 6:60; Gal. 4:16; I Jn. 4:6; Jd. 1:12,13; etc.). But as always, I am going to provide consistent scriptural evidence to back up and confirm this hard saying. First of all though, let's just say that anyone can go to any Christian affiliation anywhere at anytime, and find a socially religious circle within that particular affiliation. For most folks that seems to be enough, and that is a crying shame, because that social religious environment CANNOT and WILL NOT save anyone. True fellowship on the other hand, if found and maintained CAN and WILL save those who are given to it. First I would like to point out that the words "fellowship" and "communion" come from the exact same Greek word, "Koinonia." Koinonia is best defined by the words, "intercourse" and "intimacy." Think that sounds a little bit graphic? It does, and with good reason. The true union of Christ and his spiritual body on earth is likened unto the marriage of a man and a woman, and I mean physically: "For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the [congregation]" (Eph. 5:31,32). Now these words "joined unto" and "one flesh" mean exactly that. So that brings us to the real meaning of fellowship and communion. Jesus prayed for a very special and needful thing for all believers that goes to the point: "That they all may be ONE; as thou, Father, art IN me, and I IN thee, that they also may be one IN us... And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, EVEN AS we are ONE: I IN them, and thou IN me, that they may be made perfect in one" (Jn. 17:21-23). So we are talking about a spiritually intimate intercourse between Christ, the Father, and true believers; even as married men and women are literally IN one another through physical intercourse. So what we need to understand is HOW Jesus was in the Father, and vice versa, as he said; and how believers can be "one" in the same way. The key is the "glory" that he said he would give to believers, so that they COULD be one as he and the Father were and are one. Romans 6:4 with I Peter 3:18 plainly shows us that the Spirit of God is that "glory," so it is the holy Ghost that brings that oneness to pass for those who receive it and follow after it in true holiness. And that makes perfect scriptural sense, because we are told that it is the Spirit baptism that puts us INTO Christ (I Cor. 12:13). And Galatians 3:26-28 really brings the point home by telling us that the holy Ghost baptism puts us into Christ, whereby we "put on Christ," and are made "one" IN HIM! That oneness my friend, IS fellowship and communion. This oneness, or fellowhip was born on the day of Pentecost when around 120 people were first baptized with the Spirit, and thereby the body of Christ was born (Acts 1:4,5; Acts 2:4; Eph. 4:4,5).

Sadly that first fellowship of believers in Christ with one another, and with the Father and the Son, did not take very long to begin to dissipate by and large. All of the apostles who wrote the new testament scriptures warned believers of those who had begun teaching false things about Jesus and about the gospel that he died and rose again to establish. Those false teachings, which constituted "another Jesus" and "another gospel," as the apostle Paul stated, sowed division and discord among believers from that perfect oneness and fellowship that first came in the Spirit at Pentecost, and which had continued for a season (II Cor. 11:4; Gal. 1:6,7; Acts 4:32). By the end of Paul's life, his testimony was that all of the congregations that he had established in Asia had been turned away by these false apostles and teachers from the truth that he taught them (II Tim. 1:15). The apostle Paul had labored tirelessly exhorting believers to stay with their first oneness and communion of believers with God, his Son, and one another, with words like these: "Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment" (I Cor. 1:10). It is not just receiving the Spirit initially, but rather continuance in being taught and led by that same Spirit that maintains that unison of believers with the Father and the Son (Jn. 14:26; Rom. 8:14; I Jn. 2:27). You see, the holy Ghost is NOT a third person as the erroneous "trinity" doctrine perpetrates. The Spirit of God is in fact the very life and divine nature that first dwelt in the Father, and that he gave to dwell in the Son in the day that he begat him before anything else existed; and that Jesus came so that he could impart to us (Rom. 8:2; Jn. 5:26; Col. 1:15,17; Jn. 10:10; Rom. 5:5). And the holy Ghost is the Spirit of TRUTH, which truth exists harmoniously between God and his Son; and is taught to all who will submit themselves to God's will and seek him for his truth (Jn. 16:13; Isa. 54:13; Heb. 11:6). There is no division of understanding between the Father and the Son, and TRUE FELLOWSHIP, or communion is exactly that; as the apostle Paul implored the Corinthians in the above quoted scripture. Further evidence that this holy "communion of the holy Ghost" [II Cor. 13:14] was lost early, is evidenced in Jesus' message to the pastor and congregation in Laodicea in the book of Revelation: "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come IN TO him, and will SUP with him, and he with me" (Rev. 3:20). Jesus, meaning the Spirit of truth [II Cor. 3:17], had been boxed out by means of the falsehoods that had been dictated to these people, and he was calling for these believers to return to him in their hearts, and restore their communion and fellowship with him. Communion has nothing to do with a carnal ordinance of breaking crackers and drinking juice. Nothing at all. Jesus made it clear at the last supper that what they were doing would later be kept in a "new" way, when it would be "fulfilled in the kingdom of God" (Mat. 26:29; Lk. 22:16,18). That fulfillment came with the baptism of the Spirit at Pentecost, for we are told, "For the kingdom of God is NOT meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy IN the Holy Ghost" (Rom. 14:17). And Paul assured us that the supper that we keep is that which consists of "the unleavened bread of SINCERITY AND TRUTH" (I Cor. 5:8). Jesus himself said that HE is the bread of life that came down from heaven, which if a man eat, he will live forever; and the scripture says that "the Lord IS that Spirit" (Jn. 6:51; II Cor. 3:17). So true fellowship is first being baptized into Christ by the holy Ghost, and then following after what the Spirit of truth teaches, and being led by that and nothing else. There is no other true fellowship in Christ. My friend, Christ is not divided from the Father, and neither will his bride be divided from him or from one another; but will be in "one mind and one accord," as this glorious gospel began (Acts 2:1). Amen.