Chapter 1: Fellowship with God
In 1 John 1:3, the apostle assures those to whom he writes that the fellowship of believers “is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.” His unusual expression has the force of a solemn affirmation. This is why we have rendered it, “Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.”
In those days, the saints appeared insignificant and contemptible, and their circumstances were lowly. Their leaders were regarded as “the filth of this world” and “the offscouring of all things.” The Greek expression describes them as “the refuse of the world” (1 Cor 4:8-13; Rom 8:35-36; Heb 10:32-34; Acts 17:18; Gal 6:12). Tertullian records the cry, “Christians to the lions!” He also writes, “And I think God has chosen us apostles last, as though to fight wild beasts.”
> “Always seeming about to fall, yet never falling.”
An invitation to fellowship with such people, and to share the precious things they enjoyed, seemed open to many objections: “What benefit is there in communion with them? Does it mean anything more than sharing their troubles, insults, ridicule, and every kind of suffering?”
To prevent or remove these and similar objections, the apostle earnestly assures his readers that their fellowship is, in truth, honorable, glorious, and desirable. This is so despite all the disadvantages it presents to a worldly observer, because of some of those with whom they share it. It will prove to be everything he claims. For, he says, “Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.”
Since the apostle asserts this so earnestly and directly, we may confidently follow him in affirming that the saints of God have communion with him. This communion is holy and spiritual, as I will explain. How it relates distinctly to the Father and the Son must be fully explained and developed later.
Since sin entered the world, no one by nature has communion with God. He is light; we are darkness. What communion can light have with darkness? (1 John 1:5; 2 Cor 6:14; Eph 5:8). He is life; we are dead (John 5:21; Matt 22:32; Eph 2:1). He is love; we are hostile to him. What agreement can there be between us? (1 John 4:8; Rom 8:7).
People in this condition have neither Christ, nor hope, nor God in the world (Eph 2:12). Augustine says, “It is a great misery for a person not to be with him without whom that person cannot exist.” They are “being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them” (Eph 4:18). Two cannot walk together unless they agree (Amos 3:3). As long as this distance remains between God and humanity, they cannot walk together in fellowship or communion.
Through sin, we lost our original relationship with God so completely that no possibility of restoring it remained within ourselves (Eccl 7:29; Jer 13:23; Acts 4:12; Isa 33:14). We had deprived ourselves of all power to return. God had also revealed no way of access to himself, or any basis on which sinners could approach him in peace. Nothing he had made, and no attribute he had revealed, could shed the least light on such an arrangement.
Grace and forgiving mercy provide the only entrance into this communion. Their revelation is entrusted to Christ alone. They are in him, were purchased by him, and are given through him. He reveals them from the Father’s bosom (John 1:18; Heb 10:19-21). Augustine writes, “The one true Mediator, reconciling us to God through the sacrifice of peace, remained one with him to whom he offered it; made one in himself those for whom he offered it; and was himself the one who offered and what he offered.”
This is why communion and fellowship with God are not expressly named in the Old Testament. The reality is there, but its clear light, and the confidence of faith in it, are revealed in the gospel and communicated by the Spirit given through the gospel. Through that Spirit we have this liberty (2 Cor 3:17-18).
Abraham was God’s friend (Isa 41:8); David was a man after his own heart; and Enoch walked with him (Gen 5:22). They all enjoyed the substance of this communion and fellowship. But the way into the holiest had not yet been revealed while the first tabernacle remained standing (Heb 9:8). Although they had communion with God, they did not have boldness and confidence in that communion. This follows our High Priest’s entrance into the most holy place (Heb 4:16; Heb 10:19). The veil also lay over them, so that they lacked freedom and liberty in their access to God (2 Cor 3:15-16), etc.
But now, in Christ, we have boldness and access to God with confidence (Eph 3:12). The saints of old did not know this boldness and confident access. Jesus Christ alone, then, removes this distance, both by establishing our communion and by fully revealing it. He has consecrated a new and living way for us, the old way being entirely closed, “through the veil, that is to say, his flesh” (Heb 10:20). And “through him we have access by one Spirit unto the Father” (Eph 2:18). “Ye who sometimes were far off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ, for he is our peace” (Eph 2:13-14), etc.
I will discuss this foundation of all our communion with God at greater length later. On this new foundation, and by this new and living way, sinners are admitted to communion and fellowship with God. For sinners to have fellowship with God, the infinitely holy God, is truly an astonishing act of grace (1 John 3:1). Aristotle writes, “When people are friends, they have no need of justice; but even when they are just, they still need friendship.”
To speak briefly about communion in general, it concerns both things and persons. Any shared participation, whether in good or evil, duty or enjoyment, nature or actions, gives those who participate a communion in what they share. Tertullian illustrates this sharing between Christ and his people: “Just as he left us the Spirit as a pledge, so he also received from us the flesh as a pledge and carried it into heaven, a guarantee that the whole will one day be brought there.”
Sharing the same nature gives all people fellowship or communion in that nature. Of the elect it is said, “Those children partook of” “flesh and blood” (Heb 2:14). They had fellowship in this with the rest of the world, sharing the same common nature as the rest of humanity. Therefore Christ also entered that same fellowship: “He himself likewise partook of the same things.”
There is also communion in state and condition, whether good or evil. This may concern inward and spiritual things, as in the communion of saints with one another, or outward things. Christ and the two thieves shared one condition, and Christ and one of them shared another. They were under the same sentence to the cross (Luke 23:40), “companions in the same suffering.” They had communion in the dreadful condition to which they had been sentenced. One of the thieves also asked for, and received, a share in the blessed condition our Savior was immediately about to enter.
There is also communion or fellowship in actions, whether good or evil. Communion in good actions includes fellowship in the gospel and in performing and celebrating the worship of God established in the gospel. The saints enjoy this fellowship (Phil 1:5). David rejoiced in the same general kind of fellowship (Ps 42:4). Communion in evil actions was the fellowship in which Simeon and Levi were brothers (Gen 49:5). They shared in that cruel act of revenge and murder.
Our communion with God cannot be confined to any one of these kinds, and it excludes some of them. It cannot be a sharing of nature; it must be voluntary and by consent. It cannot be a sharing of state and condition, but must concern actions. It cannot consist in performing the same actions upon a third party, but must involve an exchange between God and us.
The infinite disparity between God and humanity led the great philosopher Aristotle to conclude that there could be no friendship between them. He allowed some distance between friends and could not precisely determine its limits. But he thought the distance between God and humanity left no room for friendship. He writes, “In such cases there is no exact determination of how far people remain friends. Even when many things are taken away, friendship still remains; but when people become very widely separated, as from God, it no longer remains.”
Cicero also speaks of “a certain fellowship between humanity and God,” but understands only the general interaction of providence. Some used more elevated expressions, yet understood nothing of what they were saying. This knowledge is hidden in Christ, as I will show later. It is too wonderful for sinful and corrupt human nature. All that nature leads us to expect in God’s presence is terror and death. But, as I have said, we have a new foundation for this privilege and a new revelation of it.
Communion, then, is the mutual sharing of good things in which those who share them delight, founded on a union between them. This was the case with Jonathan and David: their souls clung to one another in love (1 Sam 20:17). “All things belonging to friends are common.” They had the union of love, and then actually shared with each other all that flowed from their love. As Aristotle says, “The proverb, ‘Friends’ things are common,’ is correct, for friendship consists in sharing.”
This is even more excellent in spiritual things. Those who enjoy this communion have the most excellent union as its foundation. What flows from that union, and what they share with each other, is supremely precious and excellent.
I have discussed elsewhere at length the union that is the foundation of all our communion with God, and I have nothing further to add to that discussion.
Our communion with God, then, consists in his giving himself to us, and our giving back to him what he requires and accepts. This flows from the union we have with him in Jesus Christ. Cyprian writes, “Our union with him neither mingles persons nor unites substances, but joins affections and binds wills together.”
This communion is of two kinds:
1. Perfect and Complete. This consists in the full enjoyment of his glory and our complete surrender of ourselves to him, resting in him as our ultimate end. We will enjoy this when we see him as he is.
2. Begun and Incomplete. This consists in the firstfruits and dawn of that perfection, which we have here through grace. This alone is what I will discuss.
Our subject, then, is the mutual sharing between God and the saints, through giving and receiving in a most holy and spiritual manner. Cicero writes, “Great also is that fellowship which is formed by benefits given and received on both sides.” God and the saints share this communion while they walk together in a covenant of peace, ratified in the blood of Jesus.
We will consider this, if God permits. Meanwhile, we pray to the God and Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. From the riches of his grace, he has restored us from a state of hostility to communion and fellowship with himself. May both the writer and those who read the words of his mercy taste his sweetness and excellence in this communion. May that taste stir us to a greater longing for the fullness of his salvation and the eternal enjoyment of him in glory.
