Salvation Brings Fellowship
The churches of Christ Greet You (Romans
16:16)
Before fellowship
can exist
between individuals, it must first be established with God. We cannot
jointly
work together in unity and harmony as brethren unless we are in the
family of
God. We must believe and do what God tells us in order to establish
fellowship
with Him. And, only correct belief can produce correct action or
conduct. That
being the case, whatever the Bible requires for one person to establish
fellowship with God, it also requires for everyone. This is evident
from Mark
16:15-16, "Go preach the gospel to EVERY creature, he that believeth
and
is baptized shall be saved;" Acts 2:38, "Repent and be baptized EVERY
one of you…" Acts 17:30, God "...now commands ALL men everywhere to
repent."
There are several
things the
Bible requires of us in order to establish fellowship with God:
The prophecy of
Jeremiah
31:31ff is quoted in Hebrews 8:8-12 to show it is now fulfilled. After
saying
that Israel did not follow the covenant God had made with them, he
says,
"For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after
those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and on
their
heart also will I write them: And I will be to them a God, and they
shall be to
me a people: And they shall not teach every man his fellow-citizen, and
every
man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: For all shall know me, from the
least
to the greatest of them. For I will be merciful to their iniquities,
and their
sins will I remember no more."
Though the Law of
Moses was
written on stones, the law of God now resides first in the minds and
hearts of
people; it all starts with belief. Under the Law of Moses, one became a
member
of God's family by being born an Israelite. One was a Jew by genetics.
Thus,
one became a member of God's people by birth and then later came to
know God
when they were old enough to understand what they were taught. Under
the
Gospel, no one is in the family of God until they come to "know" God;
"all shall know me, from the least to the greatest." What this shows
is that we cannot enter into fellowship with God until we come to
"know" Him, whatever that involves.
Hebrews 11:6 says
that
"without faith it is impossible to please him, for he that cometh to
God
must believe that he is and is the rewarder of them that diligently
seek
him." Only the God revealed in the Bible is acceptable, the God who is
the
creator of heaven and earth. This is how He is characterized and
identified in
many places in Scripture. We cannot think of Him as the pagans did.
Paul said
that there are Gods many and lords many but to us "there is one God the
father" (1 Corinthians 8:5-6). Idolatry has been around for most of
man's
existence and has been constantly condemned (Romans 2:1ff, Acts
17:16-31).
There are religious
groups
that claim they believe in the God of the Bible and even use Bible
terms.
However, when they get through describing the God they are talking
about, they
don't believe in the Bible God and thus cannot please God and cannot
come to
Him.
Mormonism uses
Bible terms and
insist that they believe in God and the Lord Jesus. As far as their
"steps" to salvation, they insist on the preaching of the
"Gospel," faith in God and Christ, repentance and immersion in water
for the remission of sins. The terms are correct and the order as well,
but
everything breaks down at the beginning. The Mormon gospel and the
Bible Gospel
are not the same, and what a Mormon is required to believe is not
biblical. The
god of Mormonism was once a human just as we are, living on a world in
this universe
in subjection to the god of that world. As a reward for his
faithfulness, he
was elevated to god-hood and given this earth to populate and rule as
god to
us. The aim of every Mormon male is to become a god and have a world of
his own
to rule. That is not the Bible God and hence nullifies everything a
person
might do afterward.
Oneness
Pentecostals insist
there is only one person who is God. He existed as one God in the Old
Testament, came to earth as Jesus and went back to heaven. Various
other religious
groups have their own peculiar slant in their description of God, but
when they
are through with what they mean by "God," he is not the Bible God.
Jesus said in John
17:20-21,
"Neither for these only do I pray, but for them also that believe on me
through their word; that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art
in me,
and I in thee that the world may believe that thou didst send me." We
can
well understand the word preached by the apostles and have proper
belief in Christ.
As a result, fellowship is established with both the Father and Christ
and with
one another. But, the standard is truth, the word of God.
In John 8:24, Jesus
says,
"except ye believe that I am he, ye shall die in your sins." The
pronoun "he" has been added by the translators. The verb phrase is a
double nominative so that Jesus is actually saying, "except ye believe
that I, I am." The same verb forms are found in verse 58 of that
chapter
as well when Jesus says, "before Abraham was born, I am." This is the
declaration of God's statement to Moses on the mount, "I am that I am,
tell them that I am hath sent you" (Exodus 3:14). God said to Moses
that
"this is my name." God was to be known by that name to Israel. He is
also presented as I Am in several other Old Testament passages, such as
Isaiah
chapters 42 and 44. When Jesus identifies Himself with the same name, I
Am, we
must recognize His claim of God-hood.
Further, Jesus
places Himself
on an equal plane with the Father as to His nature: "But Jesus answered
them, My Father worketh even until now, and I work. For this cause
therefore
the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only brake the
Sabbath,
but also called God his own Father, making himself equal with God”
(John
5:17-18). Jesus had the same rights as God the Father and could also
work on
the Sabbath if He wanted to do so.
In John 10:24-36,
Jesus
answered the Jews questions about His being the Christ or not. He then
declared
in verse 30 that "I and the Father are one." The Jews immediately
understood what He meant by that and took up stones to stone Him. Jesus
asked
them, seeing He had performed many good works, for which one of the
works were
they going to stone Him. Their reply was, "For a good work we stone
thee
not, but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, maketh
thyself
God." The Jews, like some of our modern day religionist, thought that
Jesus was just a man. Yet, they understood that He was claiming to be
God, and
they were right about that much!
Various errors
about the
person of Christ have been offered through the centuries. Gnosticism,
in the
first century, was an early position that viewed Jesus as just an angel
or a
spirit creature, depending on the particular Gnostic group one looked
at. First
and Second John were written specifically to combat the Gnostic
heresies and John
refers to them as the antichrist; in fact, John said there were many
antichrists.
If one denied the Son, then he also was denying the Father; by
confessing the
Son, one had the Father also. No one can believe error on the person of
Christ
and expect to please God.
John and Jesus both
preached
"repent and believe the gospel." Jesus said to His apostles, "Go
ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that
believeth and is baptized shall be saved, he that believeth not shall
be
condemned" (Mark 16:15-16). Romans 1:16-17 says, "For I am not
ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto
salvation to
every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For
therein
is revealed a righteousness of God from faith unto faith: as it is
written, the
righteous shall live by faith."
One cannot be saved
unless he
believes the Gospel of Christ. And, there was and is one and only one
Gospel of
Christ. In Galatians 1:6-9, Paul says that some had departed to
"another
gospel." He adds that though "we or an angel from heaven preach any
gospel unto you than that which you received, let him be accursed."
People
make up doctrinal positions from human wisdom that they claim is the
Gospel of
Christ, but only that one revealed in the New Testament is acceptable
with God.
The Gospel of
Christ contains
facts that must be believed that can be simply stated as the death,
burial, and
resurrection of Jesus for our sins. This is listed for us in First
Corinthians
15:1-4. Paul first says that he is going to make known to them the
Gospel that
he had preached to them. It is the Gospel they had received, "wherein
also
ye stand, by which also ye are saved, if ye hold fast the word which I
preached
unto you, except ye believed in vain." The gospel word had been
preached
to them and they had believed it. As a result they were saved by it and
were at
that time "standing in" it.
Paul then says,
"For I
delivered unto you first of all that which also I received: that Christ
died
for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried; and
that he
hath been raised on the third day according to the scriptures..." These
facts are revealed in many scriptures, by prophecy in the Old
Testament, the
description by the apostles, and revelation by the Holy Spirit. There
is no
salvation without His death, burial and resurrection and we cannot be
saved by
His sacrifice without first believing these facts.
Having believed in
God,
Christ, and the Gospel facts, one must recognize he is a sinner in need
of the
salvation offered. John says, "If we say that we have fellowship with
him
and walk in the darkness, we lie, and do not the truth...If we say that
we have
not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us" (1 John 1:6,
10). Repentance toward God follows a recognition and conviction that we
have
sinned. The people on Pentecost were told to repent and be baptized for
the
remission of sins (Acts 2:38). The list of sins in Galatians 5:19ff
shows the
specific things a person cannot do and have eternal life. Romans 6:1
says we
cannot continue in sin that grace may abound.
Baptism is
essential to
salvation and one must understand and undergo baptism. One cannot
believe just
anything about baptism; sprinkling and pouring will not do nor will
baptism
without proper belief preceding it. The things we have already seen
must be
believed before a person is baptized. In Acts 19:1-7, Paul found
certain men
who had already been baptized but with "John's baptism," which was
for the remission of sins. However, after Pentecost one had to be
baptized in
the name of Christ. Though these men had believed correctly and taken
each step
in order, they had been taught wrongly in regard to baptism and thus
could not
be baptized right. Paul baptized them again. Baptism is for salvation
from past
sins, for the remission of sins, to get into Christ, to be united with
Christ,
to put on Christ, to be a child of God (Mark 16:15-6, Acts 2:38, Romans
6:1-6,
Colossians 2:12, Galatians 3:26-27). Thus, proper practice follows
proper
belief.
Obeying the Gospel
not only
takes us out of something but puts us into something. Out of darkness
into
light, out of the power of Satan into service to God, out of sin into
salvation, out of the world into fellowship with God, etc. (Acts
26:16-18).
First Peter 4:17 says, "For the time is come for judgment to begin at
the house
of God: and if it begin first at us, what shall be the end of them that
obey
not the gospel of God?" Paul gives the Holy Spirit inspired answer to
Peter question in Second Thessalonians 1:7-9.
The house of God is
composed
of those who have obeyed the Gospel. In Matthew 28:19, Jesus says that
baptism
is "into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit." That means into fellowship with the Father, Son and Holy
Spirit.
First Corinthians 12:13 says that "in one spirit were we all baptized
into
one body." That body is the church. We must know what we are getting
into
as much so as what we are getting out of. People must be taught what
their new
relationship is going to be before they ever get into it.
When these things
are in
order, fellowship with God is established. One arises to walk in a
newness of
life in Christ (Romans 6:1-6, 17-19), but we must continue in that
life.
Remember the statement of John, "If we walk in the light as he is in
the light,
we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus his son
cleanses us
from all sin" (1 John 1:7). Our fellowship with God depends on our
continuing to walk in the light with Him.