Conditions for Fellowship

or, Abiding Means Remaining

(from Lesson 20 – 1 John 2:6)

When John says in 2:4 “The one who says, ‘I have come to know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him,” uses the same phrase he used back in verse 6 of chapter one. There he was saying that if we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness we lie and do not practice the truth. So lying and not practicing the truth is based on a claim to fellowship, yet not walking in the light. Here in 2:4 is a parallel: he is a liar and doctrine is not in him as a result of claiming to know Him and not keeping the commandments. So the claim to know Him and not keep His commandments is tantamount to the same claim made earlier of fellowship with isn’t backed up by the lifestyle. The statement is the same: a liar, self-deceived and Bible doctrine is not operational in the person. He has no relationship to the truth, no relationship with doctrine.

Knowing God and walking in fellowship are not the same things, but they are parallel in the structure of the verse. John is building a concept. First he starts off talking about the importance of walking in fellowship, then the ultimate purpose of that is to know God, so we are at the next level up. It is a parallel structure, either one of which is negated by a lifestyle of disobedience. Not keeping the commandments is parallel to walking in darkness. So in the structure of the two sentences there is a parallel. In one there is a claim to fellowship and in the other there is a claim to know God. In one failure is evidenced by walking in darkness and in the other by disobedience. These are related concepts. The foundation is having fellowship. The length of time in fellowship, which John is going to call abiding, produces the knowledge of God. And the claim to know God and to have fellowship is going to be evidenced by one’s obedience or consistent walking in the light.

Therefore enjoying fellowship and walking in the light develop our knowledge of God and the barometer or our test for obedience for both is our obedience to divine mandate. Enjoying fellowship and walking in the light develop our knowledge of God and the barometer is our obedience to divine mandates. The result is a development of our love for God. 1 John 2:5 ^NASB “but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected [brought to maturity]. By this we know that we are [abiding] in Him.”

1 John 2:6 ^NASB “the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.”

The conditions for fellowship, abiding in Christ

1. Faith alone in Christ alone initiates salvation, and we begin our new life in Christ in fellowship with Him. We have to recognise that there are two different ways in which the Bible talks about our relationship with God. There are the eternal realities or the eternal absolutes of our eternal relationship with Him, and then there are the temporal realities of our fellowship with Him in time. We are placed in Christ at the instant of salvation by the non-experiential reality of the baptism by means of the Holy Spirit whereby we are identified with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection. Romans 6:3-5. Some of those eternal realities include being reconciled to God so that there is no longer a barrier of sin between us and we are now at peace with God, Romans 5. We are regenerated, given a new life, are adopted into the family of God, we become a new creation, we are sealed by the Holy Spirit, and we are indwelt by God the Holy Spirit and God the Son. All of that is positional, non-spiritual reality. We don’t feel anything but they are true. In the realm of spirituality we call this by the overall term of being filled by means of God the Holy Spirit. At the instant of salvation we are in fellowship, there is complete rapport and harmony between the believer at regeneration and God. We are also filled by the Holy Spirit. As we go forward and advance in the spiritual life that is what Paul refers to as walking by means of the Holy Spirit.
2. But we fail, we sin, and when we sin fellowship is broken. Fellowship can be broken by sin but recovery is simply through confession, or admission, acknowledgement of sin, 1 John 1:9. When we sin and stay out of fellowship then God is going to bring divine discipline to bear in the life. Grace is not a licence to sin, it is the privilege of recovery.
3. Conditions for fellowship in Christ include the application of the new commandment which Jesus gave in John 13:34, 35 ^NASB “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” Notice what John says in 1 John 2:10 ^NASB “The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him.” The one who is abiding and advancing in the spiritual life is going to have impersonal love for his brother. This is an application of what Jesus said in John 13.
4. Walking in dependence upon God the Holy Spirit follows the precedent of the humanity of Jesus Christ. He was from birth indwelt by the Holy Spirit, He was filled by the Holy Spirit, and He never lost it because He never sinned. That was the basis of how he handled problems and how He lived. The precedence that He set was dependence upon the Holy Spirit. That is what radically sets apart the church age spiritual life from the Old Testament where the pattern was the Mosaic Law. 1 John 2:6 tells us that the one who is walking in fellowship is the one who walks like Jesus walked. Walking is a metaphor for the entire life. So the lifestyle is based on how Christ lived. Walking in the light (1 John 1:7) is how Jesus walked.
5. The next condition for abiding and walking in fellowship is that we are to have our thinking, our minds, saturated with Bible doctrine. 1 John 2:14 ^NASB “I have written to you, fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.” The words “because you know Him” is a bad translation. It should be “you have come to know Him,” perfect tense. How do we come to know Him? Only by knowing His Word. It is only by spending time in the Scriptures under the teaching ministry of God the Holy Spirit that we come to truly know God. John builds on the concept again in 1 John 3:24 ^NASB “The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.” So abiding and walking and obeying the commandments all work together. “He abides in us” is talking about the filling of the Holy Spirit. It is not indwelling because there the Spirit He has given us is related to abiding which is fellowship, not a positional concept of being in the light. So John is emphasising throughout this epistle that there has to be a knowledge of doctrine, we have to have our soul saturated with His Word to be able to know Him, and that is tantamount to abiding in Him.
6. Fellowship and abiding is also evident by not departing from the doctrine taught from the beginning. 1 John 2:24 ^NASB “As for you, let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father.”
7. There is an emphasis on publicly admitting Christ as saviour, not for salvation but as part of application and as part of spiritual growth. That doesn’t mean going out and standing on the street corner but being willing to admit that you have trusted Christ as saviour when that issue comes up and you have an opportunity to witness, etc. You are not ashamed of the gospel of Christ but are willing to admit Christ as saviour. 1 John 4:15 ^NASB “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.”

There are a number of things that John says about abiding that we need to pay attention to. 1 John 2:28 ^NASB “Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming.” If we don’t abide then we won’t have rewards at the judgment seat of Christ and there will be consequences. Look at some comparisons. 1 John 2:10 ^NASB “The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him.” Compare that with 1 John 1:6, 7 ^NASB “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and {yet} walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” So this is going to connect abiding in the Light with walking in the Light. 1 John 2:24 ^NASB “As for you, let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father.” Then we saw that is 1 John 1:1, 3 the connection between abiding and fellowship. 1 John 2:28 warns us of shame at the coming of Christ. Immediately after the Rapture is the judgment seat of Christ. If the Lord comes back and we haven’t advanced spiritually then there will be shame at the judgment seat of Christ and we will have all our works burned up. 1 Corinthians 3:14, 15. They will suffer loss, and that is a part of failure and loss of inheritance in the Millennial kingdom and the eternal state.

1 John 3:6 states that no one who abides in Him sins. “No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him.” A lifestyle pattern of sin indicates that we do not have this personal relationship or knowledge of God—not salvation but the advanced personal relationship with God. We have to understand 1 John 3:6 in the light of Galatians 3:16 ^NASB “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.” It will be impossible to fulfil the lusts of the flesh. So if it is impossible to sin when we are walking by the Spirit, how come we sin? Because we have to exercise volition first. Whenever we sin what preceded it was a decision to stop walking by the Spirit and to run our life on our own. That has to be understood before we can properly interpret 1 John 3:6. Abiding in Him is like walking by the Spirit. When we are walking by the Spirit we can’t sin; when we are abiding in Him we are not going to sin. We have to make that volitional decision to stop abiding, to stop walking, and then we sin. And, “no one who sins [continually sins] has seen Him or knows Him.” That relates to Galatians 5:18-21. That is the concept of sinning here: it is the one who is practicing those things. There is the same kind of list in 1 Corinthians 6. That is the person who never advances spiritually and will not inherit the kingdom. Then we have 1 John 3:34 ^NASB “The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.” That mutual abiding describes the active ongoing fellowship of the believer who is learning and applying doctrine under the filling of the Spirit.

1 John 3:17 ^NASB “But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?” That is implying that it doesn’t. There is no growth, no maturity, there is no fellowship there at all. So personal love for God is related to keeping His commandments and related to impersonal love for all mankind as evidence of maturity and growth and the filling ministry of God the Holy Spirit in the believer’s life.

1 John 2:6 ^NASB “the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.” Ought” is the Greek word opheilo [o)feilw] which indicates a an economic or moral obligation. There is an obligation on the believer to live as Christ lived, to walk as Christ walked. If you fail in your obligations there is no benefit anymore. That is the way the spiritual life is for a lot of Christians—like owning a new car but not fulfilling the obligation to service it, and it blows up. They think they are operating on grace and that they don’t have any obligation to learn and apply doctrine and to change the way they think. After awhile they are in complete spiritual failure and their spiritual life isn’t doing them any good because they have failed in their obligation that goes with the ownership. They don’t lose their spiritual life, their eternal security, but their spiritual life does them no good and they are going to be in divine discipline. They are going to end up being miserable in life because they are never going to have what God promised them that went along with salvation, and that is the abundant life of post-salvation sanctification.