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Fellowshipping in the Light (1): Wonder of Fellowship
The fellowship in 1 John 1 is fellowship with God and, therefore, fellowship with fellow believers. Such fellowship is enjoyed through faith and in the church, where God is worshipped, confessed, loved, and obeyed. John begins in verse 3 with the message of the apostles, which is the message of the incarnation of the Son of God. The apostles (among them John) have seen, heard, and handled Jesus Christ. That message they declare unto you, the readers. That message we receive as we read it and as we hear it preached. The purpose of that declaration of Jesus Christ is “[so that] ye also may have fellowship with us [the apostles]” (v. 3). We have fellowship with the apostles by believing and receiving the gospel that they preached. Through faith in the apostolic message, and in no other message, we have fellowship also with God: “And truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ” (v. 3).
"As in the Days of Noah..." (1)
In the centuries before the flood, the intermarriage of the boys of the church with the girls of the world was one of the primary causes of the apostasy which eventually diminished the covenant community to eight souls and filled the world’s cup of iniquity, making it ripe for judgment.
“The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose… There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown” (Genesis 6:2, 4).
A study in 2 Peter 1:5-11 (1a): Adding to our faith
When Peter says, “Add to your faith,” he is not at all belittling our faith. He has said wonderful things about it: it is precious, we have it in common with all the other members of Christ’s church, it is allotted or assigned to us by God, it brings us into possession of great blessings, and it has promise of greater things to come.Therefore, saving faith does not need virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly affection, and charity. These are not of the essence of faith, but they are faith’s fruits. They are necessary in their own place, but they do not belong to faith’s saving or justifying essence. In other words, while true faith bears virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly affection, and charity, these things do not save or justify us. We are not justified by faith and virtue, etc. We are justified by faith alone. Faith and virtue are not the instruments of justification. Justification is by faith alone. Salvation, and especially justification, is by faith alone because by faith alone we embrace Jesus Christ, who alone is our salvation.
Forgive Us as We Forgive - Part 1
God’s forgiveness of us is designed to be a pattern for our forgiveness of our neighbors. “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” (Matt. 6:14) is our plea in the prayer that Jesus taught us. We are debtors to God and we seek the canceling of the debt. Others are debtors to us and they seek the canceling of their debt. When we forgive others, we do what God does, but on a much lesser scale, mimicking what God has done for us: “Even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye” (Col. 3:13).
Our Rejection of Conditions (1): What Conditional Theology Is
The sinner who is the object of salvation (the one who is saved) is not the doer of salvation, that is, he does not save himself, he does not contribute to his salvation, and no part of God’s salvation depends on any activity that he performs, either by or without the grace of God. Of course, once God begins to save a sinner, he makes that sinner active and conscious, but the sinner’s activity, even his conscious activity (believing, repenting, etc.) is always only the fruit of God’s activity, or God’s saving work by the Spirit of Christ in him.
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