First it is centred in and formed by Jesus Christ. Jesus in the upper room speaking to His disciples uses the analogy of the vine to describe their intimate relationship with Himself – ‘ I am the vine, you are the branches and if you abide in me you will bear much fruit…’ (John 15.1). Paul describes believers as ‘the body of Christ and each one of you is a part of it ‘ (1 Corinthians 12.27). In Ephesians 2 verse 11 onwards Paul makes clear that all who believe in Jesus are one, for in Christ every dividing wall has been torn down. Our fellowship, our friendship, our comradeship, our communion, our koinonia is, or should be, anchored and rooted in Jesus Christ.
Secondly it is sustained or nourished by God through Jesus and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Paul in 1 Corinthians assures his Christian friends that: He (God) will keep you strong to the end so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ, is faithful (1 Corinthians 1. 8-9). Although our fellowship has a spiritual or even a mystical (in the Holy Spirit sense of that word) foundation, it is very much dependent upon our individual and collective efforts to make it work. We can neglect our fellowship or allow sinful elements to mar and even poison that fellowship. Clearly our fellowship needs to be sustained and nourished by prayer, by worship, by teaching (including study of the Bible), by sacrament and by loving service. Indeed one of the outstanding characteristics of the fellowship of the Early Church was the loving, generous and self-sacrificial care believers had for one another. In writing to the Christians in Rome Paul exhorted them: Share with God’s people who are in need. Practise hospitality. Later in the same letter he writes that the believers in Macedonia and Achaia had made a generous donation to the Christians in Jerusalem who were suffering as a result of a famine. Koinonia isn’t purely a matter of being in a holy huddle, but is expressive in word and deed of the love of Christ which makes that fellowship possible.
Finally that fellowship is brought to perfection through the work of Christ, though in this process two important factors should be noted. The first is that belonging to Jesus involves for each one of us sharing in what Paul describes as sharing the fellowship of Christ’s suffering (Philippians 3.10). This means not only being sorry for our sins and accepting with a humble faith that Christ bore our sins in His body on the Cross, but also, like Jesus being prepared to suffer persecution and pain from others without retaliating and getting our own back. It involves a spirit of patience and long-suffering which is completely alien to the rights-obsessed and litigacious age in which we live. We need to remember Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount, Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Another aspect of this shared suffering is the tragic fact that, like our Lord, we cannot be happy that there are millions of people, some of them very close to us, who know not the Lord in their lives and worse, that in the case of many, they do not care.
The other factor is that our fellowship is made real and brought to final fruition through the work of the Holy Spirit. Many of Paul’s letters finish with the blessing, May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. (2 Corinthians 13.14) I remember someone once telling me that the best part of the service for him was the benediction. He hastened to add that this was no criticism of the sermon or choice of hymns, but was the simple fact that at the close of an inspiring service the words of the blessing were something vital that he could take away from the fellowship of the service that would help him face whatever the week might throw at him of good or ill. He had a valid point. Through the fellowship or communion of the Holy Spirit we are united to Christ, we are one with our fellow-Christians and we are blessed with the abiding power and presence of God’s love from which nothing can separate us. As usual Charles Wesley expresses these truths superbly with the words:
Sweetly may we all agree,
Touched with loving sympathy:
Kindly for each other care;
Every member feel its share.
Love, like death, hath all destroyed,
Rendered all distinctions void;
Names, and sects, and parties fall:
Thou, O Christ, art all in all
Douglas Graham April 2002