Archive for the 'The Principle of the Rope' Category

Fellowship is fundamentally a reality, not an experience

Published on May 6, 2011 in Church, Sacraments and The Principle of the Rope. 7 Comments

Most often , Christians speak of fellowship as an activity or subjective experience.  Yet, “fellowship” translates the Greek word “koinonia” and a better translation would be “invested partnership” or “a sharing together”: fellowship is an objective reality.

John Stott explains:

In common usage fellowship describes something subjective, the experience of warmth and security in each other’s presence, as in ‘We had a good fellowship together.’  But in biblical usage koinonia is not a subjective feeling at all, but an objective fact, expressing what we share in together.

So Paul could write ‘you share in God’s grace with me’ (Philippians 1:7); John could write ‘that you may have fellowship with us, and our fellowship is with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ’ (1 John 1:3); while Paul added ‘the fellowship of the Holy Spirit’ (2 Corinthians 13:14). Thus authentic fellowship is Trinitarian fellowship. It bears witness to our common share in the grace of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Is this not what makes us one?  We come from different countries, cultures, and churches. We have different temperaments, gifts, and interests. And yet we have this in common: the same God as our Heavenly Father; the same Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord; and the same Holy Spirit as our indwelling comforter.

It is our common participation (our koinonia) in God (Father, Son, and Spirit) which unites us. And this is most vividly expressed in the Lord’s Supper or Eucharist. For ‘is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is mot the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?’ (1 Corinthians 10:16).  John Stott, The Living Church, IVP, 2007, Downers Grove, 91.

Individualism is Fundamentally Misleading / John Murray

Published on November 19, 2007 in The Principle of the Rope. 0 Comments

Whether we realize it or not, people in the West are indoctrinated with individualism.  The symptoms are many:

  • “What I do is my own business.”
  • Don’t make discerning evaluations of any sort.
  • The idea of church discipline: that there is spiritual accountability to a local church, is despised.
  • “Parents refuse to consider how much they represent their children.”

Yet, as Murray so concisely argued, the idea of representation (that we are represented by others and represent others) is basic to life.

 ”The principle of representation underlines all the basic institutions of God in the world – - the family, the church, and the state.  In other words, solidarity and corporate relationship is a feature of God’s government.  We should expect the prototype to reside in racial solidarity.  At least, racial solidarity is congruous with what we find on a less inclusive scale in the other institutions of God’s (John Murray, Collected Works, Volume 2, page 59)..”

Indeed, the principle of representation (the opposite in some sense of individualism), is basic to understanding both how we all sinned in Adam and how we are justified in Christ.  Murray sums it up:

“By Adam sin-condemnation-death, by Christ righteousness -justification-life.  A way of thinking that makes us aloof to solidarity with Adam makes us inhabile to the solidarity by which salvation comes.  Thus the relevance of the Adamic administration to what is most basic, on the one hand, and most necessary on the other, in our human situation appointment (John Murray, Collected Works, Volume 2, page 59).”

 Said another way, if you insist on total individualism, then you are insisting that Christ cannot represent you.