1.3 The Fellowship of Love

It is evident from Scripture that I have described thus far the very qualities of Life that would have entered into Adam and Eve if they had first eaten of the Tree of Life, John 14:20. This was God’s only intention. God knows no evil; He never intends death.

In our discussion thus far, we have not had opportunity to include further critical elements of this knowing of Jesus Sent into us by which we know the Father, age-unfolding Life. When our redemption enters this picture, all of these things will become deep and utterly personal to each one of us. But before we get to that part of our Salvation, we must see the full glory of the only thing God has ever intended for us.

Purpose. Always we begin with God, with the Father’s purpose. What does God want for Himself out of this whole thing? God wants Fellowship; for deep fellowship with another in the sharing of life’s experiences is the deepest meaning of Love. And Fellowship is full reciprocity, a back and forth in all things inside of a full equality of heart.

Having brought forth creation out from His own thoughts, God as Love seeks fellowship with each sentient being, at its level, above all things. But how can God enjoy this deepest of fellowships with His creation if God is not known, if an invisible God remains undetectable by any created capacity?

Covenant. This, then, is the central meaning of the Covenant God entered into with us through Jesus – “That all would know Me, from the least of them to the greatest – and I will be God inside of them and they will be a people inside of Me.”

Here in the Covenant a Symmorphic God is made clear, that God dwells inside of and makes Himself known through other persons together. Yet this God, who is a consuming Fire, must also have a Mediator, a buffer, between Himself and every created thing, for only through Another could we ever come near God. God comes to us through another Person, Christ Jesus, Word and Spirit always together, the Son out from God and the Spirit out from God, two always as one.

Life Shared. There is one God, the Father, and one Mediator between God and man, the Man, Christ Jesus [Word and Spirit as One] (Timothy).

Consider this representation of the Tree of Life, John 14:20. – If anyone loves Me, he will keep, guard, and watch over My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and will make Our home in intimate closeness and participation with him (John 14:23). This is the LIFE we share with God.

Divine Fellowship. John also penned these two lines. – Just as You, Father, are inside of Me and I inside of You, that they also might be inside of Us (John 17:22). – Truly our fellowship is companionship with and among the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ (1 John 1:3). Jesus takes us into Himself and shares with us the very Fellowship He enjoys with the Father.

God intends for us to live forever inside of that divine Fellowship, sharing every moment and particle of our lives with Him and He with us. This deepest of Fellowships is inward and personal to each one, yet there is an outward expression as well, for John also wrote, That you also might have fellowship with us.

A Visible Form for God. God gave us one another so that He could dwell in our midst as Love among us. We are members of one another and drink of the same Spirit (1 Corinthians 12). The same Fellowship we each enjoy with God through Christ Jesus, then becomes the outward and visible fellowship we enjoy with one another (Ephesians 4:16), for we know Christ Jesus in each other, always knitting us together.

In this way God gains for Himself a House, a Body, a visible form towards all heaven-earth, the Church. In this way God gets to be Himself inside His creation. In this way all will see and know their God, by the Fellowship we know together inside of Love.

For the Sake of Fellowship. Fellowship, then, is the heart of everything, the greatest value, sharing Hheart with God and with one another. Causing this Fellowship to exist is the passion and Desire of the Lord Jesus, as He covenanted with God, “Father, I desire that those whom You have given Me might be with Me where I am… that the love with which You loved Me might be inside of them, and I inside of them (John 17:24-26), and as He shares Himself with us, our only Life (Galatians 2:20).

For this reason, everything we do together and with God is done for fellowship, for its sake. We work together with God to protect this Fellowship, to give it scope and expression, and to send it forth as the knowledge of God into every particle of the entire creation.

For This Fellowship. It is for this Fellowship, between the Father and each one of us and among us together, through Jesus, that God already determined us to be symmorphosed with the image of His Son, sharing the same form with Jesus as the revelation of the Father (Romans 8:29).

For this Fellowship, Christ lives inside of our hearts through faith, written there as every Word God speaks, so that we, being rooted and grounded inside of love might be filled with all the fulness of a God of Fellowship (Ephesians 3:17-19 & 2 Corinthians 3:3). Rivers of Living Water flow out from our bellies, God made known to all, carrying the knowledge of this Fellowship into every place we go (John 7:37-39 & 2 Corinthians 2:14).

Fallen in Love. You see, when you have fallen in love with someone, all you want to do, all you can think about, is spending time together. It doesn’t matter so much what you do, just that you do it together, enjoying one another’s every expression. God has fallen in love with us. God likes to be with us, to laugh with us, to hear us talking, to share life with us. And we have fallen in love with God, we like to hear His voice and to share His Heart (1 John 4).

And then we see one another, and we see Jesus inside of and as one another, and we have fallen in love with the Church (1 Thessalonians 2). We can think of nothing we would rather do than to spend time together, to live life together, to share all things as married together (John 15:12). This is Fellowship.

Everything for Love. We do everything required to protect this Fellowship and the devotion of our brother’s and sister’s hearts. God has given us the authority, not only to cast down anything that would harm our fellowship together, but to give, even our own souls for one another (Revelation 12:11 & 1 John 3:16). We place our absolute confidence in God, putting all that is Christ Jesus upon ourselves, for the sake of this Fellowship. We seize hold of everything that is God now given to us for the sake of this Fellowship (Hebrews 3:6 & 14 & 10:19-22)

And it is this very Fellowship we enjoy with God and with one another that forms and shapes the entire creation into Life and Liberty, into Goodness and Joy (Revelation 12:10 & Romans 8:19-22).

Enthusiasm. The thing about God is that He is very personal and very real. God is always excited about what He does and He always wants to share it with us. And – God is always excited about what we do and He always wants us to share it with Him. And – nothing gives God more joy than when we are just as excited to share with God everything that He is and does.

Enthusiasm actually means to be filled with God.

God is family; God is Fellowship. The revelation of God to all creation forever is family, Christ Community, brethren dwelling together in unity, loving one another with pure hearts fervently.

Redemption. In this chapter, I have captured the essence of our glorious Salvation, its scope and its heart. But this is clearly not the whole picture, for redemption has not yet entered into its place. Redemption is everything God does through Jesus to win our hearts. Redemption has no need for “human rebellion” to be all that Jesus is, and sin does not alter its working in any way.

God does not know sin; the thought of forcing Himself upon anyone never enters His mind. And so the great issue of creation is this – When God speaks Jesus into me, is God telling me the truth? - Jesus must win my heart.