50 years of the Australian Unity Agreement (11)

What is 'fellowship'? (4)

I'd like to elaborate on a comment I made in my last post:

If we are in fellowship with God and with Jesus then it will automatically follow that we will be in fellowship with each other.

This is what John said clearly in his first letter: " But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another" (1:7). In other words, we don't have to agree to have fellowship; we don't have to decide if fellowship is possible; we don't even have to formulate a basis for fellowship. If we walk in the light we have fellowship with one another. Fellowship just happens when people walk in the light.

In my opinion, the Unity Agreement failed in Australia because it was unnecessary and because brethren failed to grasp the simple truth that fellowship with each other automatically flows out of our fellowship with God. The error was compunded by confusing fellowship with the ritual of Communion, or Breaking Bread.

Let's come back to John's expression "if we walk in the light". Some Christadelphians claim that by this John meant that if have been enlightened and understand certain fundamental doctrinal truths then we can have fellowship with other people who have also been enlightened and believe the same doctrinal truths. However, John was actually arguing against the notion of enlightenment. Most scholars agree that the background to John's letters was the growing movement of Gnosticism (click here or on the Gnosticism label on the right for other messages I've posted about this). The Gnostics were named from the Greek word gnosis = to know, because they believed they knew things that others didn't, and that this knowledge of the truth was what saved them. John argues against this in a number of ways throughout these letters.

The modern notion held by some Christadelphians that "walking in the light" means understanding certain doctrinal truths is simply a revival of the Gnosticism that John was opposing. In fact, if we read on we see that John explains what he means by walking in the light. In the next chapter he says "Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him." (2:9-11).

To walk in the light is to love your brother. To hate your brother is to be in darkness. The idea of walking in light is about the loving relationships we develop with each other, flowing out of and reflecting the truth that God is love (4:7). In the previous verse John said "I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining." Here John equates "truth" with "light" and relates it to the "new command" he is giving them. What was this new command? It was no different to Jesus' "new command": "A new command I give you: Love one another" (John 13:34), and was the same command that John later said was not a new command at all "but one we have had from the beginning [i.e. of Jesus' preaching]. I ask that we love one another" (2 Jn 1:5).

John may have picked up the expression to "walk in the light" from the Hebrew Bible where it is used of living in God's presence (Psalm 89:15; 90:8) and in peaceful and harmonious relationships with others (Isaiah 2:4-5).

So this "truth" or "light" was the command to love and to "walk in the light" was to live a life of love. John went on to say that the Gnostics practiced separation from other believers who didn't believe the same as they did on doctrinal matters, and this this separation was evidence of their hatred for Christians who were ignorant of "the truth" as they understood it (see my post on the separatists mentioned in John's letter here).

Does any of this sound familiar? The clauses in the Australian Unity Agreement which deal with 'fellowship' only say when to disfellowship and how. It has failed to produce harmony because it is based on this Gnostic idea that "the truth" has to be preserved by separating from people who are ignorant of it or don't believe it in the same way. On the other hand, John was appealing for practical demonstrations of brotherly love as the consequence of being in a loving and intimate relationship with the God of love, and that this, and only this, would produce true fellowship between believers.

The hypothetical examples I've already given in this series are also obvious enough that fellowship simply happens. It happens automatically when people who are in relationship with God come together, and it happens regardless of whether they 'Break Bread' together or gather in a religious service. It can't be legislated against, agreed to, or prevented. It just happens.

Doctrine & Conduct (17) - Separatists

The letters of John provide us with an example from the New Testament of how a doctrinal issue affected conduct, and how the early church dealt with this.

The dating of John's letters and the fourth Gospel are the subjects of speculation. We cannot know exactly when they were written, or in what order. It is generally agreed by most scholars that the Gospel of John, or at least an early version of it, was written first but that as a result of confusion or misinterpretation arising from this Gospel John later wrote an explanation or commentary that we now know as the First Epistle of John (although it doesn't have any of the usual characteristics of a 'letter' or 'epistle' and it would be more accurate to regard it as an explanatory treatise on the Gospel). It's possible that 2 John and 3 John were written as covering letters to individuals or churches and sent along with the treatise we call 1 John. It's also possible that around the same time a new beginning and conclusion were added to the fourth Gospel (which would explain why the opening and concluding verses of the Gospel and 1 John are so similar).

Precisely what the issues were that John was addressing in 1 John is also open to speculation. Based on evidence from Iranaeus (c. AD 180), the Nag Hammadi texts, and elsewhere, we can be fairly certain that John was dealing with an early form of the philosophical movement we now call Gnosticism (from the Greek gnosis = knowledge) because knowledge played a major and central role in their understanding of salvation.

What we do know from 1 John is that there was a connection between the doctrines taught by certain people in the churches with which John was involved, and their behaviour. It appears that the immediate reason for writing this treatise is that these people had recently broken away from the other Christians in the area: "They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us" (1 John 2:19). From this verse this group of people are commmonly referred to as the "separatists" or "secessionists" for convenience.

From 1 John we can determine that the doctrine which led to this division involved the nature of Christ and whether or not He "has come in the flesh" (4:2). Most scholars have concluded that the separatists embraced a Christology which elevated Christ's divinity at the expense of His humanity (e.g. see G.M. Burge The Epistles of John). However, John pays at least as much attention to the ethical behaviour that resulted from this teaching as he does to the theological issues. For John it was not simply a matter of whether their theology was right or wrong, but about the implications it had for Christian living. The separatists boasted that they "know God", but they hated their fellow Christians who did not have the same "knowledge" (2:9; 4:20). A large part of 1 John deals with the importance of love as the defining characteristic of a Christian (e.g. 3:11-18; 4:8-10).

"While christology was the main battleground in the community, the tangible expression of these disagreements came in the form of open conflict and hostility. Faulty christology spilled into unethical conduct" (G.M. Burge).

John says that the separatists are "not obedient" and they are not "walking in the light". There is no evidence that they were living immoral lives. What made them "disobedient" was that they were intolerant of those who disagreed with them, and conflict resulted from their superior 'knowledge'. John refers to this intolerance as "hating" their fellow Christians.

Eventually this intolerance led to the group with superior knowledge separating themselves from the rest of the Christian community, and John says that their secession was evidence that they never truly belonged.

I believe there is a warning here for modern believers who make their knowledge of certain doctrines a reason for separating from other Christians, or feeling superior to them. Divisions within the Christadelphian community have largely been over fine details of doctrine. Sociologist Bryan Wilson observed that these differences are often of such a detailed nature that an outsider wouldn't be able to see any difference at all. However, the heatedness of the conflict, the harsh words exchanged and the abiding nature of the divisions are often out of all proportion to the importance of the doctrinal details themselves. I believe this is precisely the kind of thing John is talking about: a doctrinal difference which leads to 'hatred' of fellow-Christians.

Going beyond the divisions within the Christadelphian community, I personally believe that Christadelphian separation from the wider Christian community should also be judged as the kind of 'separatism' that John condemned. Differences of understanding should be discussed and healthy dialogue encouraged. Common ground should be established and bridges built. I am not suggesting that doctrinal distinctives should be ignored or forgotten. However, fellow Christians should always be treated with respect and in love, and acknowledged as brethren.

It seems to me that when Paul dealt with the problem of Judaisers and legalists, and when John dealt with the issue of the separatists that they were dealing with the same kind of things that our Lord taught against when He encouraged inclusion, not exclusion, and when He demonstrated that holiness, not defilement, was contagious. There is no need to separate from people with differing views - we won't be 'defiled' or contaminated by our contact with them. To the contrary, when light comes into contact with darkness it will always overcome the darkness. Holiness is transferred, not defilement. 'Knowledge' does not transform people - love does.

But it can't be for everyone!

In my previous post I said there were two main movements which developed early on in the first century of the Christian church:

1. Exclusivism
2. Gnosticism

I commented on Gnosticism - the belief that salvation was obtained by understanding certain truths which were hidden from those with a superficial knowledge. A modern counterpart to Gnosticism is that we are saved by having "correct doctrine" and that only those people who believe "the truth" as it is defined by the particular group will be saved. Some Christadelphians come perilously close to being Gnostics in this sense.

The main heresy which Paul resisted was Exclusivism. We encounter this movement in Paul's writings whenever he dealt with the problem of "the Judaisers". While many people think of Paul's writings to be dealing with legalism versus grace, the problem with the Judaisers was not so much one of legalistic observance of law as it was of exclusivism. Several New Testament scholars over recent years have contributed a great deal in this area, including E.P. Sanders, James D.G. Dunn, N.T. Wright, and others. They have shown that Paul's argument with the Judaisers was not about Christian grace versus Jewish legalism but was rather about the status of Gentiles in the church. It was a controversy about whether Gentiles should be accepted into the new covenant people of God as Gentiles or whether they should first convert to Judaism and become Jews. Christianity, after all, was a Jewish religion.

Now, whether or not these new perspectives in contemporary New Testament scholarship on Paul's theology are totally correct, they certainly highlight what was a very real concern of Paul's.* Some members of the church were refusing to acknowledge other converts as genuine believers and required that they do "something more" in order to be accepted. The same doctrine exists today amongst those Christians who refuse to acknowledge other believers as genuine unless they adopt the beliefs and practices of their group or denomination. In it's denominational form it manifests as the view that "only Christadelphians/Jehovah's Witnesses/non-Trinitarians/Trinitarians can be saved". I've seen it go further amongst Christadelphians with the declaration that only members of certain Christadelphian fellowships can be saved! This attitude has produced what we could call "remnant theology" i.e. the view that only "a remnant" will be saved and that most believers are really deluded and only a handful really know "the Truth" which is essential to salvation. (I've actually heard of one Christadelphian fellowship who, when their numbers had dwindled to only 8 people, claimed that they would be the only 8 to be saved "just like Noah's ark"!)

But remnant theology is wrong. God's offer of salvation is inclusive, not exclusive. He is generous with his grace and offers life and life in abundance. Jesus' parables are often about the generosity of God and the lengths to which He will go to secure the salvation of a sinner. In The Revelation John sees a vision of the saved: "a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language" (7:9). This is hardly remnant theology.

* For a good summary of whether the issue was exclusivism or legalism in Paul's writings see this article by Mark M. Mattison.

There must be something more!

Throughout the history of the church there have been groups which have argued that "it can't really be that simple!" and have found creative ways of making the Gospel more complicated, sometimes completely obscuring the original message in the process.

It's a trend which began in the first century, even before the New Testament was completed. There were two main movements which developed early on:

1. Exclusivism
2. Gnosticism

I'd like to comment first on Gnosticism. The underlying ideologies in Gnosticism began even before Christianity and may have entered the church through Jewish Gnostics who converted to Christianity. The word gnostic comes from the Greek gnosis "to know" and the Gnostics were thus named because they believed all was not what it appeared to be on the surface and in order to be saved you had to have a special "knowledge" of the "hidden truths". John's writings appear to have been written to counter this directly, and he encourages his readers with the reassurance that they do indeed know the truth, and that yes, it really is very simple! It's possible that in some of Paul's writings he dealt with Gnosticism as a secondary problem, although his main concern was exclusivism, which I'll comment on in a later post.

Now, while I'm not suggesting that Christadelphianism has adopted any of the uniquely Gnostic doctrines, I am concerned about the emphasis (especially in some Christadelphian circles) on the need for knowledge and correct doctrine as being "essential for salvation". This actually drives some people away from Christ because they may feel inadequate about their academic or intellectual ability to grasp all the fine details. I've met a lot of young people who have delayed baptism (some never getting baptised at all) because they "don't know enough". While Jesus demanded a decision from his listeners and called them to repentance stressing the urgency of a response, Christadelphians typically have a long learning process before anyone can be baptised. The process can take years, and some people have even been denied baptism because they were confused, uncertain, or lacked knowledge about fine details.

No wonder that both John and Paul resisted the trend towards gaining knowledge as a means of salvation.