Collection › LCMS Convention Workbook (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1969 · 48th Convention › Sheet 559
LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1969, Sheet 559

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

528 THEOLOGY OF FELLOWSHIP

C. GOD HAS RESTORED THE FELLOWSHIP
IN CHRIST

1. As Promised Under the Old Covenant

As God established fellowship in the beginning, so
He also took the initiative in restoring it after the Fall.
When man hid himself from the presence of God, it was
the Lord God Himself who sought man (Gen. 3:8, 9)
and called man to account (Gen.3:16-19) and gave
man the first promise of redemption (Gen.3:15).

The Old Testament is the record of the continuing
fellowship-initiative of God. God, in choosing Abraham
and the nation descended from him for a life in cove-
nant relation with Himself, wrote large in history His
will to have communion with men (Gen. 12: 2-3; 17:7).

This covenant is the order established by God in
which man is privileged to live under the promise of
God and is at the same time called upon to live under
His Law. The Law calls man to that communion which
God willed as the normal structure of creation and
judges him for his failure to live in that structure ac-
cording to the divine will. The promise points man
beyond divine judgment to the redemptive act of God
which is to restore Israel and all men to the unbroken
communion with God and with one another according
to His gracious will (Jer. 31:31-34; Ezek. 34: 22-25; 34:30
to 31; 37:26: 2 Sam. 7:12-17: Is. 9:2: 11:1, 4, 6, 12; 54:10.
Cp. Is., chapters 42 and 49).

2. As Fulfilled in the New Covenant

THE NEW COVENANT of fellowship between God and
man which God promised in the Old Testament (Jer.
31:31), He established in the sending of His Son Jesus
Christ into the world. The purpose of God in the In-
carnation was not only to redeem man but also to bring
man into fellowship with Himself (Gal. 4:4, 5: 1 Cor.
1:9). The Word, the Eternal Son of God, was made
flesh, and thus God Himself tented among us (John
1:14).

In the words of institution of the Lord’s Supper,
Christ interprets His whole mission as the establish-
ment of the promised covenant (Matt. 26:28: 1 Cor. 11:
25). By His sacrificial atoning death and victorious
resurrection Christ consummated and fulfilled the old
covenant, making good that which the perpetual failure
of man had destroyed (Jer. 31:32). Our Lord has thus
designated His life. death, and resurrection as that great
reconciling act of God which Paul describes in his
Epistle to the Corinthians (2 Cor. 5:19).

II. God in Creating Faith Bestows
the Blessing of Fellowship
A. FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD IN CHRIST

When Christ had completed His work upon the cross
and had reconciled all mankind to God, He committed
to His church the Word of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:19),
with the command that they should preach it to all the
world (Acts 1:8: Luke 24:46-48; ep. Acts 2:4-12).
Through this Word men are summoned tc faith, and

faith is created in them (1 Peter 1:23-25; Rom, 10:17;
Rom. 1:16, 17: James 1:18).

The call to faith is simultaneously the call into fel-
lowship (1 Cor. 1:9). In the Gospel God effectively
calls man into fellowship; in Baptism God initiates man
into fellowship (Gal. 3:26-29): in the Lord’s Supper
God strengthens and confirms man in the fellowship
into which He Himself has called and placed him
(1 Cor. 10:16, 17). This fellowship, created and sus-
tained by the Holy Spirit, makes the Christian a par-
taker in Christ, a child of God, and therefore also an
heir of God in time and in eternity (Rom. 8:16, 17; Gal.
3: 26-29: Rom. 10:9-13).

B. FELLOWSHIP WITH ALL BELIEVERS
IN CHRIST

Those who have fellowship with God through faith
n Christ are also in fellowship with one another
(1 John 1:3). As faith makes all men children of God,
so it also makes them all brethren in Christ (Gal. 3:26
and 27). This fellowship transcends every barrier cre-
ated by God or set up by man and brings about the
highest unity possible among men, the unity in Christ
Jesus (Gal. 3:28). This transcending of all barriers is
beautifully described in Eph. 2:11-22.

III. In Bestowing This Fellowship God Claims
for It the Whole Life of Man
A. IN THE EXERCISING OF THIS FELLOWSHIP

The life of the apostolic church is a striking exem-
plification of the fact that God is claiming the whole
life of man for fellowship when He bestows the gift of
fellowship with Himself in His Son Jesus Christ. Hardly
had the day of Pentecost fully passed and the church
been founded, when a very active exercise of fellowship
developed within the congregation. Of the church, in
the period immediately after Pentecost, we read, “And
they continued steadfastly in the ... fellowship.” As
Acts further indicates, this exercise of fellowship, like
the fellowship itself, is always mediated by Christ as He
is present and active in the apostolic Word and in the
sacraments (Acts 2:42: 6:2, 4: 8:14: 9:10-19: 15:36: 20:
7-12).

Thus the exercise of fellowship consists in an activity
dominated by the Word, an activity involving the total
personality. For example, the men of the first church
act with and for one another in worship (Acts 2:42);
in prayer and intercession (Acts 4:24-31: 12:5; 1:12
to 14): in rebuke and correction (Acts 15:5, 6, 22-29;
Gal, 2:11-14: 1 Cor. 5:1-5: 2 Cor. 2:5-11); in instruction
(Acts 2:42; 3:41, 42: 18:24-26): in social intercourse
(Acts 2:46); in removing unfounded suspicions (Acts
9:26, 27): and in an economic aid which comprehends
with a ready and active sympathy the needy brethren
both at home and abroad (Acts 4:32, 34-37: 6:1-6; 11:
27-30). This activity is faith acting through love (Gal.
5:6).