| Among liberal churches of Christ today the “unity in diversity” movement is growing. It started I think about 35 years ago when men like Levi Garret and Karl Ketcherside began teaching some new doctrines regarding fellowship and the work of the church. They taught that as long as we agree on some “core doctrines” (such as baptism and deity of Christ) it was OK for us to disagree on things that they called “non-salvation issues.” Even though many studies have been conducted, much preaching done, and many articles written to refute Ketcherside’s doctrines, his theories have continued to spread among the liberal churches. A year or two ago Abilene Christian University published a new book entitled “The Crux of the Matter” in which the authors (liberal ACU professors) attempted to describe the current state of “The Church” and offered a solution that sounded not unlike the false doctrines of Ketcherside. (An elder of a liberal church gave me a copy and asked my opinion of their theories.) They advanced a “core doctrine” idea, and said that if we in the churches of Christ all agreed on those doctrines, if wouldn’t matter how we felt about the missionary society, supporting orphan homes, qualifications of elders, instrumental music, and even the necessity of baptism! What really mattered, they said, was faith in Jesus, and all of our differences and problems could be resolved if we just agreed on the “core doctrines.” What is the result of such teachings? The Calvinists (Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and other Protestant churches) are still sharply divided. They have their own unique creeds to differentiate them from the other churches. The liberals who have embraced the “core doctrine” theories are equally divided, and the more liberal they get the more worldly they become, for they are opening their doors to all the strange doctrines of the world, holding hands with all the false teachers, and scaring away those who still respect Bible authority. I know of so-called churches of Christ that allow people recently converted from denominations to teach their children’s Bible classes while those who are well-grounded in Bible truths stand aside. I know of so-called churches of Christ that participate in the fellowship activities of local denominations, such as ministerial alliances, outreach programs, prison ministries, public prayer meetings, and even re-enactments of Bible stories like the birth and resurrection of Jesus for Christmas & Easter! They are truly holding hands with the denominations. And the further they go, the more people are leaving the liberal churches for the more conservative ones. Let’s examine the relationship between faith and fellowship and see what the Bible says about them. And let us start in 2 Cor. 5:7 (“for we walk by faith, not by sight.”). In this chapter, Paul compares fleshly conditions to spiritual conditions. Our flesh, he says suffers and cries out and longs to be clothed in spiritual clothing. Nevertheless, he says that we continue to have courage because we know that whether we are in the flesh or in the spirit, we want to be pleasing to God, and we know we will appear before Christ’s Judgment Seat. In the middle of all that, he says that we walk by faith, not by sight. If we were walking by sight, we would be living according what man thinks is desirable and beneficial. We would be following our own lusts and living according to our own plans. We would substitute God’s Will for man’s will. We wouldn’t care about spiritual things or about pleasing God. But those of us who desire to live pleasing to God, those of us who want to be ready to stand before Christ for judgment, we don’t walk by sight. We don’t walk accordingly to the flesh and worldly desires. We walk by faith. We walk by what God has given us and by the conviction we have in His Word. We walk by the directions given by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel. We walk by faith. But the denominations and the liberals make the same claims. They claim that they obey the Bible. They claim to support the Gospel. They claim to believe in God’s Word and obey it. They claim to walk by faith. In fact, one liberal elder once chastised me for saying that clapping should not be allowed in the church service. He said that the people who did that were acting by their faith, and that I should not interfere with their faith. So let’s take a step back and see exactly what kind of faith they are walking by. Let’s look at Rom. 10:17 (“So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ”). When this liberal elder told me not to interfere with someone else’s faith, I mentioned this verse and asked him where they obtained their faith that clapping was allowed. If faith comes by hearing, then surely they must have gotten their faith in clapping somewhere in the Word of Christ, somewhere in the Gospel, somewhere in the New Testament. Apply this principle to EVERY SINGLE DOCTRINE you encounter. You cannot have FAITH in something that you cannot find in the Bible because faith comes from hearing God’s Word. If you didn’t hear it in God’s Word, then you can’t believe in it and you can’t call if part of your personal faith! Romans 14:23 says, “Whatever is not from faith is sin.” Since faith comes by hearing the Gospel, anything that you believe in that you can’t find in God’s Word is a SIN for you to believe! So for people who want to believe instrumental music and clapping are acceptable in worship, they MUST produce the Scripture that supports their faith. The people who want to believe it is OK for the church to support colleges and hospitals and orphanages MUST produce the Scripture that supports their faith. If you apply this principle to every doctrine, you can easily and quickly weed out the error from the truth and you can defeat all the lies Satan has planted in the denominations and minds of men. In short, walking by faith means walking according to the Gospel. You can be saved by faith by obeying the Gospel. You can live by faith by obeying the Gospel. But if your salvation came from something other than the Gospel, or if it falls short of all the Gospel teaches concerning salvation, then your salvation is not by faith and you don’t even have salvation. The liberals often run to Romans 14 for help regarding faith and fellowship, but they don’t find it there. Romans 14 teaches us to accept the one who is weak in faith, but it does NOT say to accept one who has a faith that is not found in God’s Word. It does not tell us to fellowship with people who believe in false doctrines. It does not authorize us to hold hands with false teachers. Of course the liberals and the denominations want throw in a lot of doctrines under the umbrella of Romans 14. They want to throw in instrumental music, institutionalism, missionary societies, the days of creation, the deity of Christ, and a lot of other topics that are not mentioned there. Romans 14 says exactly what it is talking about: what people eat and what days people esteem more highly than others. And I believe this is a comparison of the traditions of Jewish Christians to the traditions of Gentile Christians. Some Jew Christians were still clinging to the observance of certain holy days and to abstaining from certain foods, while the Gentile Christians were not. This had nothing to do with the work or worship of the church. It was a matter of liberty that God has given: the liberty for a Christian to eat and drink what he wants and the liberty to regard a day as he wants. The guiding principle that Paul gave them regarding this was “not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother’s way” (Rom. 14:13). As long as they obeyed this principle, they could continue without sin. If we could fit instrumental music here in Rom. 14, then we could throw out the Scriptures that say to sing with the heart, which clearly exclude man-made instruments. No false doctrine can fit in Romans 14. No compromise of God’s Word can fit in Romans 14. This Scripture does NOT teach that we must accept the various doctrines advocated and believed in by different people. It only teaches that we must not condemn people who exercise the liberty Christ has given and that we must not do anything that causes another Christian to stumble. In fact, if we look at it more closely we see that we MUST CONDEMN those who cause other people to stumble, so we MUST condemn false doctrines. Just a couple of chapters later, in Rom. 16:17-18, Paul tells them “Now I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them. For such men are slaves, not of our Lord Christ but of their own appetites; by their smooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting.” We can take it one step further and see that God condemns those who would mingle the church with sinners and human organizations in 2 Cor. 6:14-16a. From this verse we learn that the church cannot extend fellowship to non-believers, to false teachers, to anything that is contrary to the Gospel. So how do faith and fellowship work together. John answers this in 1 John 1:7 (“but if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” Now I want you to understand what I mean when I say fellowship. The Greek word for fellowship is “koinonia” which according to Vine’s Expository Dictionary means, “communion, fellowship, sharing.” When John wrote about fellowship here, he was referring to a spiritual communion that Christians have with God and with each other. When Peter & John extended “the right hand of fellowship” to Paul in Gal. 2:9, they were acknowledging the fact that they were on the same path of Christianity, that they served the same God, and that they were brethren in Christ. It was a spiritual bond. When Paul told the Corinthians, “that you all agree, that there be no divisions among you, but you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment” (1 Cor. 1:10) he was encouraging them to walk by the same Spirit, by the same Gospel, so they could be united in fellowship with Christ and with one another. When Peter (2 Pet. 1:1) wrote “to those of like precious faith” he was writing to Christians with whom he shared a common spiritual bond in serving Christ. So when I say fellowship, I want you to understand that we are talking about spiritual sharing with Christ and with one another. Colly Caldwell once said that we have “fellowship through followship.” He meant that if you are following the Gospel and you are obeying in faith, then you have fellowship with Christ; and if I follow the Gospel and obey in faith, then I have fellowship with Christ; and consequently since we both have fellowship with Christ we also have fellowship with one another. Our fellowship with one another is THROUGH Christ based on our common faith in Him; if it is not through obedient faith in Christ then it is through Satan or there is no fellowship at all. So you see, faith and fellowship are inseparable. If I have fellowship with Christ, then I have fellowship with everyone who has fellowship with Christ. Even if I don’t personally like the person because of their personality or for whatever reason, I cannot deny that I have fellowship with them as long as they have fellowship with Christ. In conclusion, our faith must be based on the Gospel. Our fellowship is based on our faith in Christ. Therefore, we cannot fellowship with anything that is contrary to the Gospel, and we are bound in fellowship to all those who support the Gospel in its entirety. by David F. Sims |