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The association of believers in the experience
of their common salvation, or in the various
consequences, expressions, and benefits of
salvation. Although the idea is most explicit in
the NT, it is adumbrated in the OT where the
people of God share a common calling and
inheritance as joint beneficiaries of the
covenant made with them by God; they
consequently share in the land and its fruits,
in common worship and law, and are required on
the one hand to share their material prosperity
with their poor neighbors and on the other hand
to abstain from common life with peoples outside
the commonwealth of Israel (cf. Rom. 9:4f). Some
NT descriptions of “communion” clearly allude to
this OT adumbration, e.g., Col. 1:12.
Luke’s only use of the noun
koinoµnía
(he does not use the verb) occurs in a passage
of singular interest. The three thousand
converts at Pentecost “devoted themselves to the
apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the
breaking of bread and the prayers.” “Fellowship”
here has its own definite article, and the
phrase “to the fellowship” should stand as a
separate object of“ devoted themselves,”
coordinate with “to the apostles’ teaching.”
While the precise meaning here of “the
fellowship” has been much discussed, it probably
is at least close to being a term for the
Jerusalem church seen as an “association.” The
verb proskarteréoµ
(“devote oneself”) generally means “attend
regularly” or “actively engage in,” which
suggests that “the fellowship” was a visible
activity, not merely a sense of spiritual
affinity. Thus the NEB renders: “they met
constantly to hear the apostles teach, and to
share the common life.” C. Anderson Scott
suggested that heµ
koinoµnía
here represented the Aramaic term h\‡b_űrâ,
which “was in current use to describe a group of
companions or partners, sharers in a common life
(e.g., students at a college),” and that its use
may have gone back to the days when Jesus was
still on earth, as a designation for His circle
of disciples (Christianity Accordingg to St.
Paul [1927], pp. 159f.).
Although Acts 2:42 is describing the external
rather than the internal character of the
believers’ common life, this is perhaps the only
place in the NT where
koinoµné?a is used as a term for this
Common
Life
in general. Elsewhere,
koinoµné?a is used with reference
either to the association of particular
groups among believers (especially the
association of Gentiles with Jews), or else to
particular benefits that believers share
in common.
The most remarkable instance of “communion” in
the NT is that which brought Jew and Gentile
into common enjoyment of the same spiritual
benefits (although the similar “communion” of
male and female, bond and free, was little less
remarkable). The Gentile, says Paul, is joint
share-holder (synkoinoµno?s)
with Jews in the rich root of the olive tree
(Rom. 11:17). More particularly, the gentile
believers (of Macedonia and Greece) have come to
share (koinoµne?oµ)
the spiritual benefits ofthe saints at Jerusalem
(Rom. 15:27). The securing ofthis communion is a
central benefit ofthe gospel (see esp Eph.
2:11–21) though many problems were encountered
in the attempt to give practical expression to
fellowship at table and in other aspects of
common life (Acts 15; Gal. 2; Rom. 14). The
references to “common faith” (Tit. 1:4) and “our
common salvation” (Jude 3) may well refer to the
writers’ being Jews and their readers Gentiles
(cf. 2 Pet. 1:1, “to those who have obtained a
faith of equal standing with ours”; and Acts
15:9).
This
koinoµna? spiritual things, for which
the Jews must give and the Gentiles receive,
leads in turn to a
koinoµna?
in material goods, for which the Gentiles must
give and the poor of the saints in Jerusalem
receive (Rom. 12:13; 15:26; 2 Cor. 8:4; 9:13). A
similar
koinoµna?,
with reciprocal giving and receiving of both
spiritual and material benefits, exists between
“him who is taught the word” and “him who
teaches” (Gal. 6:6), An extension of such
fellowship is the support of an apostle in his
further labors by a church that he has founded.
Paul thanks the Philippians for such support
(“partnership in the gospel,” Phil. 1:5), but
regrets that other churches have not had
fellowship with him in this way (Phil. 4:15).
Although in contexts such as these
koinoµna?
comes nearly to mean “give” or “receive” a
share, Paul’s insistence on the principle of
equality (iso?teµs)
of participation shows that the basic idea of
i’a remains the common sharing, rather than the
incidental giving or receiving that may be
necessary to secure such fellowship (2 Cor.
8:14).
In 1 Cor. 1:9ff the common sharing of Christ is
set over against a party spirit that absurdly
implies that Christ is the peculiar possession
of a segment of the Church. “‘I am of Christ.’
Has Christ been apportioned [i.e., given as the
exclusive portion of one section]?” No, the
whole people of God shares together in Christ,
as the type in 1 Cor. 10:4 indicates. Cf. He.
3:14: “We share in Christ,” A corollary of this
is the fellowship of believers in Christ’s
sufferings (Phil. 3:10; 1 Pet. 4:13), although
the
koioµné?a here is strictly a sharing
in suffering by both Christ and the believers.
Likewise believers partake together of the Holy
Spirit (He. 6:4). This is probably the meaning
of “the fellowship of the Spirit” in Phil. 2:1
and 2 Cor. 13:14 (see NBD, loccit The corporate
reception of the Spirit by believers (Gal. 3:2,
5; Acts 1:5; 2:4) is obviously related. Compare
1 Cor. 12:13 with 10:4 implying an identity
between drinking of Christ and drinking of the
Spirit. OT types and promises lie behind these
ideas, as also behind the pictures of fellowship
in “calling” and “inheritance” in He. 3:1 and
Col. 1:12.
Any common meal is a form of
koioµné?a inasmuch as a number of
persons share together in a reality external to
them all. Where a meal is associated with a
religious, object, there is inevitably a deeper
koioµné?a in the object that the meal
represents. When Israelites joined together in a
sacrificial meal, they were really united in the
altar whence the meal came and whence it derived
its meaning. Likewise, those who joined in
feasts in idol temples were actually united in
the idols, or rather in the demons that were the
reality beyond the idols. So, argues Paul in 1
Cor. 10:14ff those who sit and partake together
of the cup of blessing and of the broken bread
in Christian assembly must know that they are
associated together in the blood of Christ and
in the body of Christ, i.e., in Christ
crucified, since the whole purpose of eating the
bread and drinking the cup is to remember Christ
in relation to His death (11:23–26), Thus, while
Paul does not actually designate the Lord’s
supper by the title of “communion,” he asserts
that to share together in it is a fellowship or
communion with one another in the death of
Christ. It weaken, the force of this passage to
restrict the meaning of
koioµné?a in 1 Cor. 10:16 to
“partaking” merely; the full sense of
“communion” is intended. There is an objective
reality, the death of Christ; and the unity of
believers springs from their all being joined
together in that death.
“Fellowship” has two aspects here: first, the
sharing in divine revelation by the apostles and
those whom he addresses, as a result of
apostolic testimony (v 3a; cf. II above);
second, an advanced fellowship stated explicitly
only here in the NT: “Our fellowship is with the
Father.” The idea of a common life with the
Father is striking, but it is not developed (cf.
2 Pet. 1:4). Possibly John speaks this way
because he considers “light” to be the bond of
unity between the Father and believers. Our
fellowship with Him (and consequently with each
other) depends on our walking “in the light” as
He is “in the light.”
[1]Bromiley, Geoffrey W., ed,
International Standard Bible
Encyclopedia, (Grand Rapids, MI:
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company)
2001, c1988.
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