Imaging Christ in His Relation to Man in Fellowship
Consider how Christ related to people during his earthly ministry. Christ used people to know and love the Father better. He saw the glory of God reflected through people. He understood what fellowship between people ought to be like and what it ought to encourage. Consider some of these questions below in relation to Christian fellowship and in relation to marriage. You will see that Christ was able to do each of these things in his fellowship with man. We can too with his enabling grace!
What would non-problem centered enjoyment of each other look like in your Christian fellowship? This enjoyment of each other is in the Lord, as his gift, not selfishly enjoying for the sake of your own pleasure or comfort alone. What questions can you ask each other just to get to know each other better? Try these with your prayer partner or friend for some good dialogue on what fellowship is doing for you and in you. Put each other’s name in the blank.
1. Does friendship with _____________ image Christ’s friendship and acceptance of you?
2. Does fellowship with ________________ bring you more of God’s glory, in that you see evidence of the Intra-trinitarian communion verbs imaged in your relationship?
3. When you fellowship with _________________ do you know God better in his character reflected through ______________ and praise God for this display of his glory to you?
4. Do you affirm the glimpses of glory you see in ____________?
5. Do you define _______________ as a new creature in Christ or define _____________ according to his/her old nature (worldly point of view) and judge him/her?
6. Do you see _______________ as from God, existing through God and returning to God, for his glory (Rom 11:36)?
7. Are you using _______________ to incite human passions (lusts) or God-passions (using people to enjoy God)?
8. Can you rejoice in each other because of your partnership in the gospel, believing that God will complete the work he has begun in __________________ (Phil 1:3-6)?
9. Do you have a vision for who _____________ will become in Christ?
10. Do you have joy and patience in facilitating _____________’s growth?
11. Do you have a realistic view about how ______________ needs to change or repent?
12. Have you humbled yourself and opened your life to correction and encouragement from ______________?
13. Are you idealizing relationship as supposedly bringing you happiness when you should focus on how you & your friend are growing in holiness through the relationship?
14. Are you an instrument of redemption in _______________’s life?
15. Are your affections (love, joy & delight) set on Jesus as your friend that you might image that friendship of Jesus to ______________?
Reflect God’s Image in Christian Fellowship
Second you should consider some basic principles for biblical Christian fellowship. We should be bearers of God's image to one another in fellowship. We have fellowship with God and with each other (1 John 1:3). “God is light; in him is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin,” (1 John 1:6-7). We have fellowship as we walk in the light together, imaging his holiness, seeking his mercy to cleanse us. This means we show his character to each other: love, patience, joy, peace, gentleness, (the fruits of the Spirit).
We enter into communion with God, define believers as participants in this communion, reflect our experience to each other, image our God-communion (and his derivative attributes) in our human relationships and promote participation in the Trinitarian communion in the church:
We know each other, listen to each other, belong to each other (possess), give to each other, reveal truth to each other testify to each other, work together with each other, honor each other, delight in each other, love each other, live with each other in marriage and family (inhabit), and in marriage there is a physical indwelling through the sexual relationship.
We also reflect God's derivative attributes to each other. These derivative attributes that we share with God (in contrast to God’s perfective attributes, which we do not share and differentiate us from God). Also the mutual fellowship verbs and the derivative attributes are related, but I have not been able to see the complete overlap of these categories yet. For example, love is both an attribute and a verb of fellowship. Delight as a verb of fellowship may overlap with righteousness, holy jealously, contentment and unity, but the overlap is more conjectural.
How Does Christ Glorify God?
The Church is recreated in the image of God, imaging the verbs defining the relations within the persons of the Trinity. This is what it means to be filled with the Spirit and gives proper evidence of the Spirit’s power and presence. We reflect these actions as part of our Christian fellowship with each other.
The following verbs all describe more detailed aspects of how the Triune God glorifies his own name (also called the fellowship within the Trinity) which he imparts to his church by the Spirit: knows, loves, delights, honors, testifies, reveals, possesses, inhabits (with you), indwells (in you), listens, works together with, praises, gives. These verbs can be demonstrated from the New Testament, primarily from John’s Gospel.
These verbal patterns define a major part of ministry of the Spirit in the life of the church/believer. The Spirit imparts the internal nature/image of the triune God to the believer, and by imparting His life, the believer participates in this fellowship of the Trinity. To have evidence that the Spirit is present, these patterns will certainly develop and be obvious in the truly regenerate. We love because God is love within the Trinity and imparts the image of that love to us by the Spirit. We delight in God because God delights in himself within the Trinity and imparts the image of that delight to us by the Spirit. We testify for God because the persons of the Trinity testify to each other and God imparts both the life of that very image & the desire and delight of testifying about Him to us by the Spirit. We experience and promote these things in our Christian fellowship.
These verbal patterns partially define what it means to image and glorify God and allow us to understand how sin has corrupted that image.
These verbs define one major pattern of Bible application we expect to see in Scripture. When we read the Bible, we can ask these type of application questions, seeing Bible application as the triune God’s imparted nature. In other words, application is not first asking “What does this Bible text mean for me?”, but rather asking, “How does God reveal the mutual relations of his internal glory in this Bible text (either explicitly or implicitly) and impart both the life of that very image & the desire and delight of participating in that fellowship by the Spirit with the corporate church?” This changes the focus of Bible application to the study of God himself and his works in the world.
Here’s a brief summary of the key verses which demonstrate these verbs as defining the relations within the Trinity and verbs which God commands us to display in our Christian fellowship Whatever God commands, he also imparts to us by the indwelling Spirit. Also each believer should explore the Bible for more of these verbal relations within the Trinity, because clarity here will result in greater clarity in Bible application as imaging the Triune God. In 1996 I started with three verbs from the influence of Jonathan Edwards (see later section): knowing, loving and rejoicing. After three years of more careful study for these verbal relations, I have found 13 mutual verbs as listed above.
Mutual Glorifying Verbs of Communion in the Trinity: Man Images Christ
Knowing: John 10:15; 8:55; 17:3, 25; Psalm 139:1; Rom 8:27
Loving: John 3:35; 5:20; 14:31; 15:9; 16:27; Rom 8:34-35; 1 Pet 1:8; Matt 22:37
Delighting: Luke 3:22; Matt 3:17; John 6:27; Psalm 22:8; Isa 61:10; Luke 10:21; Matt 17:5; 12:18; Jer 9:23-24; 2 Cor 5:9; Phil 4:4; 1 Pet 1:8; Rom 14:17-18; 12:1; Heb 13:15-16; Gal 6:8
Honoring: John 5:23; 8:49; 12:26; 7:18; 4:44; 12:2
Testifying (the authority & power for evangelism and missions): John 5:37-8; 8:16, 18, 26; 12:28; 15:26-7; 16:14; Acts 1:8; Heb 2:4; Rom 8:16; John 10:25
Revealing: 1 Cor 2:10-11; John 5:19-20; 6:48; 8:38; 14:21; 17:6; 16:12-15; Gal 1:12; Rev 2:7
Possessing: John 16:14-15; Matt 28:18; Luke 22:29 and Luke 11:13; Acts 2:33; Rom 14:17; Eph 1:3, 14, 18; 1 Cor 3:22-23; Rom 8:17
Inhabiting (with you): John 8:29; 1:2; 14:16, 23; 16:32; Matt 28:20; John 17:24; 12:26
Indwelling (in you/oneness?): John 14:10, 20; 10:38; 15:4, 7; 5:38; 10:30; 17:11, 21-23
Listening: John 11:41-2; 3:32; 5:24-5, 28, 30, 37; 8:26, 38, 47; 12:28-9, 34, 47; 16:13; 14:24
Working: John 5:17-20; 9:3-4; 14:10; Eph 4:7-8; 1 Cor 12:3; John 16:8-15; Phil 2:12-13; 2 Cor 9:8; 1 Cor 15:10; Eph 3:16-20; Col 1:29
Praising: Matt 11:25, Luke 10:21, Heb 2:11-12; John 5:41, 44; Matt 25:21; Isa 61:1-3, Matt 21:15-16, Luke 19:37-38, 1 Cor 12:3, Rev 5:11-14, Rev 7:11-12; contrast sin: John 12:42-43, John 5:44
Giving: Father gives to Son John 3:34; 1:32-33; 17:11-12; 5:36; 17:4, 22; 6:37, 39, 5:27; Son gives to Father: 6:11; 23; 1 Cor 15:24; Luke 18:9; The Father gives to the believers & the world John 3:16; 6:32; 1:17; 14:16; 19:11; the Son gives to his followers John 17:14, 22, 26; 1:9; 4:10, 14; 5:21; 6:33, 27; 10:28 Spirit gives life and gives birth to spirit John 3:6; 6:63
Non-Mutual Verbs in the Trinity: Man Images Christ
There are also non-mutual verbal aspects which I call the decree-submit pattern in the Trinity. This pattern within the Trinity gives a permanent place for imaging the authority-submission roles in society (government-citizens Rom 13), the church (elders-members Heb 13:17), marriage (husband-wife Eph 5) and family (parents-children Eph 6:1-4). These lines of research needs more careful investigation as they will yield immediate results for Bible application within the same pattern defined above.
Non-mutual Verbs: Decree & Submit
Father decrees: Eph 1:11; Acts 2:23; 13:48; John 10:29; 1 Cor 11:3; 1 Cor 15:27
Son submits/ the Spirit submits: John 8:29; 4:34; 6:38; 10:18; 12:49; 14:31; 15:10; 16:13; 18:11; Matt 26:39, 42; Heb 10:7-10; Heb 5:7; Phil 2:5-8; Rev 1:1
Detailed Aspects of the Decree-Submit pattern that Man also Images
Father reveals to the Son (John 5:19-20; 6:46; 8:26, 28, 38; 10:18; 12:49-50; 14:7-9, 21, 24; 15:15; 17:26) the Son reveals to the Spirit (John 16:8-15); The co-working Trinity reveals to man: The Father reveals, the Son reveals and the Spirit reveals (Father: Dan 2:47; 1 Cor 2:10; John 14:26//Son: Heb 1:1-2; Rev 1:1ff; John 17:6, 26; John 15:26; Gal 1:12//Spirit: 1 Cor 2:11; 2 Pet 1:21; John 16:12-15; Rev 2:7). The believer reveals/testifies.
The Father Sends, the Son and Spirit are Sent (John 14:16, 26; 15:26); God sends harvest workers (Matt 9:38; John 20:21). The church sends workers.
The Father Appoints/Anoints to roles with gifts (by an oath/covenant—Heb 6:17-20); anointed with the Spirit (Acts 10:38; 1:4) the Son is appointed. ROLES: judge (Acts 1042; 17:31: Heb 3:2-4); comforter (John 14:16), heir of all things (Heb 1:2); king (Luke 19:12); prophet (Acts 3:22-26); head over everything (Eph 1:22; John 13:3; Matt 28:18); high priest (Heb 7:28). Christ ascended and appoints/anoints/ gave gifts to men (Eph 4:9-10) apostles, prophets pastors, teachers evangelists (Mark 3:14; Luke 10:1; Acts 1:8; Acts 15:2; Eph 4:11-13; 1 Cor 12:28), elders (Acts 14:23), to bear fruit (John 15:16), our times and places (Rom 9:9; 1 Cor 4:5; 1 Tim 2:6-7; 2 Tim 1:11; Titus 1:3). The church appoints and anoints (Acts 14:23; 15:2; James 5:14)
The Son believes/has faith & hope (Heb 2:13, 17; 10:38; 12:2; 6:18-9; 10:23; 11:1; Isa 40:31; 49:23; 51:5). Jesus’ faith vicariously fulfilled the demands of the law for faith (see “Christ’s Human Priesthood” in Robert Letham’s The Work of Christ (IVP 1993, pp. 117-8)
The Son fears the Lord (Isa 11:2)
Part of this image-bearing function in fellowship is shown in our speech to each other. Crabb and Allender (1984, 49) show from Ephesians 4:29 that the purpose of our fellowship is
building up our listeners. . . . [Paul] instructs us to understand the fears and defenses and needs of other people and to become committed, not to sharing ourselves, but to sharing the Lord by ministering to those needs.
It sounds deceptively simple: Total Commitment rather than Total Openness. Instead of expressing what I feel in an effort to remove my layers, I am to be concerned with speaking words that reach beneath others’ layers and quiet others’ fears.
The diagram below shows the basic idolatry pattern for sinful relationships and below shows the doxological pattern for godly relationships. Christ perfectly defined his people with faith and hope, and served them in love. When we do this, we image Christ. We believe in him and his perfections are credited to us in justification. We receive the Spirit and his life is imparted to us so that we are able to do this.
Mirror of human idolatry (often called “fellowship”): using people for selfish interest alone, rather than as a means to loving and enjoying God. “Satisfy my desires for _________so we can improve our relationship.”
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Mirror of Christian fellowship: using people as a means to loving and enjoying God. “Let me have some benefit from you in the Lord; refresh my heart in Christ, [so we can have God-centered fellowship],” (Philem 20). The Christian leads others to love and enjoy God and reflects God to me. “Define by faith (2 Cor 5:16-17) & hope (Phil 1:3-6) aspects” means to have a vision of who the Christian will be in Christ. Serve each other in love (Gal 5:13). Fellowship is a means to glorify God and see that from Him, through Him and to Him are all things, to him be the glory forever (1 Cor 10:31; Rom 11:36).
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Define by Faith & Hope aspects
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