Abstract
If we walk in the light as God himself is in the light, we have κοινωνία with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7).
Talk is cheap, but redemptive action costs us. What moves us from talk of God to action and life cooperative with God? Not mere thought or more talk. The Johannine writings in the NT offer a neglected but vital answer.
The purpose of the gospel, according to 1 John (1:3), is to establish a koinonia society (not just individual salvation) under God and his crucified Son who now lives as Lord. What does such koinonia have to do with the cross of Christ at the gospel’s heart? Everything, although few people have asked, and even fewer have answered. We naturally deem koinonia to be free of the cross’s turbulence, but the two are inseparable and supply the meaningful crux of human life.
The Latin ‘crux’ denotes a cross useable as an instrument of torture. It has a figurative sense when the crux is our suffering from a cross-like difficulty. The OED offers these figurative senses: ‘
The Greek ‘koinonia’ denotes good personal interaction, and suggests positive ‘fellowship’, ‘communion’, or ‘partnership’ among persons. The OED offers this definition: ‘Christian fellowship or communion, either with God or, more commonly, with fellow Christians.’ The OED, however, offers no connection between koinonia and cross. This connection, assumed in 1 John 1:7, stems from God’s unique ‘light’, including worthiness of worship.
God’s will, unlike ours, is morally perfect. We thus need a source to guide and empower our cooperation with God, aimed at the Gethsemane obedience in the cross of Christ (see John 12:23–28; cf. Phil. 2:8). According to 1 John 1:7, our being cleansed by the cross requires our koinonia under God’s moral light. This light, the key evidence of God, disturbs our darkness with the convicting power of God’s Spirit, according to John’s Gospel: The Spirit ‘will convict [ἐλέγξει] the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment’ (John 16:8, RSV). The conviction concerning righteousness [περὶ δικαιοσύνης] includes conviction not just against sin but also toward righteousness as right relationship under the agapē from God’s moral character (1 John 4:7–8, 16). This relationship includes koinonia as experienced holy partnership with God.
Koinonia without conviction is morally empty; conviction without koinonia is socially blind. Together they constitute the purpose of God’s redemption of human life, and draw us into God’s storied life in Christ. We tend, however, to be conviction-avoiding (John 3:20) in a way that obscures God’s presence to us. Faith in God, in contrast, demands our being conviction-seeking and conviction-welcoming toward God’s koinonia society. We thereby appropriate the power that makes Christian koinonia living evidence of God on earth. A proviso: We must welcome the cross of agapē-conviction, even to benefit our enemies. The question: Are we willing to live in this ongoing Gethsemane mode?