This passage shows us a picture of koinonia in action. Koinonia is the Greek word for fellowship, and it is used throughout the New Testament. As God’s people, we share fellowship with God through Jesus Christ because of His death and resurrection, and as Christ’s people, we share fellowship with each other, loving one another as God has loved us.
Our relationship with God – and each other
In Romans 12:9-18 we see the sinners who’ve been reconciled (vertically) to God through Christ reflecting that reconciliation (horizontally) with one another. Romans 12:10 especially shows us the beautiful stalemate of grace-driven relationships—each party is seeking to out-honor the other! Imagine if our churches were known for this kind “deadlock,” where we were all busy not looking out for our own preferences and needs but for the building up of others, going out of our way to make sure others felt welcome, encouraged and comforted.
This is something the gospel does. It is something only the gospel can do. The gospel cannot make us into little judges of each other’s ministerial output. It cannot make us people who keep sizing each other up, measuring each other, rehearsing each other’s failings. It’s not tuned to the frequency of accusation.
The gospel is God’s love made manifest, and the church is the gospel of God’s love made visible. And God’s love cannot puff us up; it cannot make us prideful; it cannot make us selfish; it cannot make us arrogant; it cannot make us rude; it cannot make us gossipy; it cannot make us accusers. So the more we press into the gospel, the more the gospel takes over our hearts and the spaces we bring our hearts to, it stands to reason the less we would see those things and the more we would see of what is occurring in Romans 12:9-18.
See, you cannot grow in holiness and holier-than-thou-ness at the same time. So a church that makes its main thing the gospel, and when faced with sin in its ranks doesn’t simply crack the whip of the law but says “remember the gospel,” should gradually be seeing grace coming to bear.
Now, this scares people who believe God has delegated his sovereignty to them. But it honors the gospel of Jesus, in whom there is no condemnation and through whom we are being built together—as we “outdo one another in showing honor”—as a place of welcome for the Spirit of the living God. In the kingdom to which the church is meant to bear witness, people flourish and become at the same time more like their real selves and more like Jesus Christ. Once we were apart from the church, but now we have fellowship.
This article on our relationship with God originally appeared here.