omething strange happens to us when we embrace the Word of God. Changes begin to take place. With our sins forgiven and washed away, new reasons for living take hold. Our hearts fill with gladness and hope. The Bible becomes a lamp to our feet and a light to our path (Ps. 119:105).^* It brings us in touch with Jesus and a loving heavenly Father. We experience a foretaste of heaven and develop a sense of belonging, an identity.

“To the humble heart and the sincere, inquiring mind the Bible is full of light and knowledge. Those who come to the Scriptures in this spirit are brought into fellowship with prophets and apostles. Their spirit assimilates to that of Christ, and they long to become one with Him.”¹

It is possible to love the Bible but not have Jesus in your heart. It is also possible to love Jesus from a human point of view, and yet not love and obey the Bible. “This goody-goody religion that makes light of sin and that is forever dwelling upon the love of God to the sinner encourages the sinner to believe that God will save him while he continues in sin and he knows it to be sin.”²

Our Fellowship Anchored in the Bible
Seventh-day Adventists love the Bible, and they love Jesus. This reinforces our sense of unity. Wherever we meet fellow believers, whether nearby or in other parts of the world, we feel at home.

A non-Adventist visitor to the most recent General Conference session wrote, “I was only able to attend two opening sessions and the Sabbath evening meeting. If I had been asked what my views were, this would be my answer: Tens of thousands of people milling about without bumping into each other. Children obedient to parents. When Adventists greet each other and when they leave, they keep their smiles. As I use a cane, children rushed to open doors for me. Their message is love, and it seems that Adventists practice what they preach. Most astonishing of all was the fact that you Advent people seem to be color-blind! To you it seems that there is only one race, God’s race, and to be one of His people was paramount to all. I asked myself many times if perchance this was not God’s work that I should be at this convention. Here I was hugging a complete stranger with brotherly love. In fact, I miss him! How can this be?”³

Our togetherness is rooted in the Bible. We have accepted the Bible as God’s Word and the ultimate authority in our lives. Without the Bible we would not be united as a family. Our church is not a federation of entities and organizations loosely knit together, but living stones quarried from the world and brought together to build a spiritual temple for the glory of God (1 Peter 2:5). We are not a global network of national churches, but one church spread throughout the world. “There is one body and one Spirit, . . . one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all” (Eph. 4:4-6).

Our Fellowship Rooted in Jesus Christ
Our fellowship stems from a deep awareness that we all need a Saviour. “For the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). It is rooted in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”

The simple truth about Calvary is that God thinks more about us than He does about Himself. It means that He will never turn against us, use us, abuse us, or take advantage of us. We have done everything to Christ that humans can possibly do. We first ignored Him, then challenged Him, humiliated Him, abused Him, scourged Him, and finally crucified Him. And often still we repeat the scene in our own hearts. Yet He forgives and continues to love us.

Bonding together in fellowship comes not only from what God has done for us on Calvary, but from what He now considers us to be. “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!” (1 John 3:1). And if we are His children, then we are brothers and sisters. “Therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God” (Eph. 2:19). “For this reason,” Paul says, “I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named” (Eph. 3:14, 15). Family means togetherness, one with each other and one with God.

Our Fellowship Derived From the Spirit
Our fellowship also comes from the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus knew that men and women needed to be changed before they could enjoy fellowship with Him or with each other. When Nicodemus came to Him asking about His power to do all these miracles, Jesus sidestepped his question and focused instead on the most important thing in a person’s life: “Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

Nicodemus knew about the meaning of this expression. But as it was commonly understood among the Jews, the new birth applied to non-Jews (those who converted to the Jewish faith), not to the descendants of Abraham. Nicodemus, being a descendant of Abraham and a keeper of the law, felt sure of a place in the kingdom of God and needed no change. So when Jesus told him that to belong to the family of God, he, a rabbi, needed to be born again, Nicodemus struggled with being honest and accepting the truth about himself.⁴ Being born again is not behavior modification; it is character transformation. It means death to self and sin and being born as an altogether new and different person.⁵

“We cannot bring about such change ourselves. That change cannot come by a power within us but from a power outside of us, from above. The idea that all we have to do is to develop the good that is within us is a fatal deception. Education, culture, the power of the will and our moral and spiritual heritage may all contribute to a well-ordered life, but they cannot bring about the change that Christ had in mind when He spoke to Nicodemus. We may perceive the loving-kindness of God and see His fatherly tenderness; we may see the wisdom and justice of His law, but this is not enough. We become part of the family of God because we are born into it by the power of the Holy Spirit.”⁶ “Born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever” (1 Peter 1:23).

Fellowship Forever
John says, “I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. . . . And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people’” (Rev. 21:1-3). Then Jesus’ promise will be fulfilled. His people will be with Him forever (John 14:1-3). What a joy it will be to see Jesus, to meet the Father and be introduced to the Holy Spirit. What a privilege it will be to meet our guardian angel and such men and women as Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Moses, Miriam, David, Daniel, Mary the mother of Jesus, the disciples, and Paul, Luther, Wesley, James and Ellen White, and family and friends from everywhere. What a fellowship that will be! “Welcome home!”

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* Scripture references are from the New King James Version.
¹  Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 5, p. 705.
²  Ellen G. White letter 53, 1887.
³  Letter shared with M.A. students at South-ern Adventist University by O. J. McKinney, secretary of the Southern Union Conference, who had made the visitor feel welcome.
⁴  Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 171; also The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 5, p. 927.
⁵  Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 172.
⁶  Adapted from Ellen G. White, Steps to Christ, pp. 18, 19.

Questions for Sharing:
1. How is it possible to love the Bible but not have Jesus in our heart?

2. Explain how we can be united as a family but have different goals and dreams for the church.

3. Why is “all that we have to do is develop the good that is within us” a fatal deception?

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Jack J. Blanco, former dean of the School of Religion, Southern Adventist University, is currently retired and living in Collegedale, Tennessee.