They are in fact synonymous. The word John used is κοινωνιαν - which essentially means to have things in common. That's what a relationship is.
No, in fact, fellowship and relationship are not synonymous - not as far as I'm concerned, anyway. Very disparate things, things quite unrelated to each other, may have things in common. For instance, I share in common with every black hole in the universe a presence in the universe. I am in the universe and so are black holes; we have this in common, but we have no
direct relationship to each other - certainly not in the sense meant in Scripture when it says believers have fellowship with Jesus Christ and God the Father (
1 John 1:3), believers who in other places are called God's children and branches, denoting
intimate communion between God and the Christian believer.
The other ways that this word is defined is "partnership", "sharing," "partakers," and of course "fellowship."
As I said in my last post, there is some overlap between the two terms (fellowship and relationship) - one cannot have fellowship with someone with whom one does not first have a relationship - but "fellowship" speaks of intimate communion in a way the word "relationship" does not. This intimacy between a believer and God is spelled out in other places in Scripture quite clearly (
John 15:5; Romans 8:15-17; Galatians 3:26, Ephesians 5:1, etc.).
In fact, you won't find the word relationship in the new testament. The bible wasn't written yesterday and it wasn't written in English.
No kidding. I suppose the next thing you'll tell me is that the sky is blue or that a circle has no right angles.
Fellowship and partaking of things in common is what relationship is.
Nope. See above.
The son had no relationship with his father.
Of course he did: He was his father's son. Even if he'd died, he'd still have been so. What he didn't have with his father was intimate communion - fellowship - with him.
The father still loved him but it was the restoration of the relationship which caused the father to rejoice.
Fellowship is a form of relating but that which is distinguished by intimate communion. Such communion the father and son did not have, though they were inextricably related to each other as father and son.
The father let the son, of his own free will, separate himself from that relationship.
From what relationship? No matter how far the son might have strayed, he was always and ever his father's son.
It was the son's repentance which caused him to seek out his father.
Yes. Is someone denying this? I haven't.
We are born sons of God. It is our leaving of our father through sin which causes the initial separation (death) and it isn't until we repent that we can restore this relationship (life). That's what Jesus and the new testament authors taught.
As far as I'm aware, nowhere in the New Testament does the statement "we are born sons of God" appear in reference to the unsaved person. All people are born in sin (
Romans 5:18-19; Psalms 51:5), cursed by the Fall, "dead in trespasses and sins." But when they come into relationship with God as His beloved children by faith in Christ as their Lord and Saviour, they are forever His, accepted in the Beloved (
Ephesians 1:6) (and ONLY accepted thereby) with whom God is always pleased. And it is because this is so, because the believer is accepted by God on the merits of Christ, not on their own merits, they can rest assured their acceptance by God never wavers, never dissolves.
