You must be in fellowship prior to your Bible study, so that the spiritual information you receive can become a source, of blessing to your soul and produce spiritual growth.
1 Therefore
[oun] being justified [dikaioo]
by [ek] faith [pistis], we have [echo] peace [eirene] with [pros] God [theos] through [dia] our [hemon] Lord [kurios] Jesus [Iesous] Christ [Christos]: KJV-Interlinear
1 Therefore,
since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord
Jesus Christ. ESV
You are either at peace with God or you are not at peace with God. The difference being the status of your soul which is determined by your compliance with Gods mandates to learn Bible doctrine and grow up in your spiritual life. Too many are not willing to do this.
Any transgression, causes a separation away from God.
When people do not comply with their daily studies, they are in effect separating themselves away from God. Their transgression is their failure to comply with Gods mandates, their failure to not study, their failure to not learn doctrine, their failure to not function in their spiritual life.
All unbelievers are guilty of this. They have not even believed in Christ, and therefore have not even begun their spiritual life.
All believers, who live outside of the fellowship sphere, are transgressing. And of course all criminals, all self-righteous types, all sinners in the usual sense of the word, and so forth.
The biggest sin is of course non-compliance in the spiritual life. Non-compliance, includes and leads to, failure in ones responsibilities, failure in ones obligations, and so forth. That inevitably leads to all other patterns of sin and transgressions and relationship failures and such.
The spiritual life, brings peace. That is the ultimate goal, which is spiritual maturity.
Faith brings salvation, which is of course the necessary prerequisite for the spiritual life. But after salvation, one has to grow up in their spiritual life.
That requires a daily diet of spiritual food, which is Bible doctrine.
Doctrine in the soul, when learned, becomes the building blocks for the spiritual structure of the soul. No doctrine studied, no doctrine in the soul. No doctrine in the soul means no structure.
Use of doctrine used in ones daily life, creates spiritual production. Production is the fruit of ones growth. Production is the finishing of the spiritual structure.
When you construct a home it is just a building. But when you finish it, furnish it, landscape it, paint it, put finishing touches in it, then it becomes a real functional home.
That is your soul with doctrine being the structure, and production (or the use of doctrine) the finishing work of that structure.
But more than that, your entire structure continues to build and finish throughout your life, and that creates a fortress and faith, and security in Christ, and that brings peace.
The sinner, or transgressor, lacks peace, and will never have it. The sinner has tension, and stress, and anger and hate and disrespect, and inordinate ambitions and lusts and on and on.
The growing believer will have these problems too, but the big difference between the two is that the growing believer has a pattern of life heading toward peace, whereas the transgressor will never head in that direction and will never have peace.
Paul distinguishes God from Christ because there is the Father, who is the traditional head of the Godhead, and the Son who is the heir and correct access path to the Father, and the Sprit who is God too, but provides the environment which we call fellowship, and the means of our access to God.
Therefore, God being all three members of the trinity, is accessible by means of Gods designed path, namely doctrine, which is Christ in written form, and the Spirit which is our power connection.
