Friends of God

"Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you" (John 15:13-15).

I know some Christians that delight in this passage. "No longer do I call you servants." Oh, they love that one. And if you attempt to show how Paul constantly referred to himself as "a bondslave of Christ" (you know ... as if that's a positive thing), they object strenuously. "We are not slaves! We're free! We're friends of Christ."

Have you ever wondered why, if Jesus no longer called them slaves, Paul considered himself one? Have you ever followed what it actually says? It's interesting, if you read it, that the term "friend" in this application is a conditional one. Under what condition do we get to be a friend of Christ? "You are My friends if you do what I command you." Doesn't that set wrong with you? To most of us, the difference between "servant" and "friend" is that a servant must obey and a friend doesn't have to. But here Jesus says that we are considered His friends only if we obey.

Apparently the distinction that Jesus had in mind between "servant" and "friend" is not a matter of "obey or not". What was it? (We don't have to guess.) In Jesus's terminology, a servant doesn't know what his master is doing; a friend gets to know. The distinction Jesus has in mind is not in terms of obedience, but in terms of knowledge. To be His friends, we need to obey. However, as His friends, we get to know what He's doing. We get intimate knowledge ("all that I heard from the Father") about what He is doing.

Americans in particular tend to elevate freedom to an idol status. It is a god that cannot be transgressed. Not even God can limit our freedom. Like the Pharisees we declare, "[We] have never been enslaved to anyone!" (John 8:33). Like the Pharisees we are wrong. As humans, we are either slaves of sin or slaves of righteousness. As believers, we are bondservants of Christ. We are told that God's love is something in which we are to keep ourselves (Jude 1:21), and that the way we remain in His love is by obedience (John 15:10). (That's convenient, isn't it, because that's how we are His friends, too.) God doesn't surrender His command over His friends. We never actually arrive at freedom. The freedom we do receive is in being aligned with the Master of the Universe -- far better than some weak "autonomy". We are not without a yoke; it's just "light". And, oh, the glory of actually knowing God -- which is a result of being His friend!