Friday, 27 February 2009

• Jesus is a Friend of Mine... Right?

      
  

  It’s a common motif throughout popular Christian devotional writings and music: “What a friend we have in Jesus…” warbles the old hymn. “I am a friend of God; He calls me friend!” blares a popular worship chorus. An old-school Christian “rock” video created a sensation on YouTube with a hopelessly square singer chirping, “Jesus is a friend of mine…” Best of all, a jazzy number by Ken Medema charges, “Don’t tell me I’ve got a friend in Jesus without showing me first I’ve got a friend in you!”

  But is Jesus really our friend? Some people say no. “This is one of the myths I believe cause harm to the church as a whole ranging from simple cognitive dissonance in individuals to outright apostasy in those who cannot reconcile the inconsistences [sic]” says one Christian apologist (link here).

  And I’m not even going to touch the antitheist scoffers who pooh-pooh the very idea of communicating with the Almighty as “having an imaginary friend.” (If I were in the mood to be flippant, I would respond that of all the invisible friends I talked to as a child, there was only one who answered back.) That may be all very well if you start by assuming He doesn’t exist, but for this discussion, let’s use an equal amount of faith and assume He does. In that case, the question is, “Is ‘friendship’ with God the right term? Or is it a harmful misunderstanding?”
  

  Whatever the answer, it’s true enough to say “Jesus isn’t just my friend.” I also know Jesus as my Savior who rescued me from sin, my Lord whom I serve, my Provider who takes care of me, my King whom I obey, my Teacher who guides my life, and all His many other glorious titles. Thus if the only word you associate with Jesus is “friend,” you may be missing out on many truly beautiful things about Him and about your relationship with Him. So I can understand why someone would be concerned about a theology that presents Jesus as just “your friend”—or worse, “my homeboy”—without saying anything else about Him. That would be a serious imbalance. (Sorry, Sonseed.)

  But, as Luther’s proverbial drunk never realized, the cure for an imbalance is not found in falling over the other side of the horse. That, I’m afraid, is what has happened to the apologist whose rant (already quoted above) inspired this piece. Here is an excerpt:

  Many evangelists speak of a “personal relationship with Jesus”. The phrase is used to mean something not too far from the “God is my buddy” idea, in essence meaning we can talk to Jesus any time, and so on. If I had to correct this, I would say that what is required of us is a patronal relationship with Jesus. The New Testament explains our relationship with God in terms of a client-patron relationship, one in which God, patron, is remote; and Jesus, as a broker, mediates between ourselves and God.… Since people of the ancient world seldom “got to know each other” personally (as is taken for granted in modern, Western society) there is no way that New Testament writers could have had an idea like a “personal relationship with Jesus” in mind in the first place—not as we perceive it.

  Ironically, the view of God as a remote patron is the one that is most conducive to the view concerned Christians such as [name-dropping redacted] wish to see us return to. Perhaps then we would see a greater respect for God and His holiness, and less obsession with self-fulfillment….

  Well, OK, I can’t take exception to the desire to see “a greater respect for God and His holiness, and less obsession with self-fulfillment.” But I’ve got a problem with just about everything else in there.

  For one thing, the historical reference is more than a little sketchy, in every sense of the word. So the ancients had no concept of getting to “know each other personally” as friends, did they? How exactly do we know that? And what about David and Jonathan? Gilgamesh and Enkidu? Damon and Pythias? Perpetua and Felicitas? Hamlet and Horatio? Boswell and Johnson? And does nobody read In Memoriam anymore? All the evidence is that our ancestors had at least as strong an understanding of real friendship as we do, and arguably stronger.

  
  

  But even leaving aside the questionable historiography, I’ve still got huge issues: the rest of the rant is violently opposed to the clear words of the New Testament and of Jesus Himself. Here’s what the Bible says on the subject:

  You can’t separate what Jesus is from what God is—because Jesus is God!

  [Jesus] “was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.” (John 5:18b NASB)

  “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” (John 14:9b, NIV)

  You can’t separate what God the Son (Jesus) does from what God the Father does, because the Son reflects the Father in every respect.

  So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel.” (John 5:19–20 ESV)

  God is definitely not “remote”; we can confidently approach Him because of what Christ accomplished.

  “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.” (Hebrews 10:19–22 NIV)

  “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16 NIV)

  “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” (James 4:8 NASB)

  “For what other great nation has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is whenever we call to him?” (Deut 4:7 NRSV)

  It’s perfectly biblical to refer to those who believe in God as a “friend of God.”

  “Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.” (Exodus 33:1a ESV)

  “The friendship of the LORD is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant.” (Psalm 25:14 ESV)

  “But you, Israel, My servant,
           Jacob whom I have chosen,
           Descendant of Abraham My friend…” (Isaiah 41:8 NIV)

  “…and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, ‘And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,’ and he was called the friend of God.” (James 2:23 NASB)

  “Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham.” (Galatians 3:7 NIV)

  [Note: “Children” in this usage is a metaphor for those who share the characteristics of their “forefather.” If Abraham believed God and was considered God’s friend, then the same can be true of anyone who believes God today.]
  

  Jesus calls His followers His friends, and specifies exactly what He means by that:

  “I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that have no more that they can do.” (Luke 12:4 NASB)

  “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.” (John 15:12–15 NASB)

  This one especially deserves a closer look. The word for “friend” here is philos, derived from the Greek word for friendly affection. According to Jesus in these verses, His “friends” are:
  

  • People He loves enough to die for.
  • The ones who obey His commandment (to love each other as He has loved them).
  • Sharply distinguished from servants who are kept uninformed by an unapproachable master.
  • Open, free, and honest with Him, and they tell each other everything. (“all things… I have made known to you.”)

  You can talk to Jesus any time, about anything.
  
  

  “And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” (John 14:13–14 NIV)
  

  There are the pieces of the puzzle. Let’s put them together and see the big picture:

  What Jesus wants is what God wants, both because Jesus is God and because Jesus (as God the Son) perfectly reflects the desires of God the Father. Jesus wants us to be not just servants at a distance, but close friends who love Him intensely and talk to Him about everything. And God the Father wants this every bit as much as Jesus does.

  Any position that denies this is, well, a myth that I believe could cause harm to the church as a whole, because the view of God as a remote patron is the least conducive to the view that God wants to see us return to. Who would you rather believe in: A distant God who can’t be bothered to give you the time of day unless you can persuade your agent to pull some strings, or Somebody who loves you, cares about you, and wants to take the time to get to know you as a friend? I’m glad that the second one, not the first one, is found in the Bible.

   
  

  One further thought. Perhaps the reason this idea of “friendship with God” gets a bad rap in certain circles is not necessarily a desire to denigrate God (though, as we’ve seen, that is what it may turn into) but a lack of understanding of what true friendship is all about. If your mental picture of “friendship” is of a few drinking buddies watching the game on the weekend, think bigger. In his splendid little book The Four Loves, which you really should read if this discussion is at all interesting to you, C. S. Lewis puts it this way:

  “…it seems no wonder if our ancestors regarded Friendship as something that raised us almost above humanity. This love, free from instinct, free from almost all duties but those which love has freely assumed, almost wholly free from jealousy, and free without qualification from the need to be needed, is eminently spiritual. It is the sort of love one can imagine between angels. Have we here found a natural love which is Love itself?”

  That’s the kind of relationship that Jesus—our Lord, our Savior, our King, our Teacher, our Provider, our Creator, and our Friend—wants to have with you. What a friend we have in Jesus!

  Jesus! what a Friend for sinners!
  Jesus! Lover of my soul;
  Friends may fail me, foes assail me,
  He, my Savior, makes me whole.

  Hallelujah! what a Savior!
  Hallelujah! what a Friend!
  Saving, helping, keeping, loving,
  He is with me to the end.

  —J. Wilbur Chapman, 1910

  Bonus challenge application: "Don't Tell Me (I've Got a Friend in Jesus)" by Ken Medema
  

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