“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 15:15).
Again, Jesus uses the word “friends.” Is it too much for us to think ourselves the way that Jesus thinks of us, as His friends? Is it too much for us to think of ourselves as His brethren? (Romans 8:29; Hebrews 2:10–13). It is good to have a brother, and it is good to have a friend; how wonderful it is to have someone who is both your brother and your friend!
It is one thing to see the outside of things, it is another thing to see and understand the inside of things. Consider Psalm 103:7, “He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the sons of Israel.” The People of Israel saw the works of God, Moses saw the ways of God. Israel saw the outside, Moses saw the inside. Because Moses knew the ways of God, because he knew the character and Person of God, he was able to intercede for Israel and save the people from a consummating judgment. Moses knew that “the LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness” (Psalm 103:8).
How tragic to spend all of one’s life learning about Jesus but never knowing Him as our Friend. How many Sunday school classes have I observed, how many small groups, in which my brothers and sisters speak of Jesus as a stranger, as a “subject” to be studied and speculated about, as we might speak of Lincoln or Caesar or Shakespeare or Buddha. The triteness and low expectations of our curriculum acknowledge this, whether it intends to or not. How many church leadership meetings have I attended in which we think and act as if Jesus could not possibly be in the room with us. – as if He is no more than an image on a wall or in a stained-glass window. We proclaim “He is risen” on Easter, but it seems to be a momentary confession.
Why this does not trouble us is something I have never understood.
Jesus desires intimate relationship with us, with all of us and with each of us. He is our good and tender Shepherd who so desires to hold us close to Himself. Jesus says to us, “I don’t just want you to see the things that I do, I want you to see Me and know Me and understand why I do the things I do. I want you to know Me and My ways. This is why I have said, I Am the Way.”
The New Covenant is the Covenant of the Inward Way, and that Way is Jesus Christ. “I will put My laws into their minds, and I will write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be My People…for all will know Me, from the least to the greatest of them.” (See Hebrews 8:7–13; 10:1-18.)
The Father and Son bring their Way into us as they come to abide within us, as we learn to abide in the Vine, drawing our life from Him.
Ah, but we are taught to see the outside, to live by the outside, to value appearances, to conform to outward religious and social expectations – which can only bring heartache and condemnation and alienation from one another and from God. We are taught that the New Covenant is not really for us, and so we live as if the veil still separates us from the Holy of Holies, we live as if our sins are not truly forgiven, we live as if intimacy with Jesus is impossible.
A child refrains from doing something because the parent has said not to do it. A son or daughter refrains from doing something because they know it is against the Nature of their Father who lives in them. A daughter or son knows to do something as a Way of Life because they live in intimacy with the Father, a child must be told to do such and such, and can only do so with limited understanding.
A daughter or son knows that laying one’s life down is a Way of Life in Jesus Christ, whether in family, in civic community, at work, at school, or within the Church. A child might not steal because of a commandment; a daughter or son will not steal because it is against the Nature of the Father who lives in them. They further know that to steal is to drink the cup of Satan, they know that to steal would be to allow poison into the Body of Christ.
Are we living as children or as sons and daughters? Are we living as servants or as friends of Jesus?
We’ll continue with John 15:15 in our next reflection in the series.
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