Biblical Friendship, Part 2: God's Idea
Introduction
In my last post, I defined biblical friendship as “intentionally
moving toward God together,” since the ultimate purpose of friendship is
knowing God, which leads to sanctification. In its practical implementation,
friendship looks like love toward others, which seeks that final goal of
knowing God for all parties involved. If you have not read my first post, you may
want to start there, as this post will move on to make the first major point
about friendship.
In studying this topic, I developed a four-prong method for
describing biblical friendship as it works itself out practically. These four
prongs are as follows: friendship is God’s idea, God’s gift, God’s tool, and
God’s goal. Underlying each of these statements (which I will explain in depth
in the next four posts) is the foundational principle that friendship belongs
to God, and therefore he has the authority to determine how it works. In
contrast to the primordial tendency of fallen humanity to misuse God’s designs
for its own ends, God has designed friendship purposefully to lead his
creatures into closer knowledge of himself. It is his idea.
Friendship is God’s Idea
When I say that friendship is God’s idea, I do not mean
primarily that when God designed humans and their relational abilities, he
created friendship itself. In one sense this statement is true, for the human
form of friendship surely did not exist before this point; in another sense it
is untrue, because God has always existed in perfect friendship. Friendship is
in his eternal nature.
“Indeed, the eternal Trinity is the most fundamental expression of community and relationship. Therefore, one of the simplest yet most profound aspects of mankind being made in God’s image is that we were designed to live in relationships."[1]
In this way, all human relationships are designed by God not
as ultimate things in themselves but as pictures of who God is: fathers,
mothers, husbands, wives, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters, friends, kings, etc.
– all of these represent discrete facets of God’s relational nature.
But this is not to say that friendship or relationships in
general are an optional component of the human experience; rather, friendship
is part of our very essence, just as it is for God himself. As Timothy Keller
has quipped,
“[O]ur intense relational capacity, created and given to us by God, was not fulfilled completely by our ‘vertical’ relationship with him. God designed us to need ‘horizontal’ relationships with other human beings."[2]
To truly live out the image of God on this earth, we must do
so in community. Therefore, friendship is not a trivial matter or an add-on to
life for mere personal enrichment; rather, friendship is a vital component of
the duty of an image bearer. So, God has always existed in perfect friendship,
and yet he also created the specific form of human friendship. When humanity
fell into sin, God took steps to restore our friendships with him and each
other.
Friendship is a vital component of the duty of an image bearer
Friendship and the Gospel
In doing a biblical theology of friendship, we must identify
the development of friendship through the three-stage metanarrative of
Scripture: creation, fall, and restoration. When God created Adam and Eve as
the first humans, he created them not only with the ability for friendship as a
reflection of himself, but he also created them in perfect friendship with each
other and himself. Before sin, there was no moral separation between God and
humanity, though he was still transcendent above us (Ps. 8). Yet, with the rebellion
in the Garden of Eden that friendship was broken – not only humanity’s
friendship with God, but also our friendship with fellow humans, as evidenced
by Adam and Eve’s interpersonal shame (Gen. 3:7). In the final step of creation
history, God restores all things through Jesus Christ, including human
friendships.
The beauty of the Gospel is that God takes it upon himself
to restore unwilling and incapable humanity, and he performs this restoration
in stages through biblical history. In doling out the Curse upon the serpent,
God promised in the very Garden to restore all things through the line of Eve
(Gen. 3:15). After the Flood, God called Abraham – formerly an idolater (Josh.
24:2, 14-15) – and made great promises to him and his descendants, referring to
him as “friend” (Isa. 41:8). After leading Abraham’s descendants out of their
captivity in Egypt, God instructed Moses to build the Tabernacle, that God
might dwell among Israel in the midst of the camp (Lev. 26:11-12), and the
mobile Tabernacle was later replaced by the stationary Temple on Zion in
Jerusalem (2 Chr. 7:16). Then, in the greatest miracle imaginable which we will
struggle to comprehend for all eternity, God himself became human in Jesus
Christ, who is called Immanuel – “God with us” (Isa. 7:14; Matt. 1:23). Yet
this is not all, for God himself now indwells every believer in the person of
the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19-20). But the final restoration will come when all
things are made new – the earth will be restored and the bodies of believers will
be glorified from all sin and sorrow – for we will dwell with him forevermore
as his people, and he will be our God (Rev. 21:3).
Since God has created us for the purpose of knowing him
through friendships, and has further gone to such ends to restore our broken
friendship with him and with each other, he calls us to friendships with fellow
broken sinners in which we act out the mercy and grace he has shown to us. And
yet, since friendship belongs to God we must live out friendships as he
commands, which means God always comes before our other friendships.
Friendship Always Comes Second to God
Friendship among human beings is sourced in God and reflects God’s perfect friendship in himself, and further God desires friendship with us through the Gospel. Yet, our friendship with God is not on the same level as any human friendship – God demands exclusivity in our friendship with him. Just as God is not content to be one god among a pantheon, so he is not content to be one friend among many. In the Old Testament, because of the polytheistic cultures around Israel, God communicated this exclusivity in the command that his people worship only him as God (Ex. 20:3; Matt. 6:10); since God often described his covenant relationship with Israel in terms of a marriage (Isa. 54:5-8; Jer. 2:2, 5:7; Ezek. 16:1-58), worshipping other gods was equated with adultery (Jer. 3:6-9). In the New Testament, the warning is against loving “the world” (1 Jn. 2:15-17) – the system of this age under the dominion of Satan (1 Jn. 4:1-4) – which is equated to both adultery and being the enemy of God (Jas. 4:4). In both Testaments, then, the message is clear: God comes before all else, and anything put before God is an idol.
God demands exclusivity in our friendship with him.
Friendship, if not done according to God’s plan, becomes an
idol. As Kelly Needham puts it,
“At the heart of sin is a proclamation: God is not enough. Sin is not primarily an issue of wrong deeds but wrong loves. ... it matters little what we prefer above God, only that we prefer it to him."[3]
God has created all things “very good” as gifts of
his grace (Gen. 1:31; Eccl. 2:24-26; 1 Tim. 4:4-5), but when good things are
treated as ultimate things, idolatry occurs. God created us to be satisfied
only in him and dissatisfied with idolatry (Jer. 2:12-13; Isaiah 44:9-20). So, God
created friendship for us to enjoy as a blessing, but all gifts from God come
with three caveats: they cannot fully satisfy you, since only God can (Eccl.
1:2); you can only fully enjoy them by enjoying God first (Eccl. 12:13); and
they can only be enjoyed in the way God dictates (Eccl. 12:14). Building on the
metaphor of God as the “fountain of living waters,” Needham summarizes the idolatrous
nature of friendship today:
“The culture around us hasn’t found the freshwater spring yet. It hasn’t tasted and seen the goodness of the Lord, so it will define true friendship in different terms. To the world, friendship itself is the highest joy friendship offers. So the goal becomes drinking up as much joy as possible from one another. But we know that trying to get lasting joy from another human is like drinking salt water – it will only deepen our thirst. Though worldly friendship means well, it cannot provide what it’s selling."[4]
Kept in its proper place, however, friendship draws us closer to God and promotes sanctification, which is why our friendship with God is foundational to all other friendships. Since at its basis friendship is love, we must take seriously the truth that “whoever loves has been born of God and knows God” (1 Jn. 4:7). The kind of love God intends to exist in friendship is only possible through a relationship with him, since “God is love” (1 Jn. 4:8). If we are not living in a right relationship to God, we will not show love to others, since love is a fruit of the Holy Spirit’s work of sanctification in a believer (Gal. 5:22).
We are either serving people because we love God or using people because we don’t love God.
When we are not walking in the Spirit but rather following our sin nature, the result is “sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these” (Gal. 5:19-21). Many of these “works of the flesh” are interpersonal sins that betray a lack of love for others, which stems from a lack of love for God. Such sins as an unrepentant lifestyle may even demonstrate that one is not a believer in Jesus Christ, since “he who is forgiven little, loves little” (Lk. 7:47). By contrast, a believer who is yielded to the Spirit’s work in his life shows “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23), many of which describe selfless, interpersonal service (Gal. 5:13). “Only when God occupies first place in our lives can we truly love our friends appropriately."[5]
To put a finer point on it, we are either serving people
because we love God or using people because we don’t love God. Friendship with
God is foundational, and it must come before all other friendships as the
foundation of those friendships.
Diagnostic Questions
For each of these articles, I will include several diagnostic questions based upon the content. I have found these helpful and convicting in my life, and I hope they will aid you as you answer them for yourself. As this article has focused on the themes that friendship belongs to God, comes second to God, and is founded upon God, these questions will deal with those concepts.
- Beware of idolatrous friendship – Is your “only hope in life and death” anyone other than Christ
- Beware of selfish friendship – Do you humbly serve the way Christ did in dying for your gain?
- Be walking in the Spirit – Are you seeking friendships with people apart from friendship with God?
- Be loving others – Do you treat people as inherently valuable images of God worthy of your time and investment, or as means to your own gain or goals?
May the Lord use these questions drawn from the truth of his
Word to sanctify us as we pray, “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me
and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me
in the way everlasting!” (Ps. 139:23-24).
Conclusion
Though most of us have likely never heard a sermon on friendship or done a biblical theological study on the topic, it is a subject of great importance. Friendship is based in the image of God, and he has created us for relationships to reflect his own perfect relationship as the Trinity. Friendship is God’s idea since it is based in his nature and he created it for his purposes, so he has the right to determine how it is used, and to use it for our own ends leads to idolatry. In the next post, I will explain how friendship is God’s gift to us.
[1] Jonathan Holmes, The Company We Keep.
[2] Timothy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage.
[3] Kelly Needham, Friendish.
[4] Kelly Needham, Friendish.
[5] Kelly Needham, Friendish.
All Scripture verses come from the ESV.
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