Christ's Friendship: The Paradox of Command and Love

"Ye are My friends if ye do whatsoever I command you." Our Lord lingers upon this word friends (philoi), meeting the doubts that arise from our sense of unworthiness. How wonderful that stooping love is! Christ lays His hand upon every form of human love—the family bond, the marriage covenant, and the precious thing of friendship itself. The Prince makes a friend of the beggar.

This friendship is immediate and perpetual. The peculiarity of Christianity is the strong personal tie binding men to this Man who died nineteen hundred years ago. Ancient teachers command our reverence and gratitude, yet what a gulf separates us from them! But here is a dead Man who remains, even now, the object of passionate attachment and love deeper than life itself to millions, until the end of time.

In this friendship there are no limitations, no misconstructions in His heart, no alienation possible, no change to be feared. Absolute rest dwells here. Why should we be solitary if Jesus Christ is our Friend? Why fear if He walks beside us? Why should anything be burdensome if He lays it upon us and helps us bear it?

Yet notice the singular condition: "If ye do what I command you." Here friendship and command blend together, requiring absolute submission and closest intimacy. Love is the parent of obedience; obedience is the guard and guarantee of love. The slave observes his lord's actions from without, but the friend enters into his master's confidence and counsel.