“What a Friend We Have in Jesus” is one of our favorite hymns. We celebrate in song and even refer to the Lord Jesus in our prayers that He is our Friend. But would He refer to us as His friends? Abraham was called “the friend of God” (Jas 2:23). Scripture implies Moses was also God’s friend (Exo 33:11). But I’m not anything like these great men of God. Yet in the upper room the Lord Jesus said to His own, and, by extension, to all those who would become His, “I have called you friends” (Joh 15:15).1 He called them friends because “all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.” Friends share their plans, and the Savior certainly did that with His own, holding nothing back. So, there is a sense in which we are Christ’s friends since He has openly shared what He heard from His Father.
But the Lord Jesus also challenged them (and us) with these words: “You are my friends if you do what I command you” (v14). Here the emphasis is not on His actions but on ours. Imagine someone coming to you and saying, “You can be my friend if you do everything I tell you.” That person would be very unlikely to have any friends at all. But this is our Savior speaking, and He will never command anything that’s not for our good and our ultimate blessing. Would the Lord Jesus refer to us as His friends based on this verse alone? Do we obey His commands?
One of His commands was given four times during the upper room discourse – “love one another” (13:34,35; 15:12,17). If they wondered what that might look like, He told them to love one another “as I have loved you” (13:34; 15:12). They had an example to follow, a model to imitate. And in less than 24 hours, they would witness the greatest act of love that could be demonstrated – the Savior laying down His life for His friends (15:13). This is an exceedingly high standard, yet it is commanded. The Lord expects that those He calls His friends would sacrifice out of love for one other.
There are two keys within His discourse as to how we might be able to love as He loved us. The first is to remain in His love (15:9). Abide there. Live there. Stay there. Enjoy His love. Appreciate it. Bask in it. And if we remain in His love, we’ll be much more likely to reflect it. The second key is found throughout the discourse repeatedly. We can only love as Christ loved us by the power of the Holy Spirit, the Helper, who now dwells within us. As we yield to Him, the love of Christ will pour out from us to one another in acts of self-sacrifice, because “the fruit of the Spirit is love …” (Gal 5:22).
We used to be the Lord’s enemies. We were “enemies in [our] minds as expressed through [our] evil deeds” (Col 1:21 NET). But we have been “reconciled to God by the death of his Son” (Rom 5:10). Yet grace brought about not only reconciliation to God but also friendship with Him. Let us prove it by keeping the commands of the Lord Jesus, by loving one another as He loved us.
1 Bible quotations in this article are from the ESV unless otherwise noted.
