Friends of Jesus
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2021 · 14 November 2021
John 15 is full of significant instruction for us. When we think of friendship, we think of equality. We don’t think of hierarchy. We don’t think of demands and commands, and submission and authority. But that strange reality of “you can be my friend if you do everything I say to you” is exactly what Jesus says in this passage. Let’s look at the text beginning in verse 12.
John 15:12-17, “This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. 13 There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me.”
“16 You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, in my name. 17 This is my command: love each other.” It seems strange in calling people friends to keep repeating to them commands, but that’s exactly what our Lord does. Now they have left the upper room and are now walking through the darkness headed for the garden.
As they walk, the Lord gives them another amazing promise, “If you do what I say, you can be My friends.” What really dominates this night is love. It’s really a night of unparalleled love that culminates the next day in the greatest act of love, the Lord giving up His life for His own. And He said it in verse 13, “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
This is where the love of God is promised through Christ to all who belong to Him. Love is behind all the promises. In this paragraph, the Lord expresses His love and commands His disciples to love Him and to love others, to live in love. The Father loves the Son, the Son loves the Father. The Father and the Son love us. We are to love them and love each other. Love defines all these relationships.
But it is a very unique kind of love. In verse 15, it says, “No longer do I only call you slaves, for the slave doesn’t know what his master is doing. But I am calling you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.” He identifies the disciples as slaves who are also friends. Now we don’t have slaves in America. But this is a new reality: slaves who are also friends.
The Bible does not condemn slavery as a social structure. But slavery in itself, not only is it not condemned, it is elevated as a spiritual structure in which to understand our relationship to the Lord. The word “friend” in the Greek is philos which means “to love, to have affection for.” Jesus says, “You are My friends, slaves who are loved. You are slaves who know Me most intimately.”
Go back to verse 15, “I call you friends because all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.” There are no secrets. I’ll tell you everything the Father has revealed to Me. You know Me better than anyone knows Me. It is a picture of the believer who is a slave, but is elevated to an intimate level of being that is uniquely loved and trusted.
Are there no secrets? No. You have the mind of Christ; He has revealed it all here. How blessed am I to be able to say, “I’m a friend of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and He has no secrets that He has kept from me.” How privileged am I: this is real friendship. Now, when we talk about slaves who are friends, we’re entering into a concept that is alien to the evangelical world.
Now, let me explain this. If Jesus is Lord, then you are His slave. We all say that Jesus is Lord. That is the substantial foundational confession of Christianity. That’s what sets a Christian apart. And in the ancient world, everybody was confessing “Caesar is Lord.” Along came these believers saying, “No, Caesar is not Lord. Jesus is Lord, and we are slaves of Jesus and intimate friends.”
Romans 10:9 -10 says, “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you’ll be saved.” And you can’t do that on your own. 1 Corinthians 12:3 says, “Nobody can confess ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by power of the Holy Spirit.” That is an absolute reality. It is a required confession and belief, and it demands submission of your heart.
The true reality of Christ’s lordship has been obscured and eclipsed through the centuries by the translators of the Old and New Testament, who have tampered with the word “slave.” The word “lord” means “one who has power, ownership, and absolute authority.” It’s used 750 times in the New Testament. The New Testament refers to Jesus primarily as Kurios, Lord.
He is kurios, sovereign ruler. He is despotés, absolute ruler. So when you say, “Jesus is Lord,” you’re not identifying Him merely as deity, identifying Him in some sort of abstract way as the most important religious figure. When you say “Lord,” that’s slave talk. You are saying, “He is the Master with absolute power and absolute dominion.” That word describes a slave owner: “He is Lord.”
Now the church is less interested in theology; and practically speaking evangelicalism. It’s really all about me. They’re really influenced by the culture. The church is often an assembly of people who think they’re there to tell God what He needs to do for them. It’s a practical disowning of Christ as absolute sovereign Lord. Jesus said it this way: “Why do you call Me Lord and do not do the things I say?”
Luke 9:23 says, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself.” You’re not in charge anymore. Your ambitions, your schemes, your desires, your goals, your objectives, your possessions, all your relationships should be set aside. You deny yourself. It may mean forsaking everything. If you are saying, “You are Lord. That means You are the absolute ruler of my life.”
Christians are slaves. We are in the best of all possible relationships because you are bought and owned, and cared for, and protected, and provided for, and rewarded, and loved. There’s a security in that that doesn’t exist outside of that. But in the case of the spiritual reality, Jesus is Lord Kurios. As Christians we are slaves, doulos. It appears 130 times in the New Testament.
But I want to warn you, you won’t find them. Why? Because almost all of those are translated by a different word. They are translated “servant” or “bondservant.” A slave is someone who is bought and owned, who had no personal rights, no legal standing, couldn’t own property with no freedom. That’s very different than being a servant. A servant is someone who serves.
I’m not free under Christ. My freedoms are defined by Him. My duties are defined by Him. My convictions are defined by Him. My words are defined by Him. My actions are defined by Him. My relationships are defined by Him. Everything in my life is defined by Him. When I said, “Jesus is Lord,” I have yielded up unqualified submission to the control and commands of the Lord.
A servant works for someone, a slave is owned; and I’m owned, and so are you if you’re a Christian. You’re owned because you were chosen off the slave market of sin, and then you were bought with the price of His precious blood. It’s what it means to follow Christ. And you have to see it that way. Anything less than that gives you way too much latitude for controlling your own life.
In 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, Paul says, “You’re not your own, you’re bought with a high price.” In Acts 20:28, he says again, “the church of God which He has purchased with His own blood.” It’s all through Scripture. 2 Peter 2 refers to “the Master who bought them.” Revelation 5:9 says, “You were slain and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe, tongue, people and nation.”
What does it mean to be a Christian? Oh, Jesus wants to come into your life, fix everything, make you happy, and give you what you want? That is an absolute lie. That’s what the devil promises to people. The message of the cross is, “Jesus is Lord and King; and if you want to receive forgiveness of sin and salvation, you confess Him as Lord, and you become His slave.”
You are a slave who became a son; He is a son who became a slave. He was a slave of God in His incarnation. He shows us what that slavery is: “Not My will, but Thine be done, all the way to the cross; if it means death.” Christ showed us what that slavery looks like, and as a result Philippians 2:9 says: “God highly exalted Him, bestowed on Him the name which is above every name.”
Verse 16, “You did not choose Me,” that’s the negative with no ambiguity. If you are a slave of the Lord Jesus Christ who has been elevated to an intimate friend, it’s not because you chose it, it’s because He chose it. He’s talking to His disciples, His apostles. Some of them were following the ministry of John the Baptist. But Jesus chose them. And you can follow the history of how He chose them.
And this extends to all who are Christ’s slaves who become friends. Every promise, every identification here is extended to every believer throughout human history. Specifically, in John 17:1-2. Now the prayer essentially is, “I’m praying this, Father, for all who will be given to Me to receive eternal life.” We’re going through all of redemptive history, “To all who will be given by the Father.”
In John 6:37, we read these powerful words. Our Lord says, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me.” Then John 6:44, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.” The Father is drawing. They are coming, they are coming through all of redemptive history. “All that the Father gives Me.” That is a designation of every true believer in the past, now and in the future.
We are all love gifts from the Father to the Son, as the Father gathers a bride for His Son for a great wedding in heaven, a bride that will honor, glorify, serve Him and manifest His praise forever and ever. So our Lord is praying in John 17:21, for all who will believe through their testimony in the New Testament. “I’m asking for all who will believe in Me through their word that they all may be one.”
He sees collectively all the redeemed of all the ages as one. He’s praying a prayer that sweeps forward and embraces all that the Father that will give to Him for salvation as the Father gathers a bride for His Son. You were chosen to be a slave and the price was paid. You have become not just slaves; however, you have been elevated to friends, and you characteristically love one another.
We are slaves who obey our King joyfully and gratefully. We are friends who love our King; and also characteristically in obeying our King, we love one another. That’s verse 17. We’re known by our love. We obey and we love; that really is it. That’s how you define who we are. We obey our God whom we love, and we love others who are our slave friends.
This is an extreme friendship. Look at verse 13, “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” You say, “I’m your friend? Really? Are you going to die for me? This here is an extreme slavery where we do everything that our commander tells us to do; and we do it joyfully. This is an extreme kind of friendship where we literally are willing to give our lives.
That is why in verse 16 you read, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you.” It’s the doctrine of election. But it doesn’t end there. Then He says, “I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name.” This is a commission. In other words, you were chosen to fulfill a commission; and it is a commission to go.
Your life matters more than any nonbeliever in the world, I don’t care what his position or achievements are; because no matter what anybody else does, it’s temporal, right? Your life matters forever. You bear fruit that remains. Unworthy sinners that we are, we have been chosen for such eternal influence. You were willing because He made you willing. You were made alive spiritually because He gave you life.
1 Corinthians 1:27-29, “God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And He chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. 28 God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important. 29 As a result, no one can ever boast in the presence of God.”
Why does God do the choosing? Well, because no man on his own seeks after God. We couldn’t do that. And more importantly, He does it because He is God, and it is for His glory. When you want somebody to be saved, you go to God and you pray and pray, “Lord, grant life, grant faith, grant repentance; save this person. Lord, please be gracious; save this person.”
But where do accusations ‘that is not fair’ come from? If God chooses, then those accusations will arise. Salvation is His choice in all its fullness. And it’s not apart from our faith. It’s not apart from our response. But He chooses to make us willing, and then makes us His own. This is the most pride-crushing, God-exalting, joy-producing, hope-giving doctrine in the Bible. Let us pray.