Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command you.  No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. (John 15:13-15)

Many Reformed people object to the idea of God as our friend, or at least are uncomfortable with it.  Since he is God incarnate, the same reasoning is applied to Jesus Christ.  I imagine they’re reacting to that type of American evangelicalism which portrays our relationship with God in terms too casual.  Speaking of him as our friend seems to endanger a proper understanding of God’s majesty and holiness — that applies to all three persons of the Trinity.

Surely we want to have the proper respect for our God and Saviour.  He deserves to be honoured in the highest degree.  But what if Scripture speaks about our relationship with God in terms of friendship?  The Bible has to be our standard, not an over-reaction against extremes found elsewhere.  What does the Bible say about this?  On the basis of God’s Word, can we say that God is our friend?

In general, in the Old Testament, we do find that some well-known believers were said to be friends of God.  Exodus 33:11 says, “Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses, as a man speaks to his friend.”  Though Moses was a sinner (why couldn’t he enter the Promised Land?  Failure to obey!), God related to Moses as one friend to another.  Abraham is another example.  No less that three times does Scripture say that Abraham was a friend of God:

Did you not, our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel, and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham, your friend? (2 Chronicles 20:7)

But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend… (Isaiah 41:8)

…Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness — and he was called a friend of God. (James 2:23)

I remind you that Abraham too was an inconsistent believer, a sinner like us.  Yet, wonderfully, God called him “friend.”

One might be tempted to counter, “But Moses and Abraham were special.  None of us can claim their special place in God’s redemptive plan.  They might have been friends of God, but that was something reserved for these unique figures.”

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