Friends of God

A student, Kellen Meyer, points out the Abrahamic roots of John 15:14, where Jesus calls the disciples “friends.” Abraham too was called a “friend of God” (2 Chronicles 20:7; Isaiah 41:8). In designating the disciples as “friends,” Jesus is in effect calling them “true sons of Abraham.”

As a display of his friendship with Abraham Yahweh discloses what He plans to do with Sodom (Genesis 18), and this too fits with Jesus’ words to the disciples: “the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15). Jesus lets His friends know that He is going away, that they are going to suffer persecution, that the Spirit is coming, and so on.

If we can press the analogy with Abraham a step further, perhaps we can say this: As Yahweh let His friends know that He was going to bring fire from heaven against Sodom, so Jesus disclosed to His disciples that He was going to bring judgment on the new Sodom, the city where He was crucified (Revelation 11). Revelation as a whole, in fact, is the Master’s disclosure to his “friend” John the things He is planning to do.