Friend of God

Abraham is called the friend of God three times in the Scriptures. The first time, more than a thousand years after Abraham’s death, was in the middle of a prayer. The Hebrew king Jehoshaphat was threatened by an invading army. As he prayed to God for help, he identified himself with “Abraham your friend” (2 Chronicles 20:7). A few hundred years later during the devastation of the Babylonian exile, an Isaiah prophecy brought a word of God to the people that identified the congregation as “Israel, my servant… the offspring of Abraham, my friend” (Isaiah 41:8). The third mention occurs in the New Testament letter of James that argues the unity of faith and works by bringing Abraham into the argument with the words “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness,” – and he was called the friend of God (James 2:23).​

In Israel/Palestine today, the town most associated with Abraham in his lifetime, Hebron, has been named by the Muslims El Khalil, Arabic for “the friend.” Jew, Christian, and Muslim agree on this point at least: they remember Abraham as the friend of God.​

In the midst of that profoundly moving conversation Jesus had with his disciples the night before his crucifixion, he said, “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). Friends, three times in as many sentences.​

The person and life of Abraham define his relationship with God. It is significant that the word “friend” defines this relationship. It is also significant that this is the same word Jesus used to identify his God-in-the-flesh relationship with his followers and their relationship with him.​

“Friend of God” – is this your and my identity? Being a friend is the opposite of being an enemy. Abraham grew up in a country and culture in which the gods were distinctly unfriendly. But he knew God was on his side, that God was for him and with him, a friend. He experienced God accurately and truly. ​

Not much has changed in four thousand years. For us, the gods have been secularised. Many people are living in an atmosphere of anxiety, guilt, indifference, fear, uncertainty, and unable to rise above the commonplace terror of the times to live as God’s friend. To believe and to trust in his divine goodness.​

To be a friend of God does not mean everything is cosy between us and the Almighty. Friendship involves struggle and loss, tension and turbulence. Friendships are relationships, not functions. We find ourselves friends with people not for what they can do for us but simply for who they are. God was not Abraham’s friend in order to network with him. Abraham was a friend of God not for accomplishments. With the exception of his intercession for Sodom, he doesn’t seem to have asked his friend God for anything. ​

Being God’s friend didn’t mean that Abraham was heroically good or above average in virtue, or untainted by sin. ​

What does Abraham’s friendship with God teach us today? I suggest a few thoughts. Two persons are in touch with each other and share important interests. Abraham was in touch with the God who was in touch with him. He accepted God’s concern for him as the reality of his life, and he returned it by making God the centre of his life. He obeyed, he journeyed, he prayed, he believed, and he worshipped God. He did none of these perfectly. Abraham did all of it in relation with God, whom he was convinced was determined to be a good friend to him. ​

Jesus gets the last word: “I have called you friends” (John 15:15).​

By sister Lam Yeen Lan​