Friendship: The Highest Relationship of All

The husband/wife relationship is the oldest and most preeminent of all human relationships. It predates and goes ahead of any other relationship, including parent/child, mother/daughter, father/son, and sister/brother. No relationship should be closer, more personal, or more intimate than that which exists between a husband and wife. Such intimacy involves not only love but also knowledge. A husband and wife should know each other better than they know anyone else in the world. They should know each other’s likes and dislikes, their quirks and pet peeves, their strengths and weaknesses, their good and bad qualities, their gifts and talents, their prejudices and blind spots, their graces, and their character flaws. In short, a husband and wife should know everything about each other, even those undesirable traits that they hide from everyone else. The relationship does not guarantee knowledge. This kind of knowledge is not automatic. It does not happen simply because two people get married. One of the greatest problems in marriage or any other human relationship involves the labels we use. Words like “husband” and “wife,” “mother” and “daughter,” “sister” and “brother,” or “father” and “son” describe various relational connections within a family. They also imply a piece of knowledge or intimacy that may or may not exist. For example, a mother and daughter may assume that they know each other simply because their “labels” imply a close relationship. Certainly, a mother knows her daughter and a daughter, her mother. This is not necessarily so. The same thing could be said of other relational connections. If I call you my brother or my sister I am implying that I already know you. I assume that because we are related there is no need for us to spend time together getting to know each other. Marriage is a lifelong journey into intimacy, but also friendship. Labels that imply closeness and intimate knowledge may, in reality, hinder true relationship building. A husband and wife may assume that they know each other simply because they are married. As a result, they may do nothing more than scratch the surface, never plumbing the depths of each other’s personalities to gain true knowledge and build a deep and intimate relationship. Marriage is a lifelong journey into intimacy, but also friendship. A husband and wife should be each other’s best friends. There is no higher relationship. After all, who knows us better than our friends? Most of us will share with our friends things about ourselves that we never even tell our own families. Husbands and wives should have no secrets from each other. As their relationship develops they should grow into true friends, who know everything there is to know about each other, good and bad, and yet who love and accept each other anyway.

From the biblical standpoint, the highest relationship of all is that of “friend.” No greater testimony could be given to the life of a biblical personality than to say that he or she was a “friend of God.” Abraham fit that description: “ ‘Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,’ and he was called God’s friend” (Jas. 2:23b). Moses was another who knew God as a friend: “The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend” (Ex. 33:11a). David, the second king of Israel, was known as a man after God’s own heart (see 1 Sam. 13:14). This is another way of saying that David was God’s friend. In the Bible, the highest relationship of all is that of “friend.” Jesus made clear in His teaching the exalted place of friendship. In the 15th chapter of the Gospel of John, after telling His followers that their intimacy with Him was like that of branches to the vine, Jesus linked that intimacy to friendship. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from My Father I have made known to you (John 15:12-15). In these verses Jesus announces that His relationship with His followers is entering a new dimension, rising to a higher level. A fundamental change is occurring in the way they will now relate to one another. Beginning with the command to “Love each other,” Jesus then describes that love, declaring that the greatest love of all is where a person is willing to “lay down his life for his friends.” Jesus would demonstrate that kind of love the very next day when He went to the cross. It is significant that Jesus said “friends” here and not “family.” There is a quality to true friendship that transcends and rises above even the ties of family relationships. In the Old Testament, David, the future king of Israel, and Jonathan, son of Saul, the current king, enjoyed a friendship that was deeper than family. Even as Saul sought David’s life, Jonathan protected David because he was “one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself” (1 Sam. 18:1b). Jesus next states the new and deeper nature of the relationship: “You are My friends if you do what I command.” Obedience is the test of friendship with Jesus; it is also the test of love. Jesus is not looking for obedience based on obligation such as a servant would render, but obedience based on love which grows out of the context of friendship. The first kind of obedience is imposed from without while the second kind is freely chosen from within. There is a world of difference between the two. In the rest of the passage, Jesus draws a clear and sharp contrast between the old and new ways He and His followers will relate to each other. “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” Servants had no freedom of choice. They could not exercise their own will but were bound to do the will of their master. Rarely if ever were they privy to knowledge of the deep and intimate aspects of the life of their master or his family. Although they might live, work, eat, and sleep in their master’s house, they knew nothing of his business. It was different with family and friends. They were privileged to walk in his inner circle and share in the most personal dimensions of his life. Jesus said, “I no longer call you servants…Instead, I have called you friends…” He was telling His followers, “I do not want the kind of relationship where you are committed to Me by obligation. No more slave mentality. You are My friends, and I share everything with My friends everything I have learned from My Father.” What was Jesus alluding to when He said, “Everything that I learned from My Father I have made known to you”? What did Jesus tell His disciples His closest friends and followers that He did not reveal to anyone else? He opened His heart and soul to them. He held nothing back. Jesus spoke to the multitudes in parables but later, in private with His friends, He explained everything clearly and in greater detail (see Mk. 4:33- 34). He lived and worked intimately with them for three years, training and preparing them to carry on after He was no longer with them. Friends share everything, good or bad, happy or sad. One important characteristic of friends is that they share everything, good or bad, happy or sad. This quality is what sets friends apart from mere acquaintances and, often, even from family members. From their earliest days together, Jesus shared with His friends all the bad or unpleasant things that would come because of their friendship. He told them that He would be betrayed, arrested, beaten, scourged, and have His beard plucked out. He would be crucified, would die and be buried, and on the third day would rise from the dead. Jesus informed His disciples that because of their friendship with Him they would be hated, despised, persecuted, and even killed. He also assured them that He would be present with them always and that they would live and walk in His power and authority. Jesus hid nothing from them. He pulled no punches and did not hedge His words. This kind of openness and transparency is the mark of true friendship.

Friends Are Open and Honest With Each Other
Jesus wanted His friends to know all of this in advance so that when these things took place they would be prepared. “All this I have told you so that you will not go astray….I have told you this so that when the time comes you will remember that I warned you” (Jn. 16:1,4a). He did not want them to be taken by surprise. This illustrates an important truth: Friends are open and honest with each other. Nowhere is this principle more important than in a marriage relationship. One of the big problems in many marriages is that the husband and wife have trouble relating to each other as friends. They are more like “servants” than friends, more like brother and sister than husband and wife. Opening up to each other is just as difficult as opening up to the family or casual acquaintances. Most people do not share their inmost selves with their parents or siblings. They do not speak candidly about their highest dreams or their deepest fears, their greatest virtues, or their worst flaws. They will, however, reveal these things to their friends. The friendship between a husband and wife, with its characteristic honesty and openness, is essential for a happy, successful, and thriving marriage. Most couples enter married life without having told each other everything about themselves. In some ways, this is to be expected. It is impossible at the beginning to be completely open and candid because some things will come out only as the relationship grows over time. Nevertheless, a couple should know as much as possible about each other good and bad before they stand together at the marriage altar. The period of courtship and engagement is very valuable for this purpose. Too often, however, the man and woman will focus all their attention on always being on their best behavior for the other, careful to reveal only their good side. Out of fear of jeopardizing the budding relationship they will tiptoe around problems and avoid any mention of annoying habits or idiosyncrasies they may observe in each other. Unless they learn to be honest with each other at this stage of their relationship, they are in for a rude awakening later when, after they get married, these things inevitably come to light. A couple should know as much as possible about each other good and bad before they stand together at the marriage altar. For example, if Jude has a problem with his temper, he should be honest with Eva about it, and sooner rather than later. “I struggle with my temper. I fly off the handle easily. The Lord is working with me about it, but I still have a long way to go. I just wanted to tell you so that whenever my temper flares up you will forgive me and not take it personally.” This way, Eva will not be caught completely off guard the first time Jude spouts off. Eva may struggle with feelings of jealousy or tend to be hypercritical of other people. If she is upfront and aboveboard with Jude about this they can waylay any misunderstanding before it starts. Together they can work on their problems and help each other grow through them and beyond them. Any couple must feel comfortable together if this kind of honesty is to develop. Creating such a relaxed atmosphere depends a great deal on mutual respect and trust. While both of these qualities grow out of love, they also feed and nourish it. In the Bible, friendship and love are closely linked. “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity” (Prov. 17:17). “A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (Prov. 18:24). “His mouth is sweetness itself; he is altogether lovely. This is my lover, this my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem” (Song 5:16). Marriage is the highest of all human relationships and friendship is the highest level of that relationship. Every married couple should set their sights on rising to that level and never rest until they attain it. Even then they should not stop growing. True friendship has a breadth and a depth that no amount of time or growth can ever exhaust.
Marriage is the highest of all human relationships and friendship is the highest level of that relationship. Friendship is the catalyst that ultimately will fuse a husband and wife into one like a precious gem. Marriage is an earthly, fleshly picture of the relationship in the spiritual realm between not only God the Father, God the Son who is Jesus Christ, and God the Holy Spirit, but also between God and the race of mankind whom He created. Friendship characterizes the perfect unity and intimacy that exists among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and was also the nature of the relationship that Adam and Eve enjoyed with God and with each other in the Garden of Eden. God desires to restore the friendship relationship between Himself and humanity that sin destroyed. The modern world desperately needs to see a clear and honest picture of what friendship with God is like. No earthly relationship comes as close to that picture as marriage, and a marriage where the husband and wife are truly friends comes closest of all. Despite the attacks and challenges of modern society, the institution of marriage will last as long as human life on earth remains. God ordained and established marriage and it will endure until He brings all things in the physical realm to their close. No matter how much social and moral attitudes may change, marriage will remain, rock-solid as always, the best idea in human relationships ever to come down the pike, because it is God’s idea.

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