True Friendship in Real Hardship

John 15:13

“Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” 

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In a perfect Friendship this Appreciative Love is, I think, often so great and so firmly based that each member of the circle feels, in his secret heart, humbled before all the rest.  Sometimes he wonders what he is doing there among his betters.  He is lucky beyond desert to be in such company.  Especially when the whole group is together, each bringing out all that is best, wisest, or funniest in all the others.  Those are the golden sessions; when four or five of us after a hard day’s walking have come to our inn; when our slippers are on, our feet spread out towards the blaze and our drinks at our elbows; when the whole world, and something beyond the world, opens itself to our minds as we talk; and no one has any claim on or any responsibility for another, but all are freemen and equals as if we had first met an hour ago, while at the same time an Affection mellowed by the years enfolds us.  Life—natural life—has no better gift to give.  Who could have deserved it?

The Four Loves, by C. S. Lewis, pp. 91-92

I wish I could have written to you in a happier time.  A time far closer to the fire place that Mr. Lewis wrote of, than to the fire we seem so close to.  But it is where God has placed us—Lewis in his time, us in our time.  This evening I don’t write to you that you would think about the dark times that are upon us.  This evening I write that you might stand in the Light of God—that you might enjoy Him in Christ, and seek Him in the old ways, the ways of peaceful times. 

               It has been charged, friend against friend, that to fight for such a scene as Lewis describes in a time of plague is selfish.  That such a desire over and against the alternatives is disgraceful.  “My brothers, these things ought not to be so” (James 3:10).  Why has your friend become your enemy because they spoke the truth (Galatians 4:16)?  Surely, they would not speak as they do unless they had some reason?  Surely, they speak the way they do for your good according to the best of their wisdom?  Come now!  Prove yourself to be more than a companion (Proverbs 18:24)!  In good times and pleasant days friends are many, and in prosperity honesty is rare (Proverbs 19:6).  Surely if your brother or sister meant to deceive you, they would speak in unreasoning babblings.  But if your friend pleads with you as a brother borne for adversity (Proverbs 17:17), if he lays before you his case according to the best of his or her knowledge, surely they are speaking the truth to you as best they know it (Proverbs 12:17)?  Surely those are sweet kisses (Proverbs 24:26) and not the kisses of Gethsemane (Proverbs 27:6)?  Surely, they cut you only as a surgeon, and as a sword to sharpen sword, rather than a butcher who prepares a feast (Proverbs 27:6; Proverbs 27:17)? 

               I urge you, my brothers in Christ, have no other mind among yourselves!  And if anyone seeks to seduce you from this path, deny them the courtesy of excepting such an offer.  For “They make much of you, but for no good purpose.  They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them” (Galatians 4:17).  And if they abandon you when you speak honestly with them as one soul speaks to another, if truly you can say you have spoken the truth with them in love, know that “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us.  But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us” (1 John 2:19). 

               In our text we have the words of Jesus to His friends and to those who would believe through their word (John 17:20), those on whom He set His love.  He did not abandon them in the world.  And even when He left them, He left them for their good that they might know their adoption, that we would be able to cry, in His own words, to “my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (John 20:17).  And in this statement, we find one of the most eloquent and personal summaries of the Gospel.  For it this was Jesus’ whole purpose.  For in this our LORD and God expresses that He lays His life down of His own will—no one takes it from Him (John 10:18); that He expressly knows for whom He dies for, and that intimately, as His friends (Luke 6:32-36); that He does not do it out of raw duty, but out of love—for His Father and for His friends (Romans 5:6-8).  As there is so much in these words, and as our focus is on true friendship, we will look more intently at just one expression of the Gospel in this statement.  Namely, that Christ gives up His enjoyment of His friends for His friends.  Christ gives up His enjoyment of those He loves for those He loves. 

               It might be strange to your ears to say that Jesus loved the disciples in terms of enjoying them as His friends.  How could Christ enjoy those stinky, self-centered, ornery disciples in the way Lewis described?  Any man surely would crumble after even three months of living with that bunch, let alone three years!  But Jesus is not just any man.  He is the incarnate Son of God.  And He has come to redeem sinners to be adopted by His Father (Ephesians 1:3-6), and therefore has come that He might have brothers (Romans 8:29).  What, therefore, is written in the Book of Proverbs is fulfilled in Christ.  Christ is the good Son of proverbs.  And he is the good brother and friend. 

               Notice that in our text, Christ does not say that “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his acquaintances.”  No, Christ says nothing of the kind!  But while they were sinners, Christ counted them as friends, so that when we would come to love Him we would know that we are His friends because “He first loved us” (John 4:19).  And this is a sure and steadfast truth of His friendship toward us, “that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15).  And it is in this strange and foreign love to the sinners’ heart that Christ dies for us!  For He invaded our world—we did not call Him down!  “…the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world” (1 John 4:14)!  And this was not because of anything motivating in us.  For, “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10).  God the Son first gave up His untrammeled happiness with the Father for us, and then He gave His self-motivated enjoyment of us for us! 

               How then should we live?  If it is true that it was “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9).  How then should we live?  As friends of God, and sons of the Most High God.  As friends of one another in the household of God, as the children of a gracious LORD.  For in His lovingkindness toward us we have this command: “whoever loves God must also love his brother” (1 John 4:21). 

               Let us not use our tongue to “bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God” (James 3:9).  Let us speak honestly with one another, as before the eyes of the LORD—as before the face of God!  For friends are willing, when they believe that they are at the end of the world and none of their friends will listen to them, to say, “I pray to God I’m wrong; but if I’m not, when this hits, you have a place with me.  I’ll take you in, I’ll feed you, I’ll cloth you, and I’ll protect whatever comes to pass.”  “Life—natural life—has no better gift to give.”  And spiritual life has no better way to express itself than to give up that natural gift for ones friends. 

               And “remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  For it is a narrow path you walk in life in loving one another well.  “They said to you, ‘In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.’  It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit.”  “…if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth… the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere” (James 3:14, 17).  “But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.  And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh” (Jude 17-23). 

               O my LORD’s church, I urge you in Christ, pray with me.  And pray with Luther, a man after my own heart in these times.  And now that those who desire peace in righteousness desire a noble good (James 3:18).  And be “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” in Christ, “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love” (Ephesians 4:2-3). 

“Almighty, eternal God, what a contemptible thing this world is! Yet how it causes men to gape and stare at it! How small and slight is the trust of men in God. How frail and sensitive is the flesh of men, and the devil so powerful and active through his apostles and the ‘wise’ of the world! How soon men become disheartened and hurry on, running the common cause, the broad way to hell, where the godless belong! Their gazes fixed on what is splendid and powerful, great, and mighty! If I too were to turn my eyes to such things, I would be undone! The verdict would already have been passed against me, and the bell that is to toll my doom would already have been cast.

O God, O God, O Thou my God, my God, help me against the reason and wisdom of all the world! Do this! Thou must do it, Thou alone, for this cause is not mine, but Thine! For myself, I have no business here with these great lords of the world! Indeed, I too desire to enjoy days of peace and quiet and to be undisturbed. But Thine, O Lord, is this cause, and it is righteous and of eternal importance! Stand by me, Thou faithful eternal God. I rely on no man! Futile and vain is all; lame and halting all that is carnal and smacks of the flesh. God, O God, dost Thou not hear me, my God? Art Thou dead? Nay, Thou canst not die! Thou art merely hiding Thyself. Hast Thou chosen me for this task? I ask Thee!

I am sure Thou hast. Were so, let it be, then. Thy will be done. For never in my life did I intend to oppose such great lords. Never had I resolved to do this! O God, stand by me in the Name of Thy dear Son, Jesus Christ, Who shall be my protector and defender, yea, my mighty fortress, through the might and the strengthening of Thy Holy Spirit. Lord, where tarriest Thou? O Thou my God, where art Thou? Come, O come! I am ready to lay down my life for this cause, meek as a lamb, for the cause is righteous and it is Thine. I will not separate myself from Thee forever. Be that decision made, in Thy Name!

The world must leave my conscience unconquered even though it were full of devils and though my body, the work and creation of Thy hands, should be utterly ruined! But Thy Word and Spirit are a good compensation to me, and after all, only the body is concerned. The soul is Thine, and belongs to Thee, and willingly it will remain eternally. Amen. God help me.  Amen” (Luther). 

Lewis, C. S. The Four Loves. 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007: HarperCollins Publishers, 1960. Book.

Luther, Martin. “The Crass, Intolerant Polemicist Who Loved Jesus & The Gospel.” 30 3 2017. https://pulpitandpen.org/2017/03/30/the-crass-intolerant-polemicist-who-loved-jesus-the-gospel/. Article. 15 8 2021.