This Is My Friend

First, it will be proper to give some instances of Christ’s friendship to His church and people; from whence it will manifestly appear that He justly deserves such a character.

1. His engaging as a Surety for them is a manifest indication of it; when our cause was desperate, He engaged in it; when justice was ready to give the blow our transgressions deserved, He interposed, averted it, and took it upon Himself; when He knew that we should run through all our stock and become bankrupts, He became our Bondsman and engaged to pay the whole debt; when He saw that we should fall into the depths of sin and misery, He undertook to bring us out of them, cleanse us from all sin, clothe us with His righteousness, and safely conduct us to glory; and must not all this be esteemed a proof of Christ’s friendship to us?

2. His dying love for us is another: this is the greatest act of friendship among men, for one man to die for another. “Greater love hath no man than this,” says Christ, John 15:13, “that a man lay down his life for his friends.” But Christ has given greater instance of friendship than this, in that He has laid down His life for His enemies; for “when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son.” O matchless love! Unparalleled friendship!

3. He has paid all our debts: our sins are called so in Scripture, and a large score of them we have run. We owe “ten thousand talents” and have not one farthing to pay; and to prison we must have gone, where we should have lain until we had paid the “uttermost farthing,” had not Christ engaged to do it; which He has actually done, by making satisfaction to law and justice; on the account of which, God the Father has canceled the bond, crossed the debt-book, and discharged both sinner and Surety. It was an act of friendship now to be bound for us, but still a greater to pay the whole debt.

4. He has purchased our persons and procured all things needful for us; we are “not our own,” but “are bought with a price”; which price is not “corruptible things, as silver and gold,” but the “precious blood” of Christ Jesus, which He has shed for the ransom of us. For a king to give a large sum of money for the ransom of any of his subjects out of Algiers or any other place of slavery is an instance of his beneficence, humanity, and friendship to them; but were he to give himself a ransom for them, it would be an unheard-of one. But Christ has done this for His people and thereby redeemed them from the slavery of the law, sin, Satan, and the world. Not only this, but He has washed them from their sins “in His own blood,” stripped them of their “filthy garments,” and clothed them with “change of raiment”; nay, has procured an inheritance for them, of which He now gives them the pledge and earnest, and ere long will put them into the full possession of it. Now, to do all this for persons who are entirely undeserving of it, is an instance of friendship indeed!

5. Not only so, but He is also gone to glory, to take possession of it in our name, room, and stead; that so we may not be under any fear of losing it nor of being by any means deprived of it; and in so doing, acts the part of a loving Brother, a trusty co-heir, and faithful Friend. As well, He is gone thither also to prepare a place for us, that it may be ready for us when we, by His Sprit and grace, are made ready for that.

6. His acting the part of an Intercessor and Advocate for us with the Father is another instance of His friendship. “He appears in the presence of God for us,” presents our services and petitions to Him, pleads for every blessing we stand in need of, for converting, pardoning, adopting, sanctifying, and glorifying grace, and answers all Satan’s charges and accusations. In so doing, He shows Himself friendly to us.

7. He supplies all our wants. He has all grace treasured up in His person for this purpose, and He does not withhold it from His people; but at proper times, cheerfully and freely distributes it according as their wants and necessities require. This He does, not merely for their importunities’ sake, but because they are His friends. When disconsolate, He comforts them; when tempted, He succors them; when distressed, He relieves them; when hungry, He feeds them; when sick and wounded, He heals them and discharges all the good offices of a friend unto them.

8. He shows His friendship to us and maintains it by the kind and comfortable visits which He makes to us. Though He may absent Himself for some time, yet He will not leave us comfortless but will come and see us, and visit us with His salvation; which is such an astonishing piece of friendship, that we have reason to say as the psalmist, Psalm 8:4, “What is man that Thou art mindful of him? and the son of man that Thou visitest him?”

9. Whenever He pays those visits, it is with such an air of freedom and familiarity as renders them exceeding delightful and justly entitles Him to this character. It was His free, courteous, and affable deportment to men in the day of His flesh which occasioned the Pharisees, by way of reproach, to call Him “a friend of publicans and sinners.” So free and familiar are His converses with His people in a spiritual way, He talks with them, as one friend may with another; He walks with them, nay, He sits down at table with them, sups with them, and they with Him.

10. He shows Himself to be a Friend unto them, and that He looks upon them to be His friends, by disclosing the secrets of His grace unto them. Hence says He to His disciples, John 15:15, “I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard of My Father, I have made known unto you.” He lay in His Father’s bosom and so was privy to all His secret thoughts, counsels, purposes, and decrees, and He makes a discovery of them to us, so far as is needful to advance our good and His glory; for “the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him; and He will show them His covenant” (Psalm 25:14).

And, lastly, His friendship appears in the good and wholesome counsel which He gives unto us; which, being taken, is always useful and infallibly succeeds, being given with the utmost wisdom and the greatest faithfulness; of which see an instance in Revelation 3:18. Nay, His reproofs for sin, as well as His advice in distress, are exceeding friendly and ought to be taken so; for, as the wise man says, Proverbs 27:5-6, “Open rebuke is better than secret love; faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.” Thus much may suffice for some instances and proofs of Christ’s friendship to His church and people.

I come now, secondly, to show the transcendent excellency of this Friend: “This is my Friend.” He is nonesuch; there is none like Him nor to be compared with Him.

1. He is a “Friend that sticketh closer than a brother,” which may be expressive of that near union there is between Christ and believers. They are as if but one soul actuated them; and indeed but one Spirit does, which is in Christ without measure and in believers in measure; for “he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.” Christ stands in a nearer relation than that of a brother to His church; He is her Head and Husband, her bosom-Friend; she is “flesh of His flesh, and bone of His bone”; though all these relations fall short of fully expressing the nearness, strictness, and indissolubleness of this union. Or else, this character may intend that sympathy and affection which Christ bears to His people in all their afflictions, sorrows, sufferings, temptations, desertions, sins, and infirmities; as well as signify His close adherence to our cause; who, having once undertook it, never left it till He had completed what He had engaged to do; all which shews the transcendent excellency of this Friend.

2. He is a constant Friend, One that “loves at all times.” He was a Friend to us when we were enemies to Him; and merely by His own love and acts of friendship to us, He overcame us, slew the enmity of our natures, and of enemies made us friends; and continues to be a Friend to us in all the adversities and afflictions of life. When men are in prosperity, they have usually many friends; but when the day of adversity comes upon them, they soon forsake them. But Christ does not treat His people so; He is a Friend to them in adversity as well as in prosperity. He knows their souls when nobody else will. He owns them for His own and treats them as His friends, and so He will continue to do, even until death. And at that time He will not fail to show Himself friendly to them, no more than He will at the day of judgment, when He will publicly own them before angels and men to be His friends, set “the crown of righteousness” upon their heads, and give them an admittance into His Father’s kingdom and glory.

3. He is a faithful Friend. We may safely tell Him all the secrets of our hearts; He will not betray us. We may trust Him with our all; He will never fail us. And though the prophet says, Micah 7:5, “Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide,” yet we may safely trust in this our Friend, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will be our almighty God, and our trusted and faithful Friend and “Guide, even unto death.”

4. He is a rich Friend. Such a one is often useful and needful: a man may have a friend that has a heart to help him but not a capacity. But Christ, as He is heartily willing to help us, so He has an ability to do it. He is possessed of “unsearchable riches,” and these He distributes among His friends; for it is from those “riches in glory,” which are in Christ’s hands, that all the wants of His people are supplied.

5. He is an everlasting Friend. A man may have a friend, but this friend may die, and then all his dependence on him is gone. But Christ ever lives, and He ever lives to be a Friend unto His people. Death parts the best friends and puts them into an incapacity of serving each other; but there is no fear or danger of this in Christ, over whom death shall no more have the dominion.

6. He is an unchangeable Friend. He is always the same, “yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” Sometimes little things “separate chief friends,” but nothing can separate Christ and believers. His mind never changes, His affections never cool, nor are the communications of friendship ever cut off. His ears are not open to every idle story, nor is He tempted to break off friendship with His people by their unkindnesses and ingratitude to Him.

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