For those who prefer personal embodiment to an on-line presence as the means for maintaining friendship, Facebook has no real appeal. This doesn’t necessarily make non-Facebook users better people but it may make for better friendship since the real me is more of me than the virtual me. (Of course, the real me could always be worse – i.e., less palatable – than the virtual me, which would make Facebook the social media for misfits.)
The tension between the real and the virtual is all the more complicated when it comes to thinking about a friendship with Jesus. Protestants have various hymns that celebrate the friendship between believers and their savior. And some preachers will even encourage hearers to deepen their intimate relationship with Jesus.
But I wonder about such intimacy since how many friends can a real man have? Ten close friends seems about as many as I could imagine managing, though the reality is more like six. Maybe someone who is more cheerful and outgoing than I could have 100 close friends, though I don’t know how you could ever email, call, or drink with such a number of people sufficiently to merit calling them close. But beyond 100 it would seem hard to go.
In which case, if Jesus is a friend, even an intimate one, with all of his children (to mix metaphors), how could he possibly be a close friend to all of the elect? One tempting answer – aside from speculating that the elect totals only in the double-digits – is to refer to his divinity as the source of his capacity to befriend so many people. But it is not Jesus’ divinity that makes him a friend to sinners. It is his unique work as a man who is also God. What is more, in his earthly ministry Jesus was known to be partial to one of his disciples, as in the beloved one to whom John refers frequently. This would suggest that in Jesus’ humanity he was drawn, as all people are, to certain persons more than others to form a close personal bond.
At the same time, the very situatedness of having a bodily existence and being located in a place would also imply limits upon Jesus’ capacity for intimate relationship with all believers. Since he has a body and is limited at least in his interactions as the second person of the Trinity to his physical form, when Christians go to be with him a lot of believers will likely be vying (and waiting) for face time with their savior. I imagine long lines. I also wonder if the beloved disciple will have better access to Jesus than I will. And if I go to the new heavens and new earth expecting intimacy, I may be be very disappointed.
None of this is to suggest that Jesus is not a friend to sinners. It is only to consider that our understandings or expectations of friendship should be recalibrated when it comes to considering our relationship to Jesus. Jesus is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. That kind of sameness is not what we encounter in any of our acquaintances in this world. Depending on the variations of emotions and expressions in those around us, those daily changes draw us closer to some more than others. Of course, constancy of trust is an important part of friendship. But a friend who said the same thing all the time would be at least uninteresting. And this is what we encounter in Jesus who has spoken in his word and has stopped speaking. He has also communicated the same thing to all of his believers – the Bible. Granted, this is a lot of communication and well preserved. It is also personal, not like the computer HAL in 2001 A Space Odyssey. But it is not intimate as we who seek close friendships consider intimacy.
So instead of looking for an intimate relationship with Jesus, or regarding him on the order of a best friend, perhaps we need to be content with the relationship we have. He is our prophet, priest, and king. In executing those offices he may not meet a person’s felt needs for intimacy or longing for a best friend. But thanks to the abiding goodness of his creation, he has provided stand-ins, creatures with attributes sufficiently attractive and persevering to form real friendship.
Old Life 
It strikes me that our Lord in his earthly life was not the sort who had the ability to make everyone one who met him feel for an instant at least the he was his or her best friend. He was not the happy, glad-hander who gave the impression of intimacy but never really let anyone in and who did not really wish to get in anyone else’s real life. Yet, he had intimates, which is something altogether different. His friendships were faithful and enduring Which all makes me think he could do very well as a flag-ship church minister today. But perhaps, as the therapists would say, this is projection.
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As a pastor, how would respond to a parishoner who asks, “Does God/Jesus like me?”
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“At the same time, the very situatedness of having a bodily existence and being located in a place would also imply limits upon Jesus’ capacity for intimate relationship with all believers. ”
-I wonder what the Lutheran take would be on this one.
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“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have love you, Greater love has no one that this, that someone lays down his life for is 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 15:12-15.
My consideration of him as my “best friend” is in response to his completed work on the cross.
Speaking of long lines, check out how the flamingos stand in lines: http://youtu.be/1l2CcH0vHDc around 1:08 minutes….
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I wonder how you would square this with the scriptures that speak of God’s love for us, the verse where Jesus knocks at the door to dine with us, how the Spirit unites us with the Father, etc. Maybe the intimacy focus ought to be placed on the Father rather than the son? Thanks for a thought-provoking post.
P.S. I’ve begun reading A Secular Faith, and I anticipate being encouraged by it.
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If I understand DG’s maint point, that the devaluation of friendship in our age is largely responsible for expecting a kind of friendship from Jesus that the Scriptures do not suggest, I think he’s right.
Aristotle’s definition of a true friend as a “second self” (Nichomachean Ethics 1170) is a better understanding it seems to me of friendship than what we normally use. Things that are similar are attracted to each other, the argument goes, and friends are gathered by shared qualities and interests. This is what is remarkable about the grace of God toward us in Christ. Christ calls us friend despite the fact that we are not like him in our virtues (i.e. we don’t have them but rather vices). The work of sanctification, of God’s free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, turns us into a second self, an alter idem of Christ. Not in the Eastern sense of theosis, but by enjoying his virutes as they are applied to us.
Maybe we could say in Facebook lingo that Christ “friends” us (we can’t “friend” him), though that is probably too shallow. The distinctives of individuals in friendships are today more celebrated than the similarities, and I would guess it’s the notion of identity, that we are to become like Christ (by conforming), that would be most out of step with contemporary notions of friendship. How many people would accept a friendship if one of the terms was that they were to become like the other as a condition of friendship? “I will make you my friend, but you must become entirely like me.” This is conceivable maybe in Aristotle’s time but difficult to grasp in ours.
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Regarding the earlier comments, it seems to me that Dr. Hart’s point is grounded on embracing the full humanity of Jesus Christ. Fully human, he had at least one person (John) who was – and I say this in all reverence – “idiosyncratically” suited to be his friend. By that I mean humans are complex creatures who form friendships based on varying and sometimes subtle bases. This is not at all a negation of Jesus’ love, benevolence, or any of those other comforting ways of describing him.
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Very interesting post. Some evangelicals today get a bit mushy about Jesus, and this is a good thought provoking response to it.
My only question is, what about the mediatorial role of the Spirit? By “mediatorial” I mean that as Calvin taught, the Spirit mediates the presence of Christ to us. The indwelling Spirit is how Christ can be finite and human and limited and yet also within us (e.g., Col 1:27 “Christ in you, the hope of glory”).
Perhaps this gets at the heart of why it was better for us that Jesus depart that the Spirit might be poured out on the Church.
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>> stand-ins, creatures with attributes sufficiently attractive and persevering to form real friendship. <<
Oh, Darryl, we're talking about English Setters again,aren't we? Perhaps the occasional, extraordinary feline!
-=Cris=-
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Bill, why would your parishioner wonder if Jesus likes him or her? Is “like” the right verb?
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Gary H., please adjust your expectations for A Secular Faith. History rarely consoles or encourages. But it is still worthwhile.
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OPC Guy, but what about when we are with Jesus in the flesh. Does the Spirit’s work mean that we can let John have all the time in eternity with his friend, Jesus?
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Cris, I love my cats but I’m not sure about friendship. Phil Hendrie calls felines “kibbles whores.” Seeing how demanding our Isabelle can be, I think Phil has a point.
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Durell,
Lutherans would say that Calvinists have a faulty Christology and that we choose not to speculate about whether Jesus will be our friend in the great beyond. Is this the equivalent of a Reformed “Kodak” moment or what? I’m tired of getting picked on by you Calvinist bullies.
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DGH, I suppose the short answer is “yes”. I mean:
John 17:22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
It seems from these words of Jesus’ prayer (which we know hasn’t yet been answered but must surely be answered fully at some point, which I assume is the age to come) that friendship is too mild a word to describe the complete union between all believers and Christ and with each other.
The only way I can make sense of this… promise(?) is to attribute it to the Spirit’s presence in the eschaton. Wasn’t it Vos who said that the Spirit is the atmosphere of the age to come? And isn’t that why Paul calls his presence in us our deposit guaranteeing our inheritance in the age to come? So if the Christ-mediating presence of the Spirit is completely…unleashed? in the age to come, then these verses will be answered I guess. I don’t think I’m saying anything strange here…am I?
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Just for the record, Phil Hendrie is amazing.
Bill. Wouldn’t it be better to bring all parishioners away from considering what Jesus “likes” about them? I would find it hard to believe that Jesus actually likes us when we are obstinate, unruly, practicing sin, not seeking him, hating the truth…basically any time that we are not in complete reliance upon Him. He loves us in our most rebellious state no doubt. I just find it hard to believe Jesus “likes” any of us (even you Darryl…though for what it’s worth, I like you).
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I am having regrets about bringing up the debate Lutherans and Calvinists have had for almost 500 years now about the humanity and divinity of Jesus and how this works itself out in our differing ideas about the sacraments.
I often wonder what it would have been like to actually see Jesus in the flesh and knowing that he could see right through to your real sinful self, not the virtual self we tend to hide behind. I think I would cringe and with Peter tell Jesus to depart from me for I am a sinful man. I sense this every Sunday morning before I take the Lord’s Supper and am thankful that the Lord bids us to come and partake even as we sense the discomfort about our still sinful natures and the abiding sin and sins that won’t go away.
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Darryl and John K:
The parishioner understands that Jesus has died for the elect, for those who trust in him.
However, even though the parishioner is a member in good standing, partakes of the sacraments and attends the preaching of the word, he sometimes senses that he is (merely?) the benefit of being a member of a class (perhaps similar to a member of a class-action lawsuit) where the benefits of salvation apply to him, not so much because God has taken special notice of his particular need (which is great) and individuallity, but because he has met the requirements of the group.
He would like to know that God actually singled him out for grace, and he did not slip in because he happened to meet the general requirements (faith). Maybe the focus of this becomes the specificity of the work of the Spirit in applying salvation.
Some people suffer from insecurities about God’s love rooted in their own internal weaknesses. These prompt them to seek a sense of God looking on them, specifically and individually, and setting his love upon them, not because of anything in themselves that God would find attractive (for their is nothing in them except guilt and corruption). The idea or category of friendship speaks to what the parishioner is looking for but, as Darryl points out, is not the best image to use.
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Bill,
I still fail to see how the issue is God liking them (which I still don’t believe God does “like” his children when they’re stiff necked and obstinate). It still seems like a failure of understanding love and election. To feel as though they are in a class action lawsuit, as you put it, implies that they are “in” by association of some kind. They are only “in” because God chose to redeem them from among a whole host of other sinners. The nature of election is to my understanding a personal act of God. I know that the parishioner needs some counseling, but I still think his “does God like me?” misses the mark. It would be like akin to saying “I don’t think I’m good enough”. The answer must redirect the original question or doubt.
On a personal level, I know all about insecurities, so it’s not a question I don’t sympathize with. I just think the answer might have to be lovingly redirected.
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You know, when you distinguish between God’s love for us – which prompted him to send his only Son to die for us – and whether or not Jesus “likes” us, and then you say that while God loves us, he might not like us very much when we’re “stiff necked and obstinate”, you say something that kind of makes sense and appears wise and insightful.
But at the end of the day, all you’re doing is making God’s affection for us dependent upon something in us. And that’s a road you don’t want to go down.
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John Yeazel,
So you know I wasn’t being a bully. Certainly I had a bit of a humored edge to the question I asked (you may not have thought it was humorous). This is one of the deficiencies of the web especially in regards lack of physical presence. You would have a lot more by which you could interpret me if I was talking to you in person.
I was curious a bit about what the Lutheran take on the matter was because of how divine attributes slip over to humanity in what I have read of Muller on the subject.
Since I have your attention, and on the side, what is the origin of your last name? It reads Germanic but I wonder if it is Ashkenazic Jew.
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Durell,
I was not offended- I thought I might of responded in a offensive way so I tried to weasel out of it by my second post. It was ignored so I passed it off as no big deal.
My name is mostly German with a bit of Dutch- no Ashkenazic Jew’s that I know of. A skosh of Scandanavian is in the mix too.
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OPC,
I agree however, in a situation like that that may arise, couldn’t you make the analogy of a parent/child relationship to be clear? Surely it can be understood how a parent may not like a child who totals the family car or goes out getting high at clubs or gets their girlfriend pregnant (or whatever) but that never diminishes the love for that child. I think there is a way to maintain Gods affections for his children and his unIque love for each one of us and move away from the wishy washy language of God “liking” us.
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There was good stuff in the old days of oldlife. What fun finding posts and comments like
May this blog have it’s domain name paid, registered, and renewed for many years to come!
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