Friendship and Love.

 
ALTHOUGH none can say to the Most High, “What doest Thou?” (Dan. 6:35) He both can, and does often, communicate of His mind and will to others―those whom He calls His friends. Wondrous condescension! And yet not wondrous when we consider His infinite love, and the deep, everlasting interest He takes in us. “Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?” is an instance. The Lord said it. In another place (Isa. 41:88But thou, Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend. (Isaiah 41:8)), He uses the expression, Abraham my Friend. The days of His flesh, the Lord Jesus showed the extent of this friendship―how it was shown―in His word to His disciples. (John 15:1515Henceforth 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. (John 15:15).) “I have called you friends; for all things which I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.” All things. Here is the unreservedness of real friendship―the keeping back nothing. Had there been reserve, could there have been confidence, trust? The measure of our confidence in a person is that of his entice unfolding of himself to us, and if nothing is held back on his part, nothing is doubted, there is no uneasiness on ours. It is this which constitutes true friendship, the delightful intercourse of mind with mind, of heart with heart. There may be love without it. An object may be dear to me, and yet from some cause in myself or in the other, there is not the communion which entire unreserve on both sides would give. There was a strong, mighty love between David and Jonathan, but I am not aware that it is ever called friendship. There was even a covenant between them. But they occupied different spheres. The path of the one was not that of the other. The experiences of the one were most likely very different from those of the other. There was noble self-denial in Jonathan. He could strip himself not only of his sword, his bow, his girdle, but he could give up his hopes of a kingdom in favor of the one he loved. But he did not follow him into exile. He did not share with him his wanderings, his perils, his vicissitudes of circumstance, his sufferings in the wilderness. He would have averted them if he could, he would have shielded him from the rage of Saul, but their spheres were different, though in one thing they were blessedly alike―their devotedness to the Lord, the God of Israel. But their paths being different, the calm delights and intimate confidences of friendship could not be known, though the love was there in all its unbroken reality. There was a distance under the former dispensation between Jehovah and His people, which precluded them from entering into His counsels, from having, if I may so say, communion with Him. But Jesus has done away all that. “I have called you friends,” He says. He has made peace through the blood of His cross―the veil is rent. The Holy Ghost is given. God has told out His heart in giving Jesus. The life, the death, the resurrection of the Son of God has laid the foundation, not only of peace and blessedness in life eternal to the soul of man, but of communion, intimate and blessed fellowship with the Father and the Son, so that God can tell out the secrete of the heart to those whom He has loved and reconciled, those who draw nigh to Him by the blood of Jesus, those who know their sins forgiven for His name’s sake. These are brought nigh that He might have fellowship with them, that He might communicate His thoughts and purposes concerning them in all things. Jesus lives, and He says, “Because I live, ye shall live also.” Live eternally, live where no evil can be, in bodies glorified, immortal, sinless, like the body of glory in which He now appears in heaven. He speaks from thence, and His communications are of the heaven from which He speaks. What God is, what His love, His fatherly mercy, His infinite perfections, His holiness, His truth, Iris tender solicitude for all His little ones, His watchful interest over everything that affects them. Jesus declares the Father’s love, and will declare it. (John 17.) By the Holy Ghost it is shed abroad in the believer’s heart, and thus a heavenly character is formed in him while here below. The glory shines upon him, and he looks at it―the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Thus, though in tribulation, beset with difficulties on every hand, he can look up in confidence and peace, and say, My Father, Abba, Father; for God has given him a standing before Himself, and loves to whisper ever to his soul―
My child I am thine
In the glory divine,
And thou, though in weakness,
Forever art mine.