I call you no longer bondmen, for the bondman does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things which I have heard of my Father I have made known to you.
On the last night before the cross, the Lord gives His disciples a new name: not servants, but friends. The change turns on knowledge — a servant stays outside his master's plans, but a friend hears all the Son heard from the Father.
From Servants to Friends
The title is new, and it sits inside a series of names the Lord gives His own. One writer traces the sequence.
The disciples of the Lord Jesus were greatly favoured in being called His friends. Earlier He had spoken of them as His sheep, and in resurrection He would call them His brothers. But now He says, "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." Great as the privilege of being servants of the Lord was, this place of friendship was higher, for it brought them into nearness and intimacy with the Son of God, where He made known to them the most wonderful secrets it is possible for men to know.
Being called friends does not cancel service. Writers note that the same men later gladly call themselves servants of Jesus Christ.
The Lord treats His own not only as servants, whom He gives directions. He treats them as friends, whom He tells His secrets. He can say, "All that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you." The disciples were indeed servants of Jesus Christ (2 Peter 1:1; Jude 1; Rom. 1:1). But they were more than servants, they were friends, and, if "the privilege of being servants is great, that of being friends is greater."
What the Servant Does Not Know
The same writer traces what a servant misses and what a friend receives.
The servant, as such, "does not know what his master is doing." He only knows the task given to him, and he gets only the direction he needs to carry it out. The servant whom his master treats as a friend knows more. His master tells him the secret purpose behind the work. And there is more. A friend is someone we tell our own affairs to, knowing they will interest him deeply, though they do not touch him directly.
That pattern had appeared once before, with Abraham, whom Scripture calls the friend of God.
When Abraham was on the mountain with the Lord, the Lord said, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?" He was the friend of God, and God took him into His confidence. And the Lord Jesus says the same thing of us... So the whole mind of God — all that He is for man — has been told out in Christ, and by the Spirit now given.
All That I Have Heard From My Father
What makes this friendship unlike any other is who is speaking.
Their right to all this high privilege rests on this — the Son is their prophet. The Son Himself has spoken to them, and He is "the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature." He says, "All that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you." Israel never stood in such privilege as this. God spoke to Israel in many measures and in many ways through His prophets. But their prophets were not the Son. They did not come from the bosom of the Father.
The wonder is not only what is told, but that He should tell it at all.
Obedience was the order, but He recognised them as friends. Then He makes known His mind. He tells them all that He had heard from His Father. What friendship! What friend is there to whom we could tell everything?... How the secret of the Father's love must be in Him, and on us too, that we should be the confidants of all that the Father makes known to Him!
Obedience Is the Condition
The verse just before this one attaches a condition to the name.
The Lord at once ties love to obedience. Without obedience, love is only self-pleasing, with no thought of Him before the soul. "You are my friends if you do what I command you." He is not speaking of reconciling enemies, but of why He calls us His friends. Obedience is the character and condition.
The same writer warns that we can keep the title and lose the reality.
He treats us as friends according to His perfect love, for He lets us into His secrets, instead of merely pressing our duty... It ought to be the treasured privilege of the Church to know His mind this way, and in principle it is. By His mind we read the tangled web of human life, and even the world's changing fortunes. But in practice we must be in earnest and constant in obedience, or the privilege stays a bare title instead of a living reality.
Entrusted With His Mind
What He tells His friends, He trusts them to keep.
How unspeakable the privilege! He treats us not as servants who receive their orders, and that is all, but as the trusted friends of Christ. He tells us His mind — all that He has heard from the Father. So we keep it in a world that has seen and hated both Him and the Father, and it shapes us as witnesses for Him.
Summary
- Servants — a servant gets his task and no more. He does not know what his master is doing.
- Friends — a friend learns the purpose behind the work. He even hears affairs that do not touch him directly. God dealt so with Abraham, and Christ deals so with His own.
- Secrets — this friendship carries everything the Son heard from the Father. No prophet before Him came from the Father's bosom, so Israel never stood in this privilege.
- Condition — obedience is the character and condition of the place. Without it the title stays a bare title.
- Witness — His friends keep what He tells them, and live it out in a world that hated both Him and the Father.