Friend of Covenant

Abraham was called "the friend of God". This is covenant language. Those in covenant were called "friends". This denotes a relationship far deeper than what we consider when we speak of our friends. A passage of scripture that meant much to me as a teenager speaks of this relationship. I John 1:1-7 (NLT) 1 We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of life. 2 This one who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen him. And now we testify and proclaim to you that he is the one who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then he was revealed to us. 3 We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 4 We are writing these things so that you may fully share our joy. 5 This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all. 6 So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth. 7 But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.

James said faith without action is dead. Abraham knew covenant and he knew when God said for him to take his son Isaac to a certain mountain and sacrifice him there, this was a covenant demand and he acted immediately. When the disciples realized that Jesus was not a victim of hate but One Who was cutting a New Covenant, they acted on His Word as a covenant response. This is why John is explicit in his wording that we live in spiritual darkness when we do not act on (practice) the truth. Walking in the light, responding to His Word, is the way to fellowship with God. Look closely at verse 7. Living in covenant relationship with God means a life of fellowship with each other which results in an ever present cleansing. Jesus told us clearly that we are to love one another. John shows us this is covenant action. If we hate our brother that we have seen how can we say we love Jesus Whom we have not seen. This goes far beyond tolerating people because they go to the same church. This is fellowship of friends. Our response to God is to recognize His identification with us. We cannot truly love God and not love those with whom He identifies Himself. His death is total identification with all who have lived, now live and will yet live on this earth. He is totally identified with the baby about to be aborted. How we act toward those with whom He identifies will be how we are judged for it is a covenant response. Jesus identifies himself with the marriage covenant and how we treat our spouse will be accounted as a covenant response to Him. Kindness, gentleness, compassion and consideration are the building blocks of fellowship.