God's Friend

The Bible starts in Genesis 12. 

Now obviously it doesn’t, but understand what I mean when I say that. Prior to Genesis 12, we are hurtling through time at break-neck speeds! Genesis 1 by itself crosses millions of years. Genesis 2 to 6 sends us through more than a thousand years. 6 to 11 sends us through hundreds of years. If you can imagine this like being in a spaceship moving forward in time, advancing at a speed that keeps up with the narrative of Genesis page by page. Moving through Genesis 1, you would be a blur rocketing through space. Approaching Genesis 2 you hit the brakes and begin to slow some, but still you’re flying at quite a velocity! The stories go by in the blink of an eye––you barely have time to make out the characters of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel. In a moment you’re a thousand years ahead of them. Still your foot is pressing hard on the brakes. Piercing the dark clouds over the flood, your spaceship shakes violently. It’s decelerating fast. You emerge from the other side of the clouds and you get a quick glance of Noah and his family. The spaceship is descending toward earth as it slows down. Hundreds of years pass in the span of a few paragraphs, and you narrowly miss hitting the top floor of the tower of Babel as you sail past it. Still you’re descending and decelerating. And then, finally, it happens: the opening of Genesis 12. 

Your spaceship touches down and makes a soft landing. It slows to a complete stop at the end of the runway. And there before you––no more than 20 feet away––stands a single man, age 75. You see him through the front windows of the ship, but he doesn’t seem to notice you. Yet God invites you to step out and join him. You’re about to go on a long walk with him toward the mountains. You’re going to follow him for the next 13 chapters or so, at the pace of a man on foot. Compared to the pace at which you’ve been traveling, Genesis 12 is the start of a whole new experience, one that opens up the rest of the Bible. It’s as if the Torah has been hurrying you along just to get you to this one man and his family. God has been so excited for you to meet him. He couldn’t wait to introduce you to His friend, His companion, this man named Abraham. 

When we meet him, his name is just Abram. Already 75 years old, Abram is very special in God’s eyes, so much so that he is called God’s friend (James 2:23). Unbelievably, he is the man whom God treated as an equal. 

Say what?! How can God treat a man as an equal? 

Because God’s a lot more humble than you are! That’s how! 

Do not hear me lifting Abraham up to God’s level. By no means! Abraham is but dust and ashes. Abraham himself wouldn’t dare do such a thing. What I am saying is, God, in a stunning act of grace and humility, bent down and treated Abraham as an equal. He humbled Himself enough to do the unthinkable: to initiate a blood covenant with him! A blood covenant is done between equals, between committed friends on level ground. Yahweh (Y-H-V-H) gave Abram part of His own name. The H in Y-H-V-H went to Abram, transforming Abram into Abraham.  (The other H went to Sarai, making it Sarah.) And as we follow this man and his family over the coming years, we find that Abraham really is God’s friend. Allow me to make the case with just a few points.

In Genesis 18, God and Abraham are walking together. They come to a mountaintop, or a cliff’s edge, and they look down toward Sodom, a city of the plain. It is soon to be destroyed. And we read this: “Then the Lord said, ‘Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?’” (Genesis 18:17). Read it again because that is one incredible piece of Scripture! It’s a rare glimpse into God’s private thoughts. God knows that He is about to destroy Sodom, and here, it’s like He says to Himself, “Shall I hide this from my friend? Friends don’t keep secrets from one another. Abraham is trustworthy. I will confide in him.” What ensues, then, is a kind of conversation. God and Abraham go back and forth in a dialogue about the city’s judgement. The discussion reveals the quality of their friendship. These are a couple of friends with each other: the Judge of all the earth alongside a bag of dust and ashes, walking and talking about current events.

In Genesis 22 we have another demonstration of friendship between them, wherein God actually says please to Abraham! Why would the Lord say please to a man? Well, because they’re friends! And friends say please to each other. After all, God realizes that He is asking a lot of a friend when He says to Abraham: “Please take your son, your only son whom you love––Isaac––and go to the land of Moriah. Offer him there on one of the mountains that I will point out to you” (Genesis 22:2 ISV). Now note that most English translations forgo the please, in part because the Hebrew word can be translated in different ways, but also because at some level it’s uncomfortable to hear God say please to a man. The International Standard Version and Young’s Literal Translation translate the verse to say please, but the other translations translate the verse to say now. Their translations will read, “Take now your son, your only son...” But in Hebrew, it’s the same word. It’s the word na.

Na is the word used in Genesis 18:4 when Abraham says, “Please let a little water be brought and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree” (NASV). Na is the word used in Genesis 12:13 when Abraham says, “Please say that you are my sister so that it may go well with me because of you, that I may live on account of you” (NASV).

Na is the word used in Genesis 22:2 when God said to his friend Abraham, “Take please your son, your only son . . . and offer him there on one of the mountains that I will show to you.” And we know how the story goes: Abraham listens to the Lord. He leads his son up the mountain to offer him there. But God stops Abraham from killing his son Isaac. Jesus gives us this insight: “Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad” (John 8:56). I believe that there on Mount Moriah, after the ram was pulled from the thicket to be a substitute for Isaac, put on the altar and made to go up, Abraham saw what God’s Son would one day accomplish. Just like God revealed to Abraham what would happen to Sodom before it actually happened, God revealed to Abraham what would happen in Messiah’s day before it actually happened. 

I mean the two of them were friends, and friends don’t keep such important matters from one another.