by Greg Tidwell

"Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his 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 15:13-15 ESV).

Do you have a real friend? Don't answer too quickly, for I am not talking about a social acquaintance. Do you have someone with whom you can be yourself, someone you know will always be there for you? Outside of our immediate family, someone like this is very rare. You are blessed if you have one or two real friends.

All Christians, however, have the blessing of the greatest friend imaginable. Jesus, the Son of God, has called us to be His friends. This friendship is not empty talk; Jesus has proven Himself to be our friend when He took our place in His death on the cross.

One of the attributes of a true friend is a willingness to tell us what we need to hear, not just what we want to hear. Jesus wants us to be blessed. He wants our lives to be rich and full and complete. For this reason, Jesus calls us to obey the will of God. It is in this relationship of trusting obedience that we are friends to Jesus. On our side, as well, friendship must be more than empty talk; it must prove itself in practice.

It is in obedience to the will of God, in penitent faith, that we come into a relationship with the Lord. This friendship means, come what may, we always have Someone who knows us, loves us, and will always be there for us. Jesus is our friend.

by Tim Hall

Mel Gibson's "The Passion Of The Christ" has provoked reactions from many quarters. One theme that has been pressed by some is the Jewishness of Jesus and Christianity's supposed disregard of that fact. This comment from the March 8, 2004 issue of "U.S. News & World Report" is an example: "Christians have always had to deal with the fact that Jesus of Nazareth - the founder of their religion, their Messiah, and the second part of the trinitarian God - was himself not a Christian but, indisputably, a Jew." The argument then suggests that Jesus' followers developed Christian doctrines in reaction to the persecution they endured at the hands of Jewish leaders. The result, Christianity, was the child of the early disciples, but not anything Jesus had envisioned.

To say that Christianity was not in the mind of the One claimed to be the head of the movement is a serious charge. It brands the early Christian leaders as renegades, usurpers - hijackers of an ideal. If they had more faithfully followed the teachings of Jesus, Christianity as we know it would never have been born.

Such a view of the illegitimacy of Christianity shows a failure to accept Jesus' own testimony about His mission. Consider His statement in John 7:16,17: "My doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent Me. If anyone wants to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority" (NKJV). In saying this, Jesus was challenging observers (of all times) to investigate. Those who honestly consider the evidence "shall know" the veracity of His way.

Of particular interest is the testimony of Scripture that a change would occur in the covenant God had made with the Jews. Significantly, the prediction of this change came from God through a Jew: "Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah - not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt . . ." (Jer. 31:31,32). Could honest observers fail to see that this was a prediction that God would somehow alter the covenant made with the Jews through Moses?

This prophecy was later affirmed to have been fulfilled by - again, significantly - a Hebrew. In speaking of Jesus and the "new and living way which He consecrated for us" (Heb. 10:20), he wrote: "But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises" (Heb. 8:6). After making that claim, the writer then quoted from Jeremiah 31, the prophecy of the change God would make to His covenant (vv. 8-12).

Here's the point: Jesus was a Jew. Of that there can be no doubt. But of even greater importance is the realization that Jesus was One who accepted and followed the will of God, whatever that happened to be. If His ministry had been conducted during the Christian age, He would have obediently submitted to the requirements of that covenant.

The fact that Jesus observed the Law of Moses does not make illegitimate the later activities of His apostles and disciples. They were merely imitating their Lord, of whom it was prophesied, "Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God" (Heb. 10:7,9). We now have the possibility of pure and simple Christianity because these early followers of Jesus did the will of God. They were acting entirely according to Jesus' plan.