Gleanings in the Godhead - Part 2 Excellencies Which Pertain to God the Son as Christ - Section Four

Extract

Gleanings in the Godhead – Part 2: Excellencies Which
Pertain to God the Son as Christ – Section Four

The Friendship, Helpfulness, and the Call of Christ.
A. W. Pink

The Friendship of Christ

How many have ever heard a sermon or read an article on this subject? How many of God’s people think of Christ in this blessed relationship? Christ is the best Friend the Christian has, and it is both his privilege and duty to regard Him as such. Our scriptural support is in the following passages: “There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother” (Prov. 18:24), which can refer to none other than the Lord Jesus; “This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem” (Song 5:16). That is the language of His Spouse, the testimony of the Church, avowing this most intimate relationship. Add to these the witness of the New Testament when Christ was termed “a friend of publicans and sinners” (Luke 7:34). Many and varied are the relationships in which Christ stands to a believer, and he is the loser if He is ignored in any of them. Christ is God, Lord, Head, Saviour of the Church.

Officially He is our Prophet, Priest, and King; personally He is our Kinsman- Redeemer, our Intercessor, our Friend. That title expresses the near union between the Lord Jesus and believers. They are as if but one soul actuated them; indeed, one and the same spirit does, for “he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit” (1 Cor. 6:17). “Christ stands in a nearer relation than a brother to the Church: He is her Husband, her Bosom-friend” (John Gill). “We are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones” (Eph. 5:30). But even those relationships fall short of fully expressing the nearness, spiritual oneness, and indissoluableness of the union between Christ and His people. There should be the freest approaches to Him and the …