FRIENDS, BROTHERS, SISTERS AND FOLLOWERS
Facebook uses the terms “Friend” and “Follower” to describe relationships. Twitter uses the term “Follower. Facebook and Twitter also use the term “like” to describe when friends, followers and other readers approve of posts.

Some Christians like to call their co-religionists brother or sister. They speak warmly of each other as brothers and sisters in the Lord. And they like to think of Jesus as their friend whom they love and follow. They think about friendship with Jesus and their co-religionists the same way that they think about their non-religious friends and family, often giving it a spiritual spin by combining Christian friendship with agape love.

This kind of talk is all very well-accepted in religious circles. But it misses Jesus’ definition of brotherhood, friendship, and love. Here is what Jesus said:

Matthew 12:50: “For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother.”

COMMENTARY: What it means to do God’s will is best summarized this way: Obey his verbal commandments/laws.

God’s verbal commandments, however, are not the written words of the Bible. His verbal commands contain the full depth of God’s character in a way that the written Bible cannot possibly do. His verbal commands are contained only in God’s spiritual laws which he writes on the hearts (i.e. in heaven) of New Covenant disciples. These commands are heard in the heart by New Covenant disciples who have ears to hear God’s spoken voice.

STUDY TIP: See The Law for a detailed discussion of laws, commands, ordinances, and precepts which all comprise God’s verbal commands.

Jesus is the perfect example of a New Covenant disciple. In his character and ministry, we have the perfect example of what it means to obey God’s will.

This contrasts with religious people who believe that doing the will of God is obedience to religious laws based on the literal words of the Bible. Not understanding that God’s written laws and God’s verbal laws are not the same, they do their best to obey the written law through religious activity: Go to church regularly; pray often; pay tithes; volunteer, and do their best to avoid breaking the Ten Commandments. These activities are all approved and praised by co-religionists, but they are not what God wants. In fact, they are actually the opposite of what God wants. They are religious activities — not acts of faith. People who base their religion on the written words of the Bible have stumbled over the law.

John 14:21-24:  He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”

COMMENTARY: God’s commandments are revealed in his words. Jesus’ commandments are actually God’s commandments because Jesus speaks God’s words for God. 

God’s commandments as spoken through Jesus are God’s laws written on the hearts of New Covenant disciples who have hearts (i.e. ears) to hear God’s voice. Since the heart — not the flesh — is the repository of God’s commandments, the heart is the place where God’s commandments are kept as a treasure.

The only people who can rightfully say that they love Jesus are those who have (i.e. possess) and keep (i.e. doing faithfully) Jesus’ (i.e. God’s) commands are New Covenant disciples who have God’s laws written on their hearts.

22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” 23 Jesus answered him, “If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24 He who does not love me does not keep my words; and the word which you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.

COMMENTARY: Understanding of this verse depends on understanding of Godly love which explains why love, Jesus’ words and God’s love are all connected.

Because Jesus spoke for God, keeping Jesus’ word is the same as keeping God’s word. And keeping God’s word means the same thing as receiving God’s love.

Jesus makes it very clear here that only people who keep God’s words (i.e. they have God’s spiritual laws written on their hearts) can really say that they love him.

Therefore, it is wrong for religious people to call themselves brothers and sisters of Jesus. They are brothers, sisters and friends according to the standards of the world, but not according to God’s standards.

Jesus explains these standards more fully in this verse:

John 15:13-15: Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.

COMMENTARY: Understanding of this verse depends on understanding of Godly love and on the nature of religion. 

Before he was born again, Jesus was religious. He had many Jewish brothers and sisters with whom he shared religious beliefs and practices. That all changed when Jesus  was baptized (i.e. born again.) Jesus had to voluntarily put that religious life to death. He had to die to being a religious son of religious men before he could be a spiritual son of God.

Therefore, the first life that Jesus laid down is the love of religion that sustained him for the first thirty years of his life. The Bible calls the end of this life the “first death.”

When Jesus died to religion he became spiritually alive at the moment he was baptized by the spirit of God. It was then that he became a messiah.  Until that moment, he was accepted as a faithful Jew because he obeyed the rules of Judaism. But when he was born again, he became a religious law-breaker and began fulfilling his ministry functions. That is when his former co-religionists started persecuting him and plotting to kill him. This is all part of the second death that Jesus suffered. The second death is not a moment in time. It is a process that begins as soon as we are born again.

The second death must happen because religious people are greatly offended when someone breaks their religious rules, challenges their beliefs, or threatens to tear down their kingdoms and their idols.

STUDY TIP: See Religion is the Enemy, Gods at War and Sibling Conflict for understanding of religious conflict. Also see Jesus and the Money-Changers in the Temple.

Jesus broke religious rules and told the Jews why their religion was sin.

STUDY TIP: See Jesus Ministry Functions for a review of the things that Jesus told religious leaders that offended them.

It is no wonder that people despised and hated him. His words cause conflict with his former religious friends and his family.. As soon as Jesus started to preach about the kingdom of God, the kingdom of the Jews was threatened. Thus it can be said that he sacrificed (i.e. laid down) his good relationships with his Jewish co-religionists when he began to preach.

Jesus had to suffer death to these relationships so that he could experience resurrection and new life. There is no resurrection and no new life unless a death first occurs. He voluntarily went through this death and resurrection process so that he could hear God’s spoken voice.

It was his willingness to leave religion and suffer persecution of the second death at the hands of religious leaders that qualified him to be a spokesperson for God. By speaking for God and putting his own life at risk, he expressed great love for others. And that is the qualification for all true prophets, angels, messiahs, high priests, witnesses, and warriors who speak for God. It must be this way because it is impossible to preach about the promise of a changed heart unless you have personally experienced the miracle God has performed in your own heart. By doing this, Jesus gives us the perfect example of greater love which is the perfect example of Godly love.

14 “You are my friends if you obey my command

COMMENTARY: Jesus’ commands are actually God’s commands because Jesus speaks for God. One of Jesus’ commands was to love your neighbor as yourself. He said, in fact, that the entire law is fulfilled by loving you neighbor as yourself. The kind of love to which he was referring when he said to love your neighbor as yourself is the “greater love.” His friends, therefore, are people who are willing to suffer both the first death and second death.

15 No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.

COMMENTARY: In God’s view, religious people are slaves. They voluntarily enslaved themselves to religion when they have made the choice to eat the fruit of Trees of Knowledge of Good and Evil, instead of the fruit of Trees of Life.

Because they listen to false prophets (i.e. religious leaders) who tell them what they want to hear, and teach them to follow religious rules, they do not know how to listen to God’s spoken voice.  Since they do not have ears to hear God’s voice, they do not know what God is doing (i.e. his spiritual laws.)

The friends of all true prophets (i.e. followers of Jesus) are different. They report what they hear from God to anyone who will listen. Those who have ears to hear and obey God’s commands spoken through them become friends, and those who reject what they say are enemies.

Finally, it must be said that religious people find it easy to know who is their brother/sister. All they need to do is watch them and listen to their religious speech. The people who practice the same kind of religion are their friends. The ones who do not practice the same religion and do not use the same kind of religious language are not their friends. Unlike God, who looks at the heart, they look at what the outer man says and does.

Since New Covenant disciples do not identify themselves  through their religion, it is harder to judge if they are brothers or sisters or not. The first way to judge is to observe if they are true prophets or false prophets. This can be done by observation of speech and habits.  The second way is to judge if they have clean, pure hearts, or evil impure hearts. And God is the only one who knows the heart of man.