Can I Hide from Abraham What I Am About to Do: The Friend of God and the Friends of Christ
Old Testament: Genesis 18:17-18
And the Lord said: Can I hide from Abraham what I am about to do: Seeing he shall become a great and mighty nation, and in him all the nations of the earth shall be blessed?
Old Testament, also: Isaias 41:8; Exodus 33:11
But thou Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend: ... And the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man is wont to speak to his friend.
New Testament: John 15:14-15; James 2:23
You are my friends, if you do the things that I command you. I will not now call you servants: for the servant knoweth not what his lord doth. But I have called you friends: because all things whatsoever I have heard of my Father, I have made known to you. ... And the scripture was fulfilled, saying: Abraham believed God, and it was reputed to him to justice, and he was called the friend of God.
The connection
On the road to Sodom the Lord stops and asks Himself a question: "Can I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?" He then tells Abraham what He means to do, and Abraham, told, stands before Him and pleads for the city. Isaias gives the title that goes with it. Israel is "my servant", but Abraham is "my friend". Moses is spoken to "face to face, as a man is wont to speak to his friend." In the Old Testament the mark of God's friend is that he is let in on what God is about to do. At the Last Supper Christ draws the same line, in the same terms. "I will not now call you servants: for the servant knoweth not what his lord doth. But I have called you friends: because all things whatsoever I have heard of my Father, I have made known to you." The servant carries out orders he does not understand; the friend is told the purpose. What Abraham was given once, on one road, about two cities, the Apostles are given entire: all things whatsoever the Son has heard of the Father. James closes the circle by naming Abraham with the Apostles' own word: "he was called the friend of God." Friendship is not a step away from obedience. "You are my friends, if you do the things that I command you." Abraham believed and obeyed, and was told; the Apostles obey, and are told everything.
Moral sense
The friend of God is still His servant. Five verses later Christ says "The servant is not greater than his master" (John 15:20), and Paul, James, Peter and Jude went on opening their letters as servants of Jesus Christ. What changes is not the obedience but the knowing: the friend obeys because he has been shown why. And what Abraham did with his secret is the first thing a friend of God does with his: he stood before the Lord and prayed for others.
Anagogical sense
Abraham was told what God was about to do to Sodom and Gomorrha. The friends of Christ are shown the end of all things, the city that comes down out of heaven. "And they shall see his face" (Apocalypse 22:4): the friendship of Moses, face to face, becomes the portion of all His servants.
The Fathers
St Irenaeus, Against Heresies IV.13.4: "But when He terms His disciples 'the friends of God,' He plainly declares Himself to be the Word of God, whom Abraham also followed voluntarily and under no compulsion, because of the noble nature of his faith, and so became 'the friend of God.'"
Warrant
Patristic because St Irenaeus joins the two himself. In Against Heresies IV.13.4 he reads Christ's calling the disciples friends in John 15 alongside Abraham, who followed the Word freely and "so became 'the friend of God'",, and says that the friendship of God gives immortality to those who take it up. Isaias 41:8 and James 2:23 are Scripture's own naming of Abraham as friend; Exodus 33:11 is added for Moses as the same pattern of speech face to face. The reading of Genesis 18:17 as the mark of that friendship, being told what God is about to do, is the entry's own, drawn from the reason Christ gives in John 15:15.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 142.
The verses
Genesis 18:17 · Genesis 18:18 · Isaias 41:8 · Exodus 33:11 · John 15:14 · John 15:15 · James 2:23
