Friendship with Christ
- Christian Living
- Theology
- Biblical Studies & Commentaries
- Publisher: Baker Academic (Baker Publishing Group)
- Published: 2026
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Publisher's Description
Friendship has the capacity to elevate our lives and make us better people. It plays an important role in our moral development, spiritual growth, and personal flourishing. This is true of friendship between humans, and it is also true of friendship with God in Christ. What did friendship with Christ mean for Christians in ages past, and what can it mean for us today? In Friendship with Christ, John Vissers offers a robust biblical, historical, and theological study of friendship with God in Christ. Rooted in the "friendship teaching" of John 15, this book draws on the threefold office of Christ as prophet, priest, and king to develop a theology of divine friendship against the backdrop of the biblical record and historical tradition. Friendship with Christ, Vissers argues, is a theological truth and experience that continues to provide consolation and hope in a secular age and a suffering world. With a foreword by Hans Boersma, this book shows that friendship with Christ has been central to the experience of the providential love of God throughout the church's history and that it still matters today. Friendship with Christ will appeal to professors and students of theology, Christology, and spiritual formation, as well as to pastors and church leaders.
Endorsements (5)
“The rich fruit of a lifetime’s reflection on its theme, Vissers’s fine study of friendship with Christ enhances our understanding of the person of Christ, the work of Christ, and the shape of the Christian life. Written in discerning conversation with the biblical sources and careful dialogue with the theological tradition, this book is a most welcome contribution to contemporary Reformed theology, not least in its creative use and renewal of the ‘threefold office’ to display the richness of the identity and activity of the Savior.”
“A rich text that incorporates the appropriate corpus of works that speak to the subject at hand. This promises to be an important book, especially in our current anxious world where we are primed to see the other and even ourselves as enemies to our well-being. A return to friendship with God and the virtues that will emanate from the spiritual practices that Vissers proposes might return Christians to a joy-filled, peaceful life that can infect the rest of the world for good and God.”
“Friendship with Christ develops themes in Reformed theology for the life of the church that speak to the moment. It is personal, moving, and deeply theological in the very best sense. Its themes of love and friendship are essential in a time of alienation and fear, and it avoids altogether the shallow sentimentality that often marks expositions of these themes. Rooted in Reformed Christology (with its appeal to the threefold office of Jesus Christ), this book draws the reader’s attention to seminal New Testament texts and offers support and encouragement for the Christian life. It fills a serious vacancy of resources for the Christian life that are not ephemeral. ephemeral. This book will be useful at both seminary and congregational levels.”
“A deep dive into friendship with Christ, about which we have had far too little theological engagement. Vissers’s key passages from the Gospel of John are surprisingly underexplored theologically. His manner of exploration—in conversation with the fathers, the ancients, the Reformers, and the moderns—is deeply helpful. His style is learned but not remote, and the book can be read with profit by fellow scholars, pastors, and laypeople. I especially love the sections comparing friendship and priesthood. This is not only a work of theology done well; it is a model for how the rest of us should be working. I heartily recommend it.”
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