The Treachery of a Kiss: True Friendship in a Sentimental Age
Introduction: The World's Counterfeit Affection
We live in an age that is drowning in sentimentality and starving for loyalty. Our culture prizes affirmation above all else. It demands that you be "nice," which is a very different thing from being good. Niceness is a syrupy, superficial coating that avoids all conflict, all confrontation, and all correction. It is the religion of "you're okay, I'm okay," a faith whose only heresy is to suggest that someone, somewhere, might be wrong. Into this gelatinous consensus, the book of Proverbs drops like a block of granite. It tells us that true friendship, genuine covenantal loyalty, is not measured by the sweetness of the words but by the faithfulness of the heart.
This proverb sets before us a stark and necessary contrast. It is a diagnostic tool for the soul. It forces us to ask ourselves what we truly value in our relationships. Do we value comfort or truth? Do we prefer the pleasant lie over the painful reality? Do we want friends who will help us get to Heaven, or friends who will make the road to Hell as comfortable as possible? The world offers us the kisses of an enemy, and it offers them in abundance. These are the kisses of affirmation without discernment, of tolerance without truth, of flattery that props up our ego while our soul rots from within.
The church, sadly, has too often imported this sentimentalism wholesale. We have traded the sharp, healing scalpel of biblical rebuke for the dull butter knife of "encouragement" that never dares to identify a fault. We have become so terrified of offending one another that we have forgotten that one of the central duties of a friend is to be willing to offend, if that offense is what is necessary to save a brother from his sin. We want the fellowship of the saints without the friction. But as this proverb teaches us, friction, when applied by a faithful hand, is what sharpens us. The alternative is the smooth, greasy kiss of Judas.
This verse is not just good advice for personal relationships. It is a principle that governs reality. It distinguishes the covenant of grace from the false gospels of this age. The gospel wounds us before it heals us. It strikes us down with the law, showing us our sin and our utter inability to save ourselves. This is a faithful wound. Only after this wound is inflicted does it pour in the oil and wine of grace. The false gospels, on the other hand, are all kisses. They tell you that God loves you just as you are and has no intention of changing you. They tell you that you are good enough, that your sin is not so bad, and that God's only job is to affirm your choices. These are the deceitful kisses of an enemy, and they lead to destruction.
The Text
Faithful are the wounds of a friend,
But deceitful are the kisses of an enemy.
(Proverbs 27:6 LSB)
The Trustworthy Cut (v. 6a)
The first clause establishes a principle that is entirely counter-intuitive to our fallen nature and our therapeutic culture.
"Faithful are the wounds of a friend..." (Proverbs 27:6a)
The word for "faithful" here is a strong one. It means trustworthy, reliable, steadfast, and true. It is a covenantal word. The wounds inflicted by a true friend are not random acts of cruelty; they are expressions of covenant loyalty. They are grounded in a commitment to the other person's ultimate good. This is the friend who sees you drifting toward a cliff and is willing to tackle you, even if it breaks your leg, to keep you from going over. The tackle is a wound, but it is a faithful one.
What kind of wounds are we talking about? We are talking about rebuke. We are talking about correction. We are talking about the painful, awkward, difficult conversation where a friend comes to you and says, "Brother, you are in sin." This is the opposite of gossip. The slanderer talks about you behind your back. The friend comes to your face. As the previous verse says, "Better is open rebuke than hidden love" (Proverbs 27:5). A love that is unwilling to confront is a useless love. It is a cowardly love.
This requires immense courage, but it also requires immense humility on the part of the one being wounded. Our pride bristles at correction. We want to be told that we are doing just fine. But the wise man understands that "whoever rebukes a man will in the end find more favor than he who flatters with the tongue" (Proverbs 28:23). The initial sting of the rebuke gives way to the gratitude of being rescued. The surgeon's knife is not pleasant, but you thank him for it when the cancer is gone. A friend who is willing to inflict such a wound is a gift from God. He is acting as God's instrument to preserve your soul. "Let a righteous man strike me, it is a kindness; let him rebuke me, it is oil for my head; let my head not refuse it" (Psalm 141:5).
This is why true fellowship is essential. We are all blind to our own sins in certain respects. We all have spiritual blind spots. We need a community of friends who are loyal enough to tell us the truth, to point out the spinach in our spiritual teeth. To refuse this, to surround yourself only with people who will tell you what you want to hear, is to commit spiritual suicide.
The Treacherous Kiss (v. 6b)
The second clause gives us the dark antithesis, the counterfeit affection that our flesh craves.
"But deceitful are the kisses of an enemy." (Proverbs 27:6b)
The contrast is stark. The friend's wounds are faithful; the enemy's kisses are deceitful. The word for "deceitful" here can also be translated as "profuse" or "excessive." The enemy overdoes it. He lays it on thick. This is the person who is always flattering you, always praising you, always telling you how wonderful you are. His words are as smooth as butter, but war is in his heart. His speech is softer than oil, yet it is a drawn sword (Psalm 55:21).
The ultimate biblical picture of this, of course, is Judas Iscariot. He betrayed the Son of Man with a kiss. It was a sign of intimacy, of friendship, of affection. And it was a profound lie. It was a tool of murder. Every act of flattery is a little Judas kiss. It is an act of treachery disguised as affection. The flatterer is an enemy because he does not care about your soul. He cares only about what he can get from you. He uses praise as a tool of manipulation. He wants to keep you happy, keep you comfortable, and keep you weak, so that he can use you for his own ends.
The world is full of such enemies. The advertiser who tells you that you deserve it, the politician who tells you that all your problems are someone else's fault, the false teacher who tells you that you can have Christ without repentance. These are all deceitful kisses. They are designed to lull you into a spiritual stupor. They are the sweet-tasting poison that kills the soul.
We must learn to be suspicious of excessive praise. We must learn to distinguish between genuine encouragement, which builds up, and flattery, which puffs up. Encouragement points to the grace of God at work in a person. Flattery points to the supposed inherent wonderfulness of the person himself. One promotes humility and gratitude; the other promotes pride and self-reliance. One is the kiss of a brother; the other is the kiss of an enemy.
Application: Cultivating a Culture of Faithful Wounds
So how do we apply this? How do we live this out, both as individuals and as a church? We must actively cultivate a culture where faithful wounds are not only tolerated but welcomed.
First, we must pray for the courage to be this kind of friend. It is not easy. It means risking the relationship for the sake of the person. It means being willing to be misunderstood, to be disliked, to be rejected. But love takes risks. If you see your brother heading for sin and you say nothing because you are afraid of how he will react, you do not love him. You love your own comfort more than you love his soul.
Second, we must pray for the humility to receive this kind of friendship. When a brother comes to you with a rebuke, your first reaction should not be defensiveness but gratitude. You should thank him for loving you enough to take this risk. Even if you ultimately conclude that his rebuke is mistaken, you must honor the faithfulness that prompted it. "Rebuke a wise man, and he will love you" (Proverbs 9:8). A mark of wisdom is how you receive correction.
Third, we must build our relationships on the solid ground of Christ, not the shifting sand of shared interests or mutual affirmation. Our unity is not in the fact that we all like the same things or that we never disagree. Our unity is in the fact that we have been bought by the blood of Christ and are being conformed to His image. That process of conformation is often painful. It involves chipping away the parts of us that do not look like Jesus. And God has ordained that much of that chipping is to be done by the faithful wounds of our friends.
Finally, we must measure all our relationships by the standard of the gospel. The ultimate faithful wound was the one Christ endured for us on the cross. He was wounded for our transgressions. And the ultimate deceitful kiss is the kiss of the world that promises us life and happiness apart from Him. When we understand this, we will learn to value the friend who makes us wince with the truth far more than the enemy who makes us comfortable with a lie. For the wounds of a friend are the instruments of our sanctification, but the kisses of an enemy are the sweet path to Hell.