John 15:18-2518If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. 19If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. 20Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. 21But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me. 22If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin. 23He that hateth me hateth my Father also. 24If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. 25But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause. (John 15:18‑25)
VERY blessedly, (V. 18, 19.) the Lord has presented to us the new Christian company, not indeed in its formation or administration (for this the time had not yet come), but, in its moral marks and spiritual privileges. It is seen as a company governed by the love of Christ and, abiding in His love, bound together by love to one another. In the words that follow, the Lord passes in thought outside the Christian circle of love to speak of the world circle of hate, thus warning His disciples of the true character of the world, by which they will be surrounded, and preparing them for its persecution.
If we share with Christ the love, joy, and holy intimacies of the inside circle, we must also be prepared to share with Christ in His hatred and reproach from the world. There is no suggestion that the disciples should attempt to make the best of two worlds, as men speak. It must be Christ or the world, it cannot be Christ and the world. A company that in any way exhibits the graces of Christ would be recognized by the world as identified with Christ, and the hatred which the world had expressed to Christ, would be shown to His people. His hatred, and His persecution, would be theirs.
The world is a vast system embracing every race and class, and false religion, having in common their hatred of God. The world by which the disciples were immediately surrounded was the world of corrupt Judaism. Today the world with which believers are mainly in contact is the world of corrupt Christendom. Its outward form may change from age to age; at heart it is ever marked by alienation from God and hatred to Christ.
Why should these simple men be hated by the world? Were they not mainly a company of poor people who loved one another, who lived in an orderly way, being subject to the powers, without interfering with their politics? Did they not go about proclaiming good news, and doing good deeds? Why should such be hated?
The Lord gives two reasons for this hatred. First, they were a company of people that Christ had chosen out of the world: second, they were a company of people who confessed the name of Christ before the world (V. 21). The first cause would more particularly call forth the hatred of the religious world: the second the hatred of the world in general. Through all time nothing has so enraged religious man as the sovereign grace that, passing by all man’s religious efforts, picks up and blesses the outcast and the wretched. The very mention of the grace of other days, that blessed a Gentile widow, and a Gentile leper, led the religious leaders of Nazareth to rise up in wrath and hatred against Christ. The sovereign grace that blesses the younger son, enrages the elder son.
(V. 20, 21). Further the disciples are warned that this hatred will manifest itself in persecution, “If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.” This active expression of hatred is more directly connected with the confession of the name of Christ, for the Lord can say, “All these things will they do unto you for My name’s sake.” The persecution, whether of Christ or His disciples, proved they had no knowledge of the One that sent Christ—the Father.
(Vv. 22-25). There is, however, no excuse for such ignorance. The Lord’s words, and the Lord’s works, left the world without excuse either for hatred or ignorance. If Christ had not come and spoken unto the world words such as never man had spoken; if He had not done among them works which none other man had done, they could not have been reproached with the sin of willful enmity against Christ and the Father. They would still have been fallen creatures, but it would hardly have been demonstrated that they were willful and God-hating creatures. But now there was no cloak for their sin. There was no hiding the fact of the world’s guilt: it had come out. Christ had fully revealed, by His words and works, all the Father’s heart. It only brought out man’s hatred of God. The world as such was left without hope, for, according to their own law, they hated Christ without a cause. Thus the world’s hatred is no longer ignorance: it is sin. It is a causeless hatred. Alas! we, even as Christians, may at times give the world cause for hatred, but in Christ there was no cause. There is, indeed, a cause for the hatred, but it lies not in the One that is hated, but in the hearts of those who hate.