Jesus Predicts The Hatred of the World!

John15:18-27.   

 "If you find the godless world is hating you, remember it got its start hating me.

If you lived on the world's terms, the world would love you as one of its own. But since I picked you to live on God's terms and no longer on the world's terms, the world is going to hate you.

 "When that happens, remember this: Servants don't get better treatment than their masters. If they beat on me, they will certainly beat on you. If they did what I told them, they will do what you tell them.

  "They are going to do all these things to you because of the way they treated me, because they don't know the One who sent me.

If I hadn't come and told them all this in plain language, it wouldn't be so bad. As it is, they have no excuse.

  Hate me, hate my Father—it's all the same.

If I hadn't done what I have done among them, works no one has ever done, they wouldn't be to blame. But they saw the God-signs and hated anyway, both me and my Father.

Interesting—they have verified the truth of their own Scriptures where it is written, 'They hated me for no good reason.'

  "When the Friend I plan to send you from the Father comes—the Spirit of Truth issuing from the Father—he will confirm everything about me.

You, too, from your side must give your confirming evidence, since you are in this with me from the start.

The disciples were not to be surprised or disheartened if the world hates them. (The if does not express any doubt that this would happen; it was certain.) The world hated the Lord, and it will hate all who resemble Him.

Men of the world love those who live as they do—those who use vile language and indulge in the lusts of the flesh, or people who are cultured but live only for themselves. Christians condemn them by their holy lives, therefore the world hates them.

Here servant literally means “slave.” A disciple should not expect any better treatment from the world than his Master received. He will be persecuted just as Christ was. His word will be refused just as the Savior's was.

This hatred and persecution is “for My name's sake.” It is because the believer is linked to Christ; because he has been separated from the world by Christ; and because he bears Christ's name and likeness. The world is ignorant of God. They do not know that the Father sent the Lord into the world to be the Savior. But ignorance is no excuse.

The Lord was not teaching here that if He had not come, then men would not have been sinners. From the time of Adam, all men had been sinners. But their sin would not have been nearly so great as it now was. These men had seen the Son of God and heard His wonderful words. They could find no fault in Him whatever. Yet they rejected Him. It was this that made their sin so great. And so it was a matter of comparison. Compared with their terrible sin of rejecting the Lord of glory, their other sins were as nothing. Now they had no excuse for their sin. They had rejected the Light of the world!

In hating Christ, they hated His Father also. The Two are One. They could not say that they loved God, for if they had, they would have loved the One God sent.

They were not only responsible for having heard the teaching of Christ; they also saw His miracles. This added to their condemnation. They saw works which no one else had ever performed. To reject Christ in face of this evidence was inexcusable. The Lord compared all their other sins to this one sin, and said that the former were as nothing when placed alongside the latter. Because they hated the Son, they hated His Father, and this was their terrible condemnation.

The Lord realized that man's attitude toward Him was in exact fulfillment of prophecy. It was predicted in Psa 69:4 that Christ would be hated ... without a cause. Now that it had happened, the Lord commented that the very OT which these men prized had predicted their senseless hatred of Him. The fact that it was prophesied did not mean that these men had to hate Christ. They hated Him by their own deliberate choice, but God foresaw that it would happen, and He caused David to write it down in Psalm 69.

In spite of man's rejection, there would be a continued testimony to Christ. It would be carried on by the Helper—the Holy Spirit. Here the Lord said that He would send the Spirit from the Father. In Joh 14:16, the Father was the One who sent the Spirit. Is this not another proof of the equality of the Son and the Father? Who but God could send One who is God? The Spirit of truth ... proceeds from the Father. This means that He is constantly being sent forth by God, and His coming at the day of Pentecost was a special instance of this. The Spirit testifies concerning Christ. This is His great mission. He does not seek to occupy men with Himself, though He is one of the members of the Trinity. But He directs the attention of both sinner and saint to the Lord of glory.

The Spirit would testify directly through the disciples. They had been with the Lord from the beginning of His public ministry and were especially qualified to tell of His Person and work. If anyone could have found any imperfection in the Lord, those who had been with Him the most could have. But they never knew Him to commit a sin of any kind. They could testify to the fact that He was the sinless Son of God and the Savior of the world.