18 "If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you.”
I wonder if the disciples thought that they had been hated by the world at this point. This may have come as a surprise to them. How many times had they thought that Jesus was going to bring about the Kingdom of God? Surely. The whole world would love them and obey them and follow his rule. But now Jesus is implying that the world. is going to hate them. They have already seen some of the hate that the world had for Jesus because of the way the Pharisees had been treating Jesus. But now it looks like it's becoming personal to them.
Does this apply also to us? If it does, then we really need to understand what is going on in the world and in our own lives. Does the world hate us because of our devotion to Jesus or is it because we are obnoxious? Jesus tells us why the world hates us.
19 "If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.”
The first reason the world hates us is because it only loves its own. What does that mean? It means that when we live and act just the way the world does, they love us. When we start acting differently, that's when the problems come. Peter points this out in 1 Peter 4:4, “Of course, your former friends are surprised when you no longer plunge into the flood of wild and destructive things they do. So they slander you” (NLT).
When we are chosen out of the world by Jesus, we are made citizens of a new world. “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col 1:13-14 ESV). This is xenophobia. It is a dislike or even hatred of aliens, and I don’t mean creatures from outer space. Yet the word alien most clearly describes what we are when we have been chosen by God to be one of his. When we are brought into Jesus’ kingdom, we are changed. Before our anatomy was different but God has changed it. He says, “I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh” (Ezek 11:19 NIV). The heart of those in the world is hard toward God and all that he represents such as holiness and true goodness. When they encounter Christians with a heart that is like God’s, they are fearful, suspicious, and even resentful.
Just to make sure we are still on the same page about election, Jesus repeats what he previous said in John 15:16 that he has chosen the disciples. This theme is repeated so often that we should not be dismayed when we see it. Yet it is also a reason that many people hate Christians. We are chosen and they are not. They will express their hatred by saying things like we think we are arrogant for being chosen. They may think we are saying we are better than them because we are chosen. That of course isn’t true at all. It is God who makes the choice, and it isn’t based on our merit, intelligence, good or bad looks or anything else, just God’s choice for his own reasons. Some people will claim that means God is not fair. Paul answered that charge:
What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! 15 For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” 16 So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. (Rom 9:14-16 ESV)
The next time claims that God is not fair, you can assure them that he is indeed not fair. If he were fair, he would destroy us all for our cosmic treason against him. We must always remember that we are saved by grace, not by any merit inherently in us or earned by us.
20 "Remember the word that I said to you, 'A slave is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also.”
What does hatred and xenophobia bring? It brings persecution and this is a step up from simply being hated. Jesus reminds his disciples and therefore, he reminds us that we are his slaves if we are going to be his disciples. A slave should not expect to get preferential treatment from those who hate and persecute the master. David’s men were scorned by Nabal when they asked for provisions and he was ready to kill Nabal and all his male servants (1 Sam 25:3-22). Fortunately, Nabal’s wife Abigail intervened and David didn’t carry out his threat. Just as David was about to commit a horrible crime against Nabal, he would have not stopped at Nabal but would have slaughtered his servants as well, those hate Christ won’t stop at hating him but all his followers. That is especially true now that they can’t touch him. They will carry out their worst against Jesus’ slaves.
There is also hope built into Jesus’ statement. That is the hope that there will always be some who will keep Jesus’ words. If they do that, then they will also follow those who faithfully preach Jesus. This even reflects on those whom Jesus has chosen. When the time is right and they hear Jesus’ words through us, they will come to faith, not because of their merits or their own ability to choose, but because the Holy Spirit will regenerate them and their choice to follow Jesus will line up the desire God gives them.
21 "But all these things they will do to you for My name's sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 He who hates Me hates My Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated Me and My Father as well. 25 But they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in their Law, 'THEY HATED ME WITHOUT A CAUSE.'”
Jesus is working backwards in his explanation of why believers will be hated and persecuted. He started with our relationship to himself as the reason. Now, he works back to a more fundamental reason and that is because the persecutors don’t know God the Father. There are many people who claim to know God but won’t have anything to do with Jesus. They claim to be very spiritual, whatever that means.
However, in the context of these verses, Jesus is referring directly to the Jewish religious authorities. He isn’t speaking about all mankind. He is talking to those who have heard him speaking and those who have seen his miracles. The reason he is singling them out is because it is a fulfilment of Scripture specifically, Psalm 35:19 and 69:4. Why does he single them out, even stating that if he hadn’t come, they wouldn’t have sin? It is because of all people on the earth, these people are the ones who should have recognized and embraced Jesus as their Messiah. The sin that Jesus is speaking about is the sin of rejecting Jesus when they have all the knowledge that they need to accept him.
While it doesn’t apply directly to everyone, it does provide us with some principles. The first is that people who have never heard of Jesus don’t recognize their sin because they haven’t been exposed to the gospel. This doesn’t mean that they don’t sin, but they don’t have the sin of rejecting Jesus. There are some who have heard of Jesus and have heard the gospel and then reject Jesus. They hear it from us and by extension, it is the same as hearing it from him. The Bible tells us, and it tells them the truth. When they still reject Jesus but claim to love or know God, then they are liars because rejecting Jesus is hating him and that means they hate God. The god that they say they love or know is not the Father. Tell people this and they will hate you also.
26 "When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me, 27 and you will testify also, because you have been with Me from the beginning.
In the appendix about the Great Schism, I’ve covered the problem that the Church faced in AD 325 about who sends the Holy Spirit so I will not address that again. What is new in this passage is that Jesus explains that the Holy Spirit will testify about him. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. Since the Holy Spirit is also God, he can do nothing other than reveal truth. There is no possibility that the Spirit would teach anything false. Because he does that and because he brought to remembrance what the Apostles needed to say and write, we can be assured that the New Testament is indeed the truth and the Word of God. He reveals the truth of who Jesus is and what Jesus has done. When anyone reads the Word, the Holy Spirit illuminates or enlightens those whom the Father has called so that they will recognize the truth. In this way the Holy Spirit testifies about Jesus.
Jesus chose the Apostles to testify about him as well. While the Holy Spirit works in one way with one person, he also works through people. And people don’t always get it until they hear it from someone. So Jesus chose these eleven men to make sure the early Church had the eye witnesses that would provide the verification from a human standpoint.
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