15Hated by the World  (John 15:17–25)

“This I command you, that you love one another. If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. 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. 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. But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates Me hates My Father also. 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. But they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in their Law, ‘They hated Me without a cause.’” (15:17–25)

From its inception on the day of Pentecost, the church of Jesus Christ has always faced opposition. After Peter and John dramatically healed a man crippled from birth (Acts 3:1–11) and Peter preached a powerful evangelistic message (3:12–26), “the priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to them, being greatly disturbed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they laid hands on them and put them in jail until the next day, for it was already evening” (4:1–3). Shortly afterward, stung by the phenomenal growth of the early church, “the high priest rose up, along with all his associates (that is the sect of the Sadducees), and they were filled with jealousy. They laid hands on the apostles and put them in a public jail” (5:17–18). Because of his bold, fearless preaching of the gospel, Stephen was falsely accused, arrested, put on trial before the Sanhedrin, and stoned to death (6:8–7:60). After his death, a general persecution broke out against the church, spearheaded by the zealous Pharisee Saul of Tarsus (8:1–4). The first of the apostles to be martyred was James, the brother of John, who was killed by the wicked king Herod (12:1–2). Herod also imprisoned Peter—only to see him miraculously freed by an angel (12:3–11). According to tradition the rest of the Twelve (except for John, who was exiled to Patmos [Rev. 1:9]) would also eventually face martyrdom.

After his dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus, Paul soon encountered fierce opposition. His bold, fearless preaching of the gospel astonished and enraged the Jewish population of Damascus, who then sought to kill him. The apostle had to flee for his life, being lowered from the city wall at night in a basket (Acts 9:20–25). That incident charted the course for the rest of Paul’s life and ministry. In the book of Acts, Luke records that, in the course of his missionary journeys, Paul was forced to flee from Iconium (Acts 14:5–6); was pelted with stones and left for dead at Lystra (Acts 14:19–20); was beaten and thrown into jail at Philippi (Acts 16:16–40); was forced to leave Thessalonica after his preaching sparked a riot (Acts 17:5–10); was also forced to flee from Berea after hostile Jews from Thessalonica followed him there (Acts 17:13–14); was mocked and ridiculed by Greek philosophers at Athens (Acts 17:16–34); was brought before a Roman proconsul at Corinth by his Jewish adversaries (Acts 18:12–17); and faced hostility both from Jews (Acts 19:9; cf. 20:18–19) and Gentiles (Acts 19:21–41; cf. 1 Cor. 15:32) at Ephesus. As he was about to sail from Greece to Syria, a Jewish plot against his life forced him to change his travel plans (Acts 20:3). En route to Jerusalem, he met the elders of the Ephesian church at Miletus and declared to them, “Bound in spirit, I am on my way to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit solemnly testifies to me in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions await me” (Acts 20:22–23). In Jerusalem, Paul was recognized in the temple by Jews from Asia Minor and savagely beaten by the frenzied mob they stirred up. He was saved from certain death only when Roman soldiers arrived on the scene and arrested him (Acts 21:27–36). While Paul was in custody at Jerusalem, the Jews formed yet another plot against his life, prompting the Roman commander to send him under heavy guard to the governor at Caesarea (Acts 23:12–35).

Eventually, after a harrowing sea voyage and shipwreck (Acts 27:1–28:14), Paul, still in Roman custody, arrived at Rome. There he encountered opposition from the local Jewish leaders (28:17–29). Though the Romans released him after at least two years of imprisonment (28:30), Paul was eventually rearrested and executed during Nero’s persecution.

Like Paul had before his conversion (Acts 26:9; Gal. 1:13–14; Phil. 3:6; 1 Tim. 1:13), the Jews considered Christians to be heretics. Thus, they believed that by persecuting the church they were honoring God. As Jesus told the disciples, “They will make you outcasts from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God” (John 16:2). Furthermore some of the Jews, especially among the leaders, feared that the Christians’ loyalty to Jesus as a king above Caesar might provoke Rome’s wrath against the nation (cf. John 11:47–48; 19:12, 15).

The Romans persecuted Christians for several reasons. At first, they viewed Christianity as merely another Jewish sect. Since Judaism was a legally tolerated religion (religio licita), the Romans left the Christians alone. Thus, when the Jews at Corinth accused Paul before the Roman proconsul Gallio, he refused to intervene, deeming the matter an internal dispute within Judaism (Acts 18:12–15).

Eventually the Jews’ hostility toward the Christians and the influx of Gentiles into the church led the Romans to recognize Christianity as distinct from Judaism. Christianity then became an illegal religion, proscribed by the Roman government. In addition to Christianity’s illegal status, several factors prompted Roman persecution. Politically, the Christians’ allegiance to Christ above Caesar aroused suspicions that they were disloyal to the state. To maintain control over their vast empire, the Romans required that their subjects’ ultimate loyalty be to the emperor as the embodiment of the Roman state. And since “there was a union of religion and state in ancient Rome … refusal to worship the goddess Roma or the divine emperor constituted treason” (Howard F. Vos, Exploring Church History [Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1994], 26). Because the Christians refused to make the required sacrifice offered in worship to the emperor, they were seen as traitors. They also proclaimed the kingdom of God, which caused the Romans to suspect them of plotting to overthrow the government. To avoid harassment by government officials, Christians often held their meetings in secret and at night. That heightened the Romans’ suspicions that they were hatching an anti-government plot. That Christians generally refused to serve in the Roman army also caused them to be viewed as disloyal.

The Romans also persecuted Christians for religious reasons. They allowed their subjects to worship whatever gods they liked, as long as they also worshiped the Roman gods. But Christians preached an exclusive message that there is only one God and only one way of salvation. That, coupled with their evangelistic efforts to win converts from other religions, went against the prevailing atmosphere of religious pluralism. Christians were denounced as atheists because they rejected the Roman pantheon of gods, and because they worshiped an invisible God, not an idol. The secrecy of the Christians’ meetings led to lurid, false rumors of gross immorality. Misunderstanding about what was meant by eating and drinking the elements during the Lord’s Supper led to charges of cannibalism. The Christians’ practice of greeting each other with a holy kiss (Rom. 16:16; 1 Cor. 16:20; 2 Cor. 13:12; 1 Thess. 5:26; cf. 1 Peter 5:14) gave rise to allegations of incest and other sexual perversions.

Socially, the leaders of Roman society feared the influence of the Christians on the lower classes, from whose ranks the church drew many of its members (cf. 1 Cor. 1:26). Haunted by the ever-present specter of slave revolts, the wealthy aristocrats felt especially threatened by the Christians’ teaching that all people are equal (Gal. 3:28; Col. 3:11; cf. Paul’s letter to Philemon), though the church did not openly oppose slavery. Christians also held themselves aloof from much of the public life of the time. For obvious reasons, they could not be involved in the idolatrous temple worship that was such an important part of social life. But even sporting and theatrical events involved sacrifices to pagan deities that Christians could not participate in. The purity of their lives rebuked the debauched lifestyles of rich and poor alike and provoked further hostility (cf. 1 Peter 4:3–4).

Economic factors played an often overlooked role in the persecution of the early believers. Paul’s exorcism of a demon from a fortune-telling slave girl at Philippi caused her masters, incensed by the loss of the revenue she brought them, to stir up hostility against him (Acts 16:16–24). Economic factors also played a significant role in provoking the riot at Ephesus (Acts 19:23–27). Early in the second century Pliny, the Roman governor of Bithynia, lamented in a letter to Emperor Trajan that the spread of Christianity had caused the pagan temples to be deserted and sales of sacrificial animals to plummet. In that superstitious age people also attributed plague, famine, and natural disasters to the Christians’ forsaking of the traditional gods, prompting the Christian apologist Tertullian to remark sarcastically, “If the Tiber reaches the walls, if the Nile does not rise to the fields, if the sky doesn’t move or the earth does, if there is famine, if there is plague, the cry is at once, ‘Christians to the lion!’ What, all of them to one lion?” (Apology 40.2, as cited in M. A. Smith, From Christ to Constantine [Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1973], 86).

For these and other reasons, Christianity became a hated and despised religious sect in the Roman Empire. In his letter to Emperor Trajan, Pliny scorned Christianity as a “depraved and extravagant superstition.” Pliny went on to complain that “the contagion of this superstition [Christianity] has spread not only in the cities, but in the villages and rural districts as well” (cited in Henry Bettenson, ed., Documents of the Christian Church [London: Oxford University Press, 1967], 4). The Roman historian Tacitus, a contemporary of Pliny, described Christians as “a class hated for their abominations” (cited in Bettenson, Documents, 2) while Suetonius, another contemporary of Pliny, dismissed them as “a set of men adhering to a novel and mischievous superstition” (cited in Bettenson, Documents, 2).

The first official persecution of Christians by the Roman government came during the reign of Emperor Nero. In July of A.D. 64 a fire ravaged Rome, destroying or damaging much of the city. Popular rumors pinned the blame for the fire on Nero. Though the rumors were probably not true, Nero sought for scapegoats to shift the suspicion away from himself. He therefore blamed the Christians, who were already despised by the populace (as the quotes in the preceding paragraph indicate), and began to savagely persecute them. Christians were arrested, cruelly tortured, thrown to wild animals, crucified, and burned as torches to light Nero’s gardens at night. The official persecution apparently was confined to the vicinity of Rome. But attacks on Christians undoubtedly spread, unchecked by the authorities, to other parts of the empire. According to tradition, Peter and Paul were martyred during Nero’s persecution.

Three decades later, during the reign of Emperor Domitian, another government-sponsored persecution of Christians broke out. Little is known of the details, but it extended to the province of Asia (modern Turkey). The apostle John was banished from Ephesus to the island of Patmos, and among those martyred was a man (probably a pastor) named Antipas (Rev. 2:13).

In the second century and the first half of the third century, official persecution of Christians was sporadic. During the reign of Emperor Trajan early in the second century, Pliny, in the letter mentioned earlier, asked Trajan how to deal with the Christians in his region. Trajan replied that they were not to be sought out, but if accused (Trajan instructed Pliny to ignore anonymous accusations), they were to be brought to trial. Those who refused to recant were to be punished. Though Trajan’s policy did not result in widespread persecution, it did result in the martyrdom of some, most notably the famous church father Ignatius. Trajan’s policy remained in force for several decades, until the reign of Marcus Aurelius. Under his rule the state took a more active role in ferreting out Christians. During his reign the famous Christian apologist Justin Martyr was executed, and a savage persecution broke out against the Christians in Lyons and Vienne in Gaul (modern France).

The first empire-wide persecution of the church took place under Emperor Decius in A.D. 250. Rome at that time faced serious internal (an economic crisis and various natural disasters) and external (barbarian incursions) problems. Decius was convinced that those difficulties resulted from the neglect of Rome’s ancient gods. He issued an edict requiring everyone to offer a sacrifice to the gods and to the emperor and to obtain a certificate attesting that they had done so. Those who refused faced arrest, imprisonment, torture, and execution. Thankfully for the church, Decius’s persecution was cut short by his death in battle in July A.D. 251.

The final and most violent empire-wide persecution of the church began in A.D. 303, during the reign of Diocletian. This persecution was nothing less than an all-out attempt to exterminate the Christian faith. Diocletian issued a series of edicts ordering that churches be destroyed, all copies of the Bible be burned, and all Christians offer sacrifices to the Roman gods on pain of death. The persecution subsided when Constantine and his co-emperor Licinius issued the Edict of Milan (A.D. 313), granting freedom of worship to members of all religions. But Licinius reneged on the agreement and persecution continued in some parts of the empire. It was not until Constantine became sole emperor in A.D. 324 that Roman persecution of Christians ended permanently.

Under the Roman Catholic Church, which replaced Imperial Rome as the dominant power during the Middle Ages, persecution broke out anew. Ironically, this time the persecution against true believers came from those who called themselves “Christian.” The horrors of the Inquisition, the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, and the martyrdoms of many believers epitomized the Roman Church’s effort to suppress the true gospel of Jesus Christ. More recently, believers have been brutally repressed by Communist and Islamic regimes. In fact, it has been estimated by none other than a Roman Catholic source that, in all of church history, roughly 70 million Christians have been killed for their profession of faith, with two-thirds of those martyrdoms occurring after the start of the twentieth century (Antonio Socci, I Nuovi Persequitati [The New Persecuted] (Casale Montferrato: Edizioni Piemme, 2002). The actual number is likely much greater. The Catholic journalist cited in this news article estimates that an average of 100,000 Christians have been killed every year since 1990.

In this passage the Lord Jesus Christ continued His farewell discourse to the disciples on the night before His death. His message up to this point had been one of comfort and hope. He had reassured the disciples of His continued love for them (chap. 13) and made several magnificent promises to them (chap. 14). But the disciples would still have to face the hostile, rebellious, Christ-rejecting world. The world would hate and persecute them as it had hated and persecuted their Master; facing that hostility is the cost of being His disciple (Mark 13:9–13; Acts 14:22; 2 Tim. 3:12). This was exactly what He had told them the night before on the Mount of Olives would be true through the whole period between His first and second comings (cf. Matt. 24:9–14; Mark 13:9–13; Luke 21:12–19).

Jesus balanced the promises of comfort and blessing with a warning to the disciples of the hostility that awaited them. In the face of the world’s hatred, the disciples would need each other desperately. The Lord therefore repeated His earlier instruction, “This I command you, that you love one another” (cf. v. 12; 13:34–35). That command forms a transition between the Lord’s promises to the disciples and His warning of the world’s hatred—a warning that should also motivate them to love each other.

This passage reveals three reasons why the world hates believers: because the world rejects those who are not part of it, because the world hated Jesus, and because the world does not know God.

THE WORLD REJECTS THOSE WHO ARE NOT PART OF IT

If the world hates you … 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. (15:18a–19)

Kosmos (world) refers in this context to the evil, fallen world system comprised of unregenerate people and controlled by Satan (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; 1 John 5:19; cf. Eph. 2:1–3). Because Satan hates God he also hates the true people of God. They are targets for his wrath as he “prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8; cf. Eph. 6:11). Since its ruler hates believers, it is hardly surprising that the world also hates them, because they are not of the world. The world resents believers because their godly lives condemn its evil works; “he who is upright in the way is abominable to the wicked” (Prov. 29:27). In 1 John 3:12 John illustrated that principle with the story of the first murder in human history: “Cain … was of the evil one and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous.” On the other hand, the world applauds those who practice evil (Rom. 1:32).

Though believers live in the world (cf. 1 Cor. 5:9–10), they are to stand apart from it as an indictment of it. Paul charged the Philippians, “Prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world” (Phil. 2:15). “Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness,” he admonished the Ephesians, “but instead even expose them” (Eph. 5:11).

While worldly people hate those who follow Jesus Christ, they love each other. Unbelievers are comfortable with and supportive of other unbelievers. If you were of the world, Jesus said, the world would love its own. The conditional clause in verse 18 (If the world hates you) expresses a condition assumed to be true. This conditional clause, however, expresses a condition assumed to be false; the Lord’s statement might be translated, “If you were of the world (and you are not)….” Had the disciples been part of the world, they would have experienced the imperfect love the world has for its own. Love is from phileō, which refers to “natural affection and passion, and not [agapao], the high, intelligent, purposeful love of an ethical state” (R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. John’s Gospel [repr.; Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1998], 1055).

Christians are not part of the world because Jesus chose them out of the world (cf. Acts 26:18; Col. 1:13; 2 Tim. 2:26; Heb. 2:14–15). The emphatic use of the pronoun egō (I) and the reflexive sense of the middle voice verb translated chose shows that Jesus chose them for Himself. All credit for the disciples’ salvation belongs to Him (cf. John 15:16).

The doctrine of election silences human pride. Paul reminded the Ephesians that God “chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him…. to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved” (Eph. 1:4, 6). To the Romans he wrote, “Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law” (Rom. 3:27–28). In the next chapter he added, “If Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God” (4:2).

THE WORLD HATES BELIEVERS
BECAUSE IT HATED JESUS CHRIST

you know that it has hated Me before it hated you …. 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. (15:18b, 20)

Christians should not be surprised at the world’s hostility toward them, since it hated Jesus (cf. 7:7) before it hated them (cf. 17:14). That hatred has been manifested throughout John’s gospel. In 5:16 “the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath;” in verse 18 “the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God;” in 7:1 “the Jews were seeking to kill Him;” in verse 32 “the chief priests and the Pharisees sent officers to seize Him;” in 8:59 and 10:31 “they picked up stones to throw at Him;” in 11:47–53 they plotted to kill Him; eventually they arrested Him, beat Him, scourged Him, and crucified Him. No wonder, then, that the writer of Hebrews called on his readers to “consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself” (Heb. 12:3).

Jesus’ word that He had earlier said to the disciples, A slave is not greater than his master, refers to His statement in 13:16. There, however, the Lord was speaking of humblest service of a slave. He, “the Lord and the Teacher” (v. 14) had humbly washed their feet, and the disciples were to follow His example (v. 15). Here Christ’s point was that the disciples should expect to follow His example of suffering (cf. 1 Peter 2:21); they had no right to expect better treatment from the world than He had received. If they persecuted Me, Jesus reiterated, they will also persecute you. Earlier in His ministry Jesus had told them, “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master. It is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher, and the slave like his master. If they have called the head of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign the members of his household!” (Matt. 10:24–25). Believers identify with Jesus Christ in the “fellowship of His sufferings” (Phil. 3:10; cf. 2 Cor. 1:5; Gal. 6:17; Col. 1:24).

But the picture was not entirely bleak; the Lord went on to add, If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. As was the case with Jesus, the majority would reject the disciples’ teaching and persecute them. But there would always be a minority (cf. Matt. 7:14; 22:14; Luke 13:24) who would accept the disciples’ message. The joy of seeing those few come to faith in Christ far outweighs the sorrow caused by the hatred and hostility of the many who reject the gospel.

THE WORLD HATES BELIEVERS
BECAUSE IT DOES NOT KNOW GOD

But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates Me hates My Father also. 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. But they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in their Law, ‘They hated Me without a cause.’” (15:21–25)

The things that the hostile world will do to Christ’s followers are not aimed solely at them; the persecution they face is ultimately for His name’s sake. In the Beatitudes Jesus said, “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me” (Matt. 5:11). In the Olivet Discourse He warned, “They will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name” (Matt. 24:9; cf. Mark 13:9; Luke 21:12). Speaking to Ananias about the apostle Paul, Jesus declared, “I will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake” (Acts 9:16). “If you are reviled for the name of Christ,” Peter wrote, “you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you” (1 Peter 4:14). Suffering for the name of Jesus Christ is a repeated New Testament theme (see also Matt. 10:18, 22, 39; 19:29; Mark 8:35; 13:9–13; Luke 6:22; 21:12–17; Rom. 8:36; 2 Cor. 4:11; Rev. 2:3).

Ultimately, the world hates Jesus and His followers because it does not know the One who sent Him. Because “the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God” (Rom. 8:7), “those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (v. 8). Unbelievers are “dead in [their] trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1), “alienated and hostile in mind” (Col. 1:21), and “darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart” (Eph. 4:18). All people are sinners by nature, born into a state of rebellion against God. They “suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Rom. 1:18), and “even though they [know] God, they [do] not honor Him as God or give thanks, but [are] futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart [is] darkened” (v. 21). Therefore in judgment God “gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity” (v. 24), to “degrading passions” (v. 26), and to “a depraved mind” (v. 28). All people are responsible for their sin, “because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse” (vv. 19–20; cf. John 1:9).

But those who heard Jesus bore an even greater responsibility for rejecting the truth. If I had not come and spoken to them, Jesus said, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin…. If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin. The Lord was not speaking here of sin in general, but rather of the specific sin of willfully rejecting Him in the face of full revelation. That is the most serious sin of all, because it is the only one that is not forgivable. Having witnessed firsthand Jesus’ miracles and heard His teaching—both of which testified unmistakably to His deity (cf. Matt. 7:28–29; John 7:46; 10:25, 37–38; 14:10–11)—the Pharisees’ conclusion was, “This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul the ruler of the demons” (Matt. 12:24). Because they attributed His miraculous works to Satan instead of the Holy Spirit, Jesus pronounced their sin to be unforgivable:

While that specific sin can no longer be committed, since Jesus is not physically present on earth, the principle remains the same. Total rejection in the face of total revelation is unforgivable, since there is nothing left for God to show such people. In the sobering words of the writer of Hebrews,

Despite their outward zeal (cf. Rom. 10:2), Jesus’ Jewish opponents had both seen and hated Him and the Father as well. The truth is that those who reject Christ do not know God. That applies to the one who is outwardly religious no less than it does to the hardened atheist. All false religions are of demonic origin. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God” (1 Cor. 10:20; cf. Lev. 17:7; Deut. 32:17; Ps. 106:37). Jesus said to the most zealous religious people of His day, “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father” (John 8:44).

Jesus repeatedly emphasized the truth that the one who hates Him hates the Father also. To those who were outraged because He called God His Father, Jesus replied, “He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him” (John 5:23). John 7:28 records that “Jesus cried out in the temple, teaching and saying, ‘You both know Me and know where I am from; and I have not come of Myself, but He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know.’” In John 8:19 He said to His Jewish opponents, “You know neither Me nor My Father; if you knew Me, you would know My Father also.” In verse 42 He added, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me.” Later He said, “If I glorify Myself, My glory is nothing; it is My Father who glorifies Me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God’; and you have not come to know Him” (John 8:54–55). After warning the disciples that they would be persecuted, Jesus said of their persecutors, “These things they will do because they have not known the Father or Me” (John 16:3). He prayed to the Father, “O righteous Father, although the world has not known You, yet I have known You” (John 17:25). Echoing the Lord’s words, John wrote in his first epistle, “Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father” (1 John 2:23). The truth is that if men had understood who Jesus was, “they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor. 2:8).

The world’s hatred of Jesus, though reprehensible and inexcusable, was not outside of God’s sovereign plan. They have done this, Jesus declared, to fulfill the word that is written in their Law, “They hated Me without a cause.” The Lord quoted from two Davidic psalms, 35:19 and 69:4. His point is that if David, a mere man, could be so hated by his enemies, how much more the sinless Son of God? The world hated Jesus because He exposed their sin and confronted them with the reality of who He is. But in light of Jesus’ words and works, there was and is no valid cause to hate Him. That the world continues to do so graphically reveals the vileness of sin.

But for those who are have been delivered from sin by the power of the cross, and who subsequently encounter opposition for their commitment to the Savior, there is supreme joy in the Lord’s promise: