John 15:18

Here Christ discourses concerning hatred, which is the character and genius of the devil's kingdom, as love is of the kingdom of Christ. Observe here,

I. Who they are in whom this hatred is found - the world, the children of this world, as distinguished from the children of God; those who are in the interests of the god of this world, whose image they bear, and whose power they are subject to; all those, whether Jews or Gentiles, who would not come into the church of Christ, which he audibly called, and visibly separates from this evil world. The calling of these the world intimates, 1. Their number; there were a world of people that opposed Christ and Christianity. Lord, how were they increased that troubled the Son of David! I fear, if we should put it to the vote between Christ and Satan, Satan would out-poll us quite. 2. Their confederacy and combination; these numerous hosts are embodied, and are as one, Psa 83:5. Jews and Gentiles, that could agree in nothing else, agreed to persecute Christ's minister. 3. Their spirit and disposition; they are men of the world (Psa 17:13, Psa 17:14), wholly devoted to this world and the things of it, and never thinking of another world. The people of God, though they are taught to hate the sins of sinners, yet not their persons, but to love and do good to all men. A malicious, spiteful, envious spirit, is not the spirit of Christ, but of the world.

II. Who are they against whom this hatred is levelled-against the disciples of Christ, against Christ himself, and against the Father.

1. The world hates the disciples of Christ: The world hateth you (Joh 15:19); and he speaks of it as that which they must expect and count upon, Joh 15:18, as Jo1 3:13.

(1.) Observe how this comes in here. [1.] Christ had expressed the great kindness he had for them as friends; but, lest they should be puffed up with this, there was given them, as there was to Paul, a thorn in the flesh, that is, as it is explained there, reproaches and persecutions for Christ's sake, Co2 12:7, Co2 12:10. [2.] He had appointed them their work, but tells them what hardships they should meet with in it, that it might not be a surprise to them, and that they might prepare accordingly. [3.] He had charged them to love one another, and need enough they had to love one another, for the world would hate them; to be kind to one another, for they would have a great deal of unkindness and ill-will from those that were without. "Keep peace among yourselves, and this will fortify you against the world's quarrels with you." Those that are in the midst of enemies are concerned to hold together.

(2.) Observe what is here included.

[1.] The world's enmity against the followers of Christ: it hateth them. Note, Whom Christ blesseth the world curseth. The favourites and heirs of heaven have never been the darlings of this world, since the old enmity was put between the seed of the woman and of the serpent. Why did Cain hate Abel, but because his works were righteous? Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing; Joseph's brethren hated him because his father loved him; Saul hated David because the Lord was with him; Ahab hated Micaiah because of his prophecies; such are the causeless causes of the world's hatred.

[2.] The fruits of that enmity, two of which we have here, Joh 15:20. First, They will persecute you, because they hate you, for hatred is a restless passion. It is the common lot of those who will live godly in Christ Jesus to suffer persecution, Ti2 3:12. Christ foresaw what ill usage his ambassadors would meet with in the world, and yet, for the sake of those few that by their ministry were to be called out of the world, he sent them forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. Secondly, Another fruit of their enmity is implied, that they would reject their doctrine. When Christ says, If they have kept my sayings, they will keep yours, he means, They will keep yours, and regard yours, no more than they have regarded and kept mine. Note, The preachers of the gospel cannot but take the despising of their message to be the greatest injury that can be done to themselves; as it was a great affront to Jeremiah to say, Let us not give heed to any of his words, Jer 18:18.

[3.] The causes of that enmity. The world will hate them,

First, Because they do not belong to it (Joh 15:19): "If you were of the world, of its spirit, and in its interests, if you were carnal and worldly, the world would love you as its own; but, because you are called out of the world, it hates you, and ever will." Note, 1. We are not to wonder if those that are devoted to the world are caressed by it as its friends; most men bless the covetous, Psa 10:3; Psa 49:18. 2. Nor are we to wonder if those that are delivered from the world are maligned by it as its enemies; when Israel is rescued out of Egypt, the Egyptians will pursue them. Observe, The reason why Christ's disciples are not of the world is not because they have by their own wisdom and virtue distinguished themselves from the world, but because Christ hath chosen them out of it, to set them apart for himself; and this is the reason why the world hates them; for, (1.) The glory which by virtue of this choice they are designed for sets them above the world, and so makes them the objects of its envy. The saints shall judge the world, and the upright have dominion, and therefore they are hated. (2.) The grace which by virtue of this choice they are endued with sets them against the world; they swim against the stream of the world, and are not conformed to it; they witness against it, and are not conformed to it. This would support them under all the calamities which the world's hatred would bring upon them, that they were hated because they were the choice and the chosen ones of the Lord Jesus, and were not of the world. Now, [1.] This was no just cause for the world's hatred of them. If we do any thing to make ourselves hateful, we have reason to lament it; but, if men hate us for that for which they should love and value us, we have reason to pity them, but no reason to perplex ourselves. Nay, [2.] This was just cause for their own joy. He that is hated because he is rich and prospers cares not who has the vexation of it, while he has the satisfaction of it.

- Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo

Ipse domi -

- Let them hiss on, he cries,

While in my own opinion fully blessed.

- Timon in Hor.

Much more may those hug themselves whom the world hates, but whom Christ loves.

Secondly, "Another cause of the world's hating you will be because you do belong to Christ (Joh 15:21): For my name's sake." Here is the core of the controversy; whatever is pretended, this is the ground of the quarrel, they hate Christ's disciples because they bear his name, and bear up his name in the world. Note, 1. It is the character of Christ's disciples that they stand up for his name. The name into which they were baptized is that which they will live and die by. 2. It has commonly been the lot of those that appear for Christ's name to suffer for so doing, to suffer many things, and hard things, all these things. It is matter of comfort to the greatest sufferers if they suffer for Christ's name's sake. If you be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are you (Pe1 4:14), happy indeed, considering not only the honour that is imprinted upon those sufferings (Act 5:41), but the comfort that is infused into them, and especially the crown of glory which those sufferings lead to. If we suffer with Christ, and for Christ, we shall reign with him.

Thirdly, After all, it is the world's ignorance that is the true cause of its enmity to the disciples of Christ (Joh 15:21): Because they know not him that sent me. 1. They know not God. If men had but a due acquaintance with the very first principles of natural religion, and did but know God, though they did not embrace Christianity, yet they could not hate and persecute it. Those have no knowledge who eat up God's people, Psa 14:4. 2. They know not God as he that sent our Lord Jesus, and authorized him to be the great Mediator of the peace. We do not rightly know God if we do not know him in Christ, and those who persecute those whom he sends make it to appear that they know not that he was sent of God. See Co1 2:8.

2. The world hates Christ himself. And this is spoken of here for two ends: -

(1.) To mitigate the trouble of his followers, arising from the world's hatred, and to make it the less strange, and the less grievous (Joh 15:18): You know that it hated me before you, prōton humōn. We read it as signifying priority of time; he began in the bitter cup of suffering, and then left us to pledge him; but it may be read as expressing his superiority over them: "You know that it hated me, your first, your chief and captain, your leader and commander." [1.] If Christ, who excelled in goodness, and was perfectly innocent and universally beneficent, was hated, can we expect that any virtue or merit of ours should screen us from malice? [2.] If our Master, the founder of our religion, met with so much opposition in the planting of it, his servants and followers can look for no other in propagating and professing it. For this he refers them (Joh 15:20) to his own word, at their admission into discipleship: Remember the word that I said unto you. It would help us to understand Christ's latter sayings to compare them with his former sayings. Nor would any thing contribute more to the making of us easy than remembering the words of Christ, which will expound his providences. Now in this word there is, First, A plain truth: The servant is not greater than his Lord. This he had said to them. Mat 10:24. Christ is our Lord, and therefore we must diligently attend all his motions, and patiently acquiesce in all his disposals, for the servant is inferior to his lord. The plainest truths are sometimes the strongest arguments for the hardest duties; Elihu answers a multitude of Job's murmurings with this one self-evident truth, that God is greater than man, Job 33:12. So here is, Secondly, A proper inference drawn from it: "If they have persecuted men, as you have seen, and are likely to see much more, they will also persecute you; you may expect it and count upon it: for," 1. "You will do the same that I have done to provoke them; you will reprove them for their sins, and call them to repentance, and give them strict rules of holy living, which they will not bear." 2. "You cannot do more than I have done to oblige them; after so great an instance, let none wonder if they suffer ill for doing well." He adds, "If they have kept my sayings, they will keep yours also; as there have been a few, and but a few, that have been wrought upon by my preaching, so there will be by yours a few, and but a few." Some give another sense of this, making etērēsan to be put for parētērēsan. "If they have lain in wait for my sayings, with a design to ensnare me, they will in like manner lie in wait to entangle you in your talk."

(2.) To aggravate the wickedness of this unbelieving world, and to discover its exceeding sinfulness; to hate and persecute the apostles was bad enough, but in them to hate and persecute Christ himself was much worse. The world is generally in an ill name in scripture, and nothing can put it into a worse name than this, that it hated Jesus Christ. There is a world of people that are haters of Christ. Two things he insists upon to aggravate the wickedness of those that hated him: -

[1.] That there was the greatest reason imaginable why they should love him; men's good words and good works usually recommend them; now as to Christ,

First, His words were such as merited their love (Joh 15:22): "If I had not spoken unto them, to court their love, they had not had sin, their opposition had not amounted to a hatred of me, their sin had been comparatively no sin. But now that I have said so much to them to recommend myself to their best affections they have no pretence, no excuse for their sin." Observe here, 1. The advantage which those have that enjoy the gospel; Christ in it comes and speaks to them; he spoke in person to the men of that generation, and is still speaking to us by our Bibles and ministers, and as one that has the most unquestionable authority over us, and affection for us. Every word of his is pure, carries with it a commanding majesty, and yet a condescending tenderness, able, one would think, to charm the deafest adder. 2. The excuse which those have that enjoy not the gospel: "If I had not spoken to them, if they had ever heard of Christ and of salvation by him, they had not had sin." (1.) Not this kind of sin. They had not been chargeable with a contempt of Christ if he had not come and made a tender of his grace to them. As sin is not imputed where there is no law, so unbelief is not imputed where there is no gospel; and, where it is imputed, it is thus far the only damning sin, that, being a sin against the remedy, other sin would not damn if the guilt of them were not bound on with this. (2.) Not such a degree of sin. If they had not had the gospel among them, their other sins had not been so bad; for the times of ignorance God winked at, Luk 12:47, Luk 12:48. 3. The aggravated guilt which those lie under to whom Christ has come and spoken in vain, whom he has called and invited in vain, with whom he has reasoned and pleaded in vain; They have no cloak for their sin; they are altogether inexcusable, and in the judgment day will be speechless, and will not have a word to say for themselves. Note, The clearer and fuller the discoveries are which are made to us of the grace and truth of Jesus Christ, the more is said to us that is convincing and endearing, the greater is our sin if we do not love him and believe in him. The word of Christ strips sin of its cloak, that it may appear sin.

Secondly, His works were such as merited their love, as well as his words (Joh 15:24): "If I had not done among them, in their country, and before their eyes, such works as no other man ever did, they had not had sin; their unbelief and enmity had been excusable, and they might have had some colour to say that my word was not to be credited, if not otherwise confirmed;" but he produced satisfactory proofs of his divine mission, works which no other man did. Note, 1. As the Creator demonstrates his power and Godhead by his works (Rom 1:20), so doth the Redeemer. His miracles, his mercies, works of wonder and works of grace, prove him sent of God, and sent on a kind errand. 2. Christ's works were such as no man ever did. No common person that had not a commission from heaven, and God with him, could work miracles, Joh 3:2. And no prophet ever wrought such miracles, so many, so illustrious. Moses and Elias wrought miracles as servants, by a derived power; but Christ, as a Son, by his own power. This was it that amazed the people, that with authority he commanded diseases and devils (Mar 1:27); they owned they never saw the like, Mar 2:12. They were all good works, works of mercy; and this seems especially intended here, for he is upbraiding them with this, that they hated him. One that was so universally useful, more than ever any man was, one would think, should have been universally beloved, and yet even he is hated. 3. The works of Christ enhance the guilt of sinners' infidelity and enmity to him, to the last degree of wickedness and absurdity. If they had only heard his words, and not seen his works, - if we had only his sermons upon record, and not his miracles, unbelief might have pleaded want of proof; but now it has no excuse. Nay, the rejecting of Christ, both by them and us, has in it the sin, not only of obstinate unbelief, but of base ingratitude. They saw Christ to be most amiable, and studious to do them a kindness; yet they hated him, and studied to do him mischief. And we see in his word that great love wherewith he loved us, and yet are not wrought upon by it.

[2.] That there was no reason at all why they should hate him. Some that at one time will say and do that which is recommending, yet at another time will say and do that which is provoking and disobliging; but our Lord Jesus not only did much to merit men's esteem and good-will, but never did any thing justly to incur their displeasure; this he pleads by quoting a scripture for it (Joh 15:25): "This comes to pass, this unreasonable hatred of me, and of my disciples for my sake, that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law" (that is, in the Old Testament, which is a law, and was received by them as a law), "They hated me without a cause;" this David speaks of himself as a type of Christ, Psa 35:19; Psa 69:4. Not, First, Those that hate Christ hate him without any just cause; enmity to Christ is unreasonable enmity. We think those deserve to be hated that are haughty and froward, but Christ is meek and lowly, compassionate and tender; those also that under colour of complaisance are malicious, envious, and revengeful, but Christ devoted himself to the service of those that used him, nay, and of those that abused him; toiled for others' ease, and impoverished himself to enrich us. Those we think hateful that are hurtful to kings and provinces, and disturbers of the public peace; but Christ, on the contrary, was the greatest blessing imaginable to his country, and yet was hated. He testified indeed that their works were evil, with a design to make them good, but to hate him for this cause was to hate him without cause. Secondly, Herein the scripture was fulfilled, and the antitype answered the type. Saul and his courtiers hated David without cause, for he had been serviceable to him with his harp, and with his sword; Absalom and his party hated him, though to him he had been an indulgent father, and to them a great benefactor. Thus was the Son of David hated, and hunted most unjustly. Those that hated Christ did not design there in to fulfil the scripture; but God, in permitting it, had that in his eye; and it confirms our faith in Christ as the Messiah that even this was foretold concerning him, and, being foretold, was accomplished in him. And we must not think it strange or hard if it have a further accomplishment in us. We are apt to justify our complaints of injuries done us with this, that they are causeless, whereas the more they are so the more they are like the sufferings of Christ, and may be the more easily borne.

3. In Christ the world hates God himself; this is twice said here (Joh 15:23): He that hateth me, though he thinks his hatred goes no further, yet really he hates my Father also. And again, Joh 15:24, They have seen and hated both me and my Father. Note, (1.) There are those that hate God, notwithstanding the beauty of his nature and the bounty of his providence; they are enraged at his justice, as the devils that believe it and tremble, are vexed at his dominion, and would gladly break his bands asunder. Those who cannot bring themselves to deny that there is a God, and yet wish there were none, they see and hate him. (2.) Hatred of Christ will be construed and adjudged hatred of God, for he is in his person his Father's express image, and in his office his great agent and ambassador. God will have all men to honour the Son as they honour the Father, and therefore what entertainment the Son has, that the Father has. Hence it is easy to infer that those who are enemies to the Christian religion, however they may cry up natural religion, are really enemies to all religion. Deists are in effect atheists, and those that ridicule the light of the gospel would, if they could, extinguish even natural light, and shake off all obligations of conscience and the fear of God. Let an unbelieving malignant world know that their enmity to the gospel of Christ will be looked upon in the great day as an enmity to the blessed God himself; and let all that suffer for righteousness' sake, according to the will of God, take comfort from this; if God himself be hated in them, and struck at through him, they need not be either ashamed of their cause or afraid of the issue.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Joh_15:18-25

If the world hate you

Kosmos: unregenerate humanity

is here presented.

I. AS GLOWING WITH HATE.

1. It was a hatred of goodness. To hate the mean, the selfish, the false, the dishonest, and morally dishonourable would be right. But evil was not the object of their hatred.

(1) It was good as embodied in the life of Christ. It hated Me before it hated you. How deep, burning, persistent, and cruelly operative was this enmity from Bethlehem to Calvary.

(2) It was good as reflected in His disciples. Just so far as they imbibed and reflected the Spirit of Christ were they hated. For My names sake.

2. It was a hatred developed in persecution. It was not a hatred that slumbered in a passion or that went off even in abusive language, it prompted the infliction of the greatest cruelties. The history of true Christians in all ages has been a history of persecution.

3. It was a hatred without a just reason. Without a cause. Of course they had a cause. The doctrines of goodness clashed with their deep rooted prejudices, its policy with their daily procedure, its eternal principles flashed on their consciences and exposed their wickedness. But their

cause was the very reason why they ought to have loved Christ. Christ knew and stated the cause of the hatred (Joh_15:19).

4. It was a hatred forming a strong reason for brotherly love amongst the disciples. Christ begins His forewarning them of it by urging them to love one another (Joh_15:17). As your enemies outside of you are strong in their passionate hostility towards you, be you compactly welded together in mutual love. Unity is strength.

II. AS LOADED WITH RESPONSIBILITY (Joh_15:22). These words must, of course, be taken in their comparative sense. Before He came amongst them the guilt of their nation had been augmenting for centuries, and they had been, filling up the measure of their iniquities. But great as was their sin before He came it was trifling compared to it now since His advent amongst them.

1. Had He not come they would not have known the sin of hating Him. Hatred towards the best of beings, the incarnation of goodness, is sin in its most malignant form, it was the culmination of human depravity. But had they not known Him they could not have hated Him, the heart is dead to all objects outside the region of knowledge.

2. Had He not come they would not have rejected Him. He came to His own and His own received Him not. The rejection of Him involved the most wicked folly, the most heartless ingratitude, the most daring impiety. If they which despised Moses law died without mercy under two witnesses, etc.

3. If He had not come they would not have crucified Him. What crime on the long black catalogue of human wickedness is to be compared to this?

Conclusion:

1. Good men accept the moral hostility of the unregenerate world. Your great Master taught you to accept it. It is in truth a test of your character and an evidence of your Christliness.

2. Nominal Christians read your doom. (D. Thomas, D. D.)

The world

The children of this world as distinguished from the children of God. Called the world as indicating number, confederacy, and spirit. Three characteristics.

I. GOVERNED BY SENSE.

II. LIVING FOR THE PRESENT.

III. RULED BY THE OPINIONS AND CUSTOMS OF MEN. (W. H. Van Doren, D. D.)

The world

The world of Johns day we know, as to its actual condition, from other sources. Let anyone turn over the pages of Tacitus, Martial, or Persius, and what he learns will put colour into Johns outlines: nay, one dare not say, turn over their pages, for some of them can scarcely be read without hurt by the saintliest living. The same world--at heart--we still find in the present century, under modern conditions. It has grown in wealth. It has become civilized and refined. Law has become a mightier thing. The glory of science was never half so radiant. But, looking close in, we still find the old facts--a dislike of God and love of sin, pride and self-sufficiency, a godless and selfish use of things men hating one another, selfishness fighting selfishness--an infinite mass of misery. Look beyond the borders of comfort and respectability, and think of what exists today round about us. Think of the unblest poverty that is growing side by side with enormous wealth and luxury, associated in many cases with vice and crime, crushing the spirit in ways that comfortable people cannot understand, and frequently aggravated by the temper in which it is borne, and by added evils which do not properly belong to it. Think of the ignorance that has grown to such proportions under the very shadow of our schools and churches. (J. Culross, D. D.)

Sheep among wolves

1. These words strike a discord in the midst of sweet music. The keynote of all that has preceded has been love, and just because it binds the disciples to Christ in a sacred community, it separates them from those who do not share in His life, and hence there result two communities--the Church and the World; and the antagonism between these is perpetual.

2. Our Lord is here speaking with special reference to the apostles, who were sent forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. If we may trust tradition, every one of that little company died a martyrs death, with the exception of John. But there is no more reason for restricting the force of these words to the hearer,, than there is for restricting any of the rest of this discourse.

I. WHAT MAKES THIS HOSTILITY INEVITABLE? Our Lord here prepares His hearers for what is coming by putting it in the gentle form of an hypothesis.

The frequency with which if occurs in this section is rely remarkable, but the tense of the original shows us that, whilst the form is hypothetical, the substance of it is prophetic. Jesus points to two things which make this hostility inevitable.

1. If we share Christs life, we must necessarily, in some measure, share His fate (verse 18). He is the typical example of what the world thinks of, and does to, goodness. And all who have the spirit of life which was in Jesus Christ will come under the same influences which carried Him to the cross. In a world like this it is impossible for a man to love righteousness and hate iniquity, and to order his life accordingly, without treading on somebodys corns.

2. And then (verse 19), there are two bands, and the fundamental principles that underlie each are in deadly antagonism. We stand in diametrical opposition in thought about God, self, duty, life, death, the future; and that opposition goes right down to the bottom of things, and, however it may be covered over, there is a gulf, as in some of those American cations: the towering banks may be very near--but a yard or two seems to separate them; but they go down for thousands and thousands of feet, and never get any nearer each other, and between them at the bottom a black, sullen river flows. If the world loves you it is because ye are of it.

II. HOW THIS HOSTILITY IS MASKED AND MODIFIED.

1. There are a great many bonds that unite men together besides religion or its absence. There are the domestic ties, the associations of commerce and neighbourhood, surface identities of opinion. We have all the same affections and needs, do the same sort of things. So there is a film of roofing thrown over the gulf. You can make up a crack in a wall with plaster after a fashion, and it will hide the solution of continuity that lies beneath. But, let bad weather come, and the bricks gape apart as before. And so, as soon as we get down below the surface of things and come to grapple with real, deep-lying, and formative principles of a life, we come to antagonism.

2. Then the world has got a dash of Christianity into it. Thus Christian men and others have, to a large extent, a common code of morality, as long as you keep on the surface; and do a great many things from substantially the same motives. And thus the gulf is partly bridged over; and so the hostility takes another form. We do not wrap Christians up in pitch and stick them up for candles in the emperors garden nowadays, but the same thing can be done in different ways. Newspaper articles, the light laugh of scorn, the whoop of exultation over the failures or faults of any prominent man that has stood out boldly on Christs side; all these indicate what lies below the surface, and sometimes not so very far below. Many a young man in a warehouse, trying to live a godly life, many a workman, commercial traveller, student, has to find out that there is a great gulf between him and the man that sits close to him; and that he cannot be faithful to his Lord and at the same time down to the depths of his being a friend of one who has no friendship to his Master.

3. And again the world has a conscience that responds to goodness, though grumblingly. After all, men do know that it is better and wiser to be like Christ, and that cannot but modify to some extent the manifestations of the hostility. But it is there all the same. Let a man for Christs sake avow unpopular beliefs, let him boldly seek to apply Christian principles to the fashionable and popular sins of his class or of his country, and what a chorus will be yelping at his heels! The law remains still, if any man will be a friend of the world he is at enmity wish God.

III. HOW YOU MAY ESCAPE THE HOSTILITY. A half-Christianized world and a more than half-secularised Church get on well together. And it is a miserable thing to reflect that about the average Christianity of this generation there is so very little that does deserve the antagonism of the world. Why should the world care to hate a professing Church, large tracts of which are only a bit of the world under another name? If you want to escape the hostility drop your flag, button your coat over the badge that shows that you belong to Christ, and do the thing that the people round about you do, and you will have a perfectly easy and undisturbed life. Of course, a Christianity that winks at commercial immoralities is very welcome on the exchange, a Christianity that lets beer barrels alone may reckon upon having publicans for its adherents, a Christianity that blesses flags and sings Te Deums over victories will get its share of the spoil. If the world can put a hook in the nostrils of leviathan, and make him play with its maidens, it will substitute good nature, half contemptuous, for the hostility which our Master here predicts. Christian men and woman I be you sure that you deserve the hostility which my text predicts.

IV. HOW TO MEET THIS ANTAGONISM.

1. Reckon it as a sign and test of our true union with Jesus Christ. Let us count the reproach of Christ as a treasure to be proud of, and to be guarded.

2. Be sure that it is your goodness, and not your evils or your weakness, that men dislike. The world has a very keen eye, and it is a good thing that it has, for the faults of professing Christians. Many bring down a great deal of deserved hostility upon themselves and of discredit upon Christianity; and then they comfort themselves and say they are bearing the reproach of the Cross. Not a bit of it. Be you careful for this, that it is Christ in you that men turn from, and not you yourself and your weakness and sin.

3. Meet this antagonism by not dropping your standard one inch. If you begin to haul it down where are you going to stop? Nowhere, until you have got it draggling in the mud at your foot. It is no use trying to conciliate by compromise. All that we shall gain by that will be indifference and contempt.

4. Meet hostility with unmoved, patient, Christ-like, and Christ-derived love and sympathy. The patient sunshine pours upon the glaciers and melts the thick-ribbed ice at last into sweet water. The patient sunshine beats upon the mist clouds and breaks up its edges and scatters it at the last. And our Lord here tells us that our experience, if we are faithful to Him, will be like His experience, in that some will hearken to our word though others will persecute, and to some our testimony will come as a message from God that draws them to the Lord Himself. The only conqueror of the world is the love that was in Christ breathed through us. The only way to overcome the worlds hostility is by turning the world into a church. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

18-27. Hatred of the world to the apostles, Joh_15:18-21; its guilt and aggravation, Joh_15:22-25; against which shall be the testimony of the Comforter and the apostles to Christ, Joh_15:26-27.

Thus far in his valedictory the Saviour has enjoined the adherence in love of his apostles to himself and to each other. From this internal bond of union he now turns to an external pressure from a hostile world, which may aid to render that union still more compact.

18. If the world hate you—He had just been softening their heart with lessons of love. But to the loving heart no pain is greater than the consciousness of being the object of hate, and this little band of apostles are to be the central object of hatred to a surrounding world. The if suggests no doubt of the fact, but prepares them for the terrible reality and furnishes them the antidote—it hated me before it hated you. You are hated, then, not because you are bad, but because you are good. It is the hatred of badness against goodness; for they hated incarnate goodness before they hated you.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL NOTES

Joh_15:18. If the world hate you, etc.—He now directs the attention of the disciples to their relation toward the world. Christ loves His disciples, the world hates them, and in this they are one with their Lord (1Pe_4:12-13).

Joh_15:19. The world would love, etc.—ἐφίλει, the love of affection. Notice the selfishness of the world’s love (Joh_7:7; Mat_5:46).

Joh_15:20. Remember the word, etc.—The reference is probably to some such saying as Mat_10:16-24; but see also Joh_13:16. He prepares them to encounter the persecution they would meet.

Joh_15:21. But all these things, etc.—The Lord considers the hatred as already manifested; it was inevitable in the nature of things. The persecutions, indeed, that arose about and against the apostles were instigated by hatred of the name of Jesus (Act_4:30; Act_5:41). They know not Him that sent Me.—Had the Jews really had any true spiritual knowledge of God, would they have acted toward Jesus and His disciples as they did?

Joh_15:22. If I had not come, etc.—They shut their eyes against the light and closed their ears to the truth, and therefore they could not plead ignorance (Act_17:30-31). They sinned wilfully after the revelation of the truth (Heb_10:26); they are therefore without excuse.

Joh_15:23. Hateth My Father, etc.—The nadir of the heavenly, for God is love (1Jn_4:8).

Joh_15:24. If I had not done, etc.—Not only did they reject Christ’s teaching, but His mighty works which confirmed it (Joh_5:36; Joh_9:30; Joh_10:21; Joh_10:37, etc.). Thus they were doubly without excuse (Rom_1:20).

Joh_15:25. They hated Me, etc. (Psa_35:19; Psa_69:4).—Such is the attitude of the world to God’s true sons and servants in all ages.

Joh_15:26. The Comforter (Joh_14:16).—The Spirit of Truth, i.e. the Spirit of Christ, who is the Truth and whose gospel is the truth. Proceedeth from (παρά).—From beside. The reference is to the mission of the Spirit. Testify.—Bear witness (Joh_14:26).

Joh_15:27. And ye also shall bear witness, etc.—They testified as to what they had seen and known, and what the Holy Spirit brought to their remembrance. But there was also a distinct witness-bearing of the Spirit (Act_5:32).

Joh_15:27. The Spirit does not teach historical facts, but reveals their true meaning. Hence the apostolic testimony and the testimony of the Spirit form but a single act, in which each contributes a different element—the one the historic narrative, the other the internal evidence and the victorious power. This relation is reproduced in our day in all living preaching derived from Holy Scripture. St. Peter equally distinguishes the two kinds of testimony (Act_5:32) (see Westcott, etc.).

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Joh_15:18-27

Joh_15:18-21. The hatred of Christ’s disciples by the world.—In the upper chamber our Lord taught His disciples the new commandment of love. This was to be the rule and law of His Church. But the Christian spirit would lead to conflict in the world. Just as the world hated and persecuted the Master, because the truth which He was and taught brought condemnation to the world, so would it be with the disciples. Hatred and persecution, He foretold, would track their course through the world.

I. The source of hatred of the disciples: the world.—

1. There are several meanings attached to the word “world” in the Scriptures. The term means

(1) the earth, the material world and its inhabitants. “The world and they that dwell therein” (Psa_98:7), viewed as the works of the Creator;

(2) the inhabitants of the world, without any reference to their character (Joh_16:28);

(3) the inhabitants of the world, viewed from the moral point of view. In this view it is called the “present evil world” (Gal_1:4). It lies in the wicked one (1Jn_5:19), and those who are in this world are not conformed to God. God is light, the world darkness; God is love, the world hatred, etc.

2. What causes this is sin. It may be urged that the world of men is not so depraved. Yet there may be many amiable men in an army of rebels. Sin causes enmity to God, hatred to His cause.

3. It was the enmity and hatred of this sinful world which our Lord’s disciples had to encounter. We see how the rebellious Jews—to whom Christ came as to His own, and they received Him not—were inimical to the gospel as preached by the apostles. They hated Christ “without a cause” (Joh_15:25), for the real antagonism was that of hypocrisy and truth, sin and holiness.

4. Nor did this hatred end with Judæa and Judaism. Wherever the disciples came into contact with the spirit of the world the same hatred blazed forth. It has burned in all the martyrdoms and persecutions of true followers of Christ from the apostolic age until the fires of the Inquisition were extinguished.

5. But even now it has not ceased. In subtle ways the world manifests its hatred of true followers of Christ. The sneer of the worldling at true piety, his covert attacks, innuendoes, and insinuations regarding followers of Christ and labourers for Him, show the old spirit still at work. And the absolute hostility which converts to the gospel have to endure in the ranks of bigoted Judaism, and in the midst of idolatrous communities, is the same as of old. Christian converts from Judaism, Mohammedanism, and idolatry need this same consoling word of the Master.

II. The cause of the world’s hatred to Christ and His disciples.—

1. This has been in part dwelt on. But it is to be noticed more fully that the disciple must expect the world to wear this aspect toward him, for the Master was also hated by it.

2. As Christ was, so must His disciples be in the world. If they desire to have His glory, they must have fellowship in His sufferings. As He was made perfect through suffering, so will they be; for the servant is not greater than his Lord. If Christ is in us, and we are manifesting His life, we must expect to bear His reproach. 3. Persecution may seem to have ceased against the Church. But the spirit of the world is still the same. The world is ignorant of God, and those Christians who let their light shine before men bring condemnation to the impenitent and hatred to themselves oftentimes. For the world loves its own, and there must be want of harmony between it and the Church. Those that will live godly must suffer persecution. “Where the living Christ manifests Himself, there also is seen the old serpent that bruised His heel.” A Christianity that can endure the world, and with which the world is pleased, must have in some measure lost its true power.

4. Persecution in a gross sense has ceased in civilised lands. But there seems a time coming when it may be renewed (2 Thessalonians 2, etc.). The fanaticism of superstition and unbelief wants but the power to show the old spirit.

III. The spirit in which the disciple should meet the world’s hatred.—

1. It is not to be met with hatred. Christ speaks of a must needs be, so long as men are what they are. But Christ came to save the world.

“Then, like Thine own, be all our aim

To conquer them by love.”

2. We must therefore meet the world’s hatred with faith, and undismayed. The Lord knows how to solace His own and deliver the godly in temptation and trial. The apostles joyfully departed from the council because they were accounted worthy to suffer shame for the name of Christ (Act_5:41). Paul and Silas could pray and sing praises in the dungeon at Philippi (Act_16:26). Paul could write of himself, “I take pleasure,” etc. (2Co_12:10). Tertullian thus witnessed for Christ: “We say it, and say it openly, freely, and without fear, and even under your tortures we shall cry from our torn and bleeding frames, We honour God in Christ.”

3. We should meet the world’s hatred with gentleness and pitying love, as Christ did. Thus shall true disciples following Christ win men from a hostile world to the love and service of Christ. And there will be joy in the assured presence of the Master, and in the thought, “Even as He is, so are we in this world” (1Jn_4:17).

Joh_15:22-25. The inexcusableness of the sin of unbelief.—The earthly ministry of the Saviour had come to a close. He was sent to His own possessions, and His own people received Him not (Joh_1:11). He had, indeed, come for the fall and rising again of many in Israel, and for a sign which should be spoken against (Luk_2:34). And unbelief in its various forms in all ages rests on much the same causes as in Judæa of old.

I. The culmination of unbelief.—I. It had grown rapidly during the last few months of Christ’s earthly course. At the beginning of Christ’s ministry there was a time when the rulers were not so inimical. Perhaps the outward form which the temptation took was attempts by these men to get our Lord to proclaim Himself a temporal Messiah (and see Joh_6:15).

2. But when the Jewish rulers saw His determination to have nothing to do with their ideas of the Messianic kingdom, they refused to listen to the truth. Their spiritual pride, their hypocrisy, their low moral standard, were all brought home to them by the humility, the purity, the beauty, of Christ’s character. All this produced antagonism, and led them to shut their eyes to the truth so plainly evident in all Christ’s life.

3. And thus they arrived at deliberate and bold unbelief, and were even now seeking means to destroy the truth.

4. Unbelief is still the same. It results now, as of old, either from spiritual pride or moral antagonism. The gospel is humbling to human pride. Many will not entertain the idea that a spiritual and fundamental change is needed ere they can enter the kingdom. So did the Jews pride themselves on being Abraham’s seed (Joh_8:39). Many will not believe in Christ’s works; others reject the gospel because it demands holiness and self-denial; and thus many still remain in alienation and enmity.

II. The sin of unbelief.—

1. How terrible are its consequences as here stated by Christ! Of the Jews He said, “They have seen and hated both Me and My Father.” It was nothing less than rejection and hatred of the God of love and His eternal Son. It was the rejection and hatred of Him who had been the God of their fathers, who had wrought wonders in the days of old and blessed them beyond any nation. It was the rejection and hatred of the divine Son who had come to seek and to save the lost.

2. And unbelief and rejection of the gospel are as sinful now. For if men would but examine it, they would at once see that it could not be from earth. The character of Christ is so heavenly and so noble that a careful consideration ought to show that all attempts to account for it in a merely natural way utterly fail.

III. The sin of unbelief is without excuse.—

1. It was so in the case of the Jews since Christ had come among them.

(1) He taught them with authority. He spake among them as never man spake (Joh_7:46).

(2) He wrought mighty works among them which in their less biassed moments bore conviction in on the minds of many of them (Joh_10:41-42, etc.). All these should have appealed to them. They could plead no excuse to the effect that He had not given adequate proofs of His claims. Indeed, they were altogether without excuse; for they hated Him without a cause. His character and life, His works and teaching, should have been sufficient to convince.

2. Rejecters of Christ now have the same proofs. Attack after attack has been made on the authenticity of gospel history—attacks often most subtle and virulent. But it still stands; and the attacking theories have fallen. A system not founded on truth could not have withstood such attacks.

3. But more than that. “Si monumentum requiris, circumspice.” The proofs of the divine origin of the gospel are all around. The changed face of the world proclaims its truth. The whole course of Christian history, the whole realm of Christian biography, tell of its heavenly power. The pure and noble lives of true Christians, the conquests of Christian missions, the ability of the gospel to regenerate and raise men nearer God—all are proofs, that cannot be dismissed with a word, of the heavenly origin of the religion of Christ. And those who reject guiltily reject the Father and the Son, reject that power which evidently makes for righteousness and meets the requirements of the race.

Joh_15:26-27. Zeal in defence of the divine interests.—The apostles bore witness to Christ in preaching His gospel. And even although we may not be called to the same ministry, we ought to bear witness to God in defending His cause and His interests when they are assailed. People abandon the defence of the divine cause either through a false prudence or a culpable weakness. Here in the one case this false prudence is reproved, and in the other this hurtful weakness.

I. False prudence reproved.—

1. God holds Himself to be dishonoured by such a prudence. It is His glory to be served by those who find their glory in His service, and who do not balance His interests with their own. Thus there is an indubitable obligation laid on Christian men to confess their faith, even at the expense of their lives. On thousands of occasions we ought to declare ourselves on the side of God—otherwise we sin against Him; for as Christ has said, “He that is not for Me is against Me.” The example of David—his zeal (Psalms 68).

2. This is a sort of prudence that even the world approves not of. A man would be regarded as a craven who did not come to the help of his friend. A subject would be treated as a rebel if in war he did not come to the aid of his prince. The rules of honour of the world even condemn our indifference in regard to the divine cause.

3. This is a kind of prudence that brings scandal on religion. For this indifference to the cause of God is considered to be a sign of secret alienation from Him. The world scarcely distinguishes the man who is indifferent to the things of God from the open libertine who is without doubt against Him. The reason is that libertinage does not dare to show itself fully, but comes forward under the guise of indifference. Whence comes occasion of offence to the weak. It was this that awoke of old the zeal of Elijah (1Ki_18:21).

4. Such a prudence tends to encourage impiety. Libertinism does not exactly ask that it should be applauded—only tolerated. This is sufficient to give it opportunity to take root and flourish. Is it said, My zeal would only irritate the evil? What although it did! You would have done your duty. But we must use discretion. True, provided it is a discretion which leads to the end to which zeal directs. But this zeal would lead to publicity and noise. It is not always prudent to avoid that when it is necessary. There is a kind of peace which is more dangerous than trouble. But must not one be careful in regard to one’s neighbours? Away with such carefulness where the service of God is concerned! The apostles did not reason thus.

II. To abandon the divine cause is a most injurious weakness.—

1. It deprives us of the greatest honour to which we could aspire—to be defenders of the divine cause. It was in defence of this cause that the heroes of faith in the Old Testament and the New were distinguished. Have you the same boldness in the cause of Christ? Will God make use of you as He did of them?

2. It makes men odious and despicable. To whom?

(1) To good men, who behold this faithlessness with just indignation;

(2) to impious and sinful men even, who interpret the weakness of this conduct, and see very well that our indulgence toward them results from fear and littleness of mind.

3. The acme of our misery is this: we lack firmness only where the interests of God are concerned; we preach firmness strongly enough where our personal interests are concerned. When we think of this, can we listen to the testimony of our own hearts without blushing from shame and confusion?

4. This weakness may end in God withdrawing His grace and sending on us the most severe chastisements. Rather let us second His designs whilst He may be found, etc.; and by an ardour and zeal altogether new so prepare ourselves to hear from His mouth this glorious invitation, “Come, good and faithful servants,” etc. (Mat_25:23).—Bourdaloue.

ILLUSTRATIONS

Joh_15:18. The hatred of Christ’s disciples by the world.—The friends and disciples of Jesus Christ have two marks of their friendship and discipleship: the first is that they love one another; the second, that they are hated by the world. Concerning the first our Lord had spoken in the former part of this chapter. “This text is worth hundreds of thousands of gulden; yes, no gold could buy it. For Christ Himself tells us therein that we are not of the world, and that this is the sign thereof, i.e. that the world hates us. This includes lofty contempt and excellent comfort; because if we are hated for His sake, it is because we have been chosen by Him and separated from the world, judged and marked by it” (Luther). Just as the love of Christ is the ground of love of the brethren, so the hatred of the world rests on Christians because they abide in the love of their Lord. For just so little as the world can hate those who are of the world (Joh_7:7), just so little can it love those chosen out of the world as friends of Jesus. The disciples would from the time of our Lord’s departure most painfully experience this. But let not your heart be troubled. It must so be and happen so long as the world is world and Christians are Christians, and so long as Abel’s race inhabits the earth with Cain’s race. That, however, which the blind world does as a curse God turns into pure blessing for His children. For the Vine-dresser cleanses the branches of the vine by means often of this hatred of the world; but He does not permit the world to tear one twig from the vine. If the world has hated that vine-stock, yet it must leave it scathless; yes, must even help its glorious growth by this bitter hatred. Thus, too, will it be with the beloved branches in spite of the cruel hatred and rage of the world.—Translated from Dr. R. Besser.

Joh_15:22. The boldness of unbelief.—As to the manner in which unbelief takes the field against faith, I read recently of a glaring instance in a religious journal. An intelligent Christian farmer, in the vicinity of Caln, brought to his minister, with great indignation, a little book which had been sent him by post, and which bore the title, The Return Home from Heaven to Earth, a Book for Free Christians, printed at Stuttgart 1851. In this tractate, in the form of a catechism with question and answer, the most naked infidelity was taught—the Bible laid under suspicion of being a book of fables, heaven and everything heavenly denied, and the earth alone, as our true home, and the world of sense as the only element in which to live, held up to honour. “Return home from heaven to earth!” Yes, so runs the watchword of the sensualist. He does not desire to look beyond the horizon of earth; therefore for him everything that comes from an unseen world and would lead men thither—Bible and church, heaven and eternity, God and Saviour, religion and Christianity—is a cause of offence and foolishness. Therefore he desires to call men back from heaven to earth. The watchword of faith, however, runs otherwise: “The return home from earth to heaven.” Here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come; we look not on the things which are seen, but on the things which are not seen. Thence did our undying souls come; thither our heart goes forth like a child’s heart toward his father’s house. Thence our Lord and Saviour has come to bring heavenly light, heavenly power, heavenly comfort, into this poor dark world; thither He has prepared a way for us through His divine teaching His heavenly example, His holy death, His glorious ascension; and thither will He also lead us, so that where He is we, whom the Father has given Him, may be with Him. Now, which of these is the true way? Will we agree with the catechism of unbelief, “Return home from heaven to earth”? Shall we leave the heavenly air and light of faith, in which we hitherto have been so well and happy, and come back to our five senses like a snail into its shell, or creep like a mole into its hole. Shall Christendom retreat like a defeated army from a land it cannot possess, a city that it cannot take—retreat from the blessed province of faith, and abandon the heavenly city with its glittering walls, and renounce the heavenly inheritance which the Captain of our salvation had gained by His blood, whither for eighteen hundred years so many thousand believing souls have looked amid the afflictions of time, where we also hoped to find our eternal home and to rest from toil in the heavenly Sabbath? Shall we let all this go as a booty that pertains not to us, as a dream, behind which there is nothing? Shall we give it all up simply because it lies beyond our earthly horizon, because it is not strengthened and confirmed by the evidence of our five senses? Never! Our faith is the victory that overcomes the world. It overcame the world and the world’s doubt eighteen hundred years ago, as the message “Christ is risen” went victoriously through all lands. It overcomes the world and its doubt to-day also; for it rests on a divine testimony (1Jn_5:9).—Translated from Karl Gerok.

Joh_15:27. Boldness in witness-bearing for Christ.—Yes, Christians, you in reality put away your true glory when, among the subjects that come before you, and in regard to which your zeal should be engaged, you do not dare, from a timidity that is weak and craven, either to speak or to act for the cause of God. For what is more worthy of a great spirit, of a noble and dignified soul, than the defence of such a cause? and what can we propose to ourselves in the world as a more honourable aim? When yon labour for yourselves alone, how little do you become; whatever you may do all is small and limited, is reduced to that nothingness and that vanity inseparable both from your persons and your position. But when you interest yourselves for the cause of God, all that you do, even according to men’s ideas, possesses I know not what of the divine, which they are forced to honour, and which awakes in them for you a secret respect. “You seek for glory,” wrote Augustine to a man of the world, “and where will you find this glory that you seek better than in the exercise of an ardent zeal for everything connected with the service of your God, i.e. to protect those who engage in it, to reprove those who dishonour it, to cause abuses in connection with it to cease, to maintain discipline, to oppose yourself like a wall of brass and like a pillar of bronze to the enterprises of error and of impiety? If you wish to acquire a solid merit, in order to commend yourself to men, by what other way can you hope to attain to that end? What is it that has immortalised the names of the great men of Old Testament history, and those of the New Testament story? Was it not this that has impressed on all minds such general sentiments of esteem and constant admiration for these illustrious Maccabees? What distinguished Constantine and Theodosius among the Christian emperors? Was it not that zeal for the honour of God and His law by which they were animated? ‘Traverse,’ said the brave Mattathias, when instructing his children from his deathbed—‘traverse all the generations, and see if those of our ancestors whose memory is blessed have merited the praise and respect of the people otherwise than by the power and courage which they displayed when the cause of the Lord called for their aid. Do not imagine you will ever arrive at such a degree of glory as that to which they attained, unless through the same resolution. And do not be blind enough to suppose that any purely human success only, regarding which the world may compliment you, will ever enable you to equal them.’ ” Thus spoke this saintly and noble church-father. And this is what I would say after him, Christians. No, whoever you may be, do not expect to find any true glory other than that which will come to you through the holy ardour which will make it plain that you are God’s and for God. By the so-called successes you may achieve otherwise, and for which men applaud, you may make some noise in the world. But with this fleeting flame, as Scripture teaches, your memory will perish. This glory which you have sought apart from God, and in which God has no part, will vanish like smoke. And after you have shone for a little with a false lustre, it will leave you in eternal darkness.—Translated from Bourdaloue.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

John

SHEEP AMONG WOLVES

Joh 15:18 - Joh 15:20.

These words strike a discord in the midst of the sweet music to which we have been listening. The key-note of all that has preceded has been love-the love of Christ’s friends to one another, and of all to Him, as an answer to His love to all. That love, which is one, whether it rise to Him or is diffused on the level of earth, is the result of that unity of life between the Vine and the branches, of which our Lord has been speaking such great and wonderful things. But that unity of life between Christians and Christ has another consequence than the spread of love. Just because it binds them to Him in a sacred community, it separates them from those who do not share in His life, and hence the ‘hate’ of our context is the shadow of ‘love’; and there result two communities-to use the much-abused words that designate them-the Church and ‘the World’; and the antagonism between these is deep, fundamental, and perpetual.

Unquestionably, our Lord is here speaking with special reference to the Apostles, who, in a very tragic sense, were ‘sent forth as sheep in the midst of wolves.’ If we may trust tradition, every one of that little company, Speaker as well as hearers, died a martyr’s death, with the exception of John himself, who was preserved from it by a miracle. But, be that as it may, our Lord is here laying down a universal statement of the permanent condition of things; and there is no more reason for restricting the force of these words to the original hearers of them than there is for restricting the force of any of the rest of this wonderful discourse. ‘The world’ will be in antagonism to the Church until the world ceases to be a world, because it obeys the King; and then, and not till then, will it cease to be hostile to His subjects.

I. What makes this hostility inevitable?

Our Lord here prepares His hearers for what is coming by putting it in the gentle form of an hypothesis. The frequency with which ‘If’ occurs in this section is very remarkable. He will not startle them by the bare, naked statement which they, in that hour of depression and agitation, were so little able to endure, but He puts it in the shape of a ‘suppose that,’ not because there is any doubt, but in order to alleviate the pain of the impression which He desires to make. He says, ‘If the world hates,’ not ‘if the world hate’; and the tense of the original shows that, whilst the form of the statement is hypothetical, the substance of it is prophetic.

Jesus points to two things, as you will observe, which make this hostility inevitable. ‘If the world hate you, ye know that it hated Me before it hated you.’ And again, ‘If 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.’ The very language carries with it the implication of necessary and continual antagonism. For what is ‘the world,’ in this context, but the aggregate of men, who have no share in the love and life that flow from Jesus Christ? Necessarily they constitute a unity, whatever diversities there may be amongst them, and necessarily, that unity in its banded phalanx is in antagonism, in some measure, to those who constitute the other unity, which holds by Christ, and has been drawn by Him from ‘out of the world.’

If we share Christ’s life, we must, necessarily, in some measure, share His fate. It is the typical example of what the world thinks of, and does to, goodness. And all who have ‘the Spirit of life which was in Jesus Christ’ for the animating principle of their lives, will, just in the measure in which they possess it, come under the same influences which carried Him to the Cross. In a world like this, it is impossible for a man to ‘love righteousness and hate iniquity,’ and to order his life accordingly, without treading on somebody’s corns; being a rebuke to the opposite course of conduct, either interfering with men’s self-complacency or with their interests. From the beginning the blind world has repaid goodness by antagonism and contempt.

And then our Lord touches another, and yet closely-connected, cause when He speaks of His selecting the Apostles, and drawing them out of the world, as a reason for the world’s hostility. There are two groups, and the fundamental principles that underlie each are in deadly antagonism. In the measure in which you and I are Christians we are in direct opposition to all the maxims which rule the world and make it a world. What we believe to be precious it regards as of no account. What we believe to be fundamental truth it passes by as of little importance. Much which we feel to be wrong it regards as good. Our jewels are its tinsel, and its jewels are our tinsel. We and it stand in diametrical opposition of thought about God, about self, about duty, about life, about death, about the future; and that opposition goes right down to the bottom of things. However it may be covered over, there is a gulf, as in some of those American canons: the towering cliffs may be very near-only a yard or two seems to separate them; but they go down for thousands and thousands of feet, and never are any nearer each other, and between them at the bottom a black, sullen river flows. ‘If ye were of the world, the world would love its own.’ If it loves you, it is because ye are of it.

II. And so note, secondly, how this hostility is masked and modified.

There are a great many other bonds that unite men together besides the bonds of religious life or their absence. There are the domestic ties, there are the associations of commerce and neighbourhood, there are surface identities of opinion about many important things. The greater portion of our lives moves on this surface, whore all men are alike. ‘If you tickle us, do we not laugh; if you wound us, do we not bleed?’ We have all the same affections and needs, pursue the same avocations, do the same sort of things, and a large portion of every one’s life is under the dominion of habit and custom, and determined by external circumstances. So there is a film of roofing thrown over the gulf. You can make up a crack in a wall with plaster after a fashion, and it will hide the solution of continuity that lies beneath. But let bad weather come, and soon the bricks gape apart as before. And so, as soon as we get down below the surface of things and grapple with the real, deep-lying, and formative principles of a life, we come to antagonism, just as they used to come to it long ago, though the form of it has become quite different.

Then there are other causes modifying this hostility. The world has got a dash of Christianity into it since Jesus Christ spoke. We cannot say that it is half Christianised, but some of the issues and remoter consequences of Christianity have permeated the general conscience, and the ethics of the Gospel are largely diffused in such a land as this. Thus Christian men and others have, to a large extent, a common code of morality, as long as they keep on the surface; and they not only do a good many things exactly alike, but do a great many things from substantially the same motives, and have the same way of looking at much. Thus the gulf is partly bridged over; and the hostility takes another form. We do not wrap Christians in pitch and stick them up for candles in the Emperor’s garden nowadays, but the same thing can be done in different ways. Newspaper articles, the light laugh of scorn, the whoop of exultation over the failures or faults of any prominent man that has stood out boldly on Christ’s side; all these indicate what lies below the surface, and sometimes not so very far below. Many a young man in a Manchester warehouse, trying to live a godly life, many a workman at his bench, many a commercial traveller in the inn or on the road, many a student on the college benches, has to find out that there is a great gulf between him and the man who sits next to him, and that he cannot be faithful to his Lord, and at the same time, down to the depths of his being, a friend of one who has no friendship to his Master.

Still another fact masks the antagonism, and that is, that after all, the world, meaning thereby the aggregate of godless men, has a conscience that responds to goodness, though grumblingly and reluctantly. After all, men do know that it is better to be good, that it is better and wiser to be like Christ, that it is nobler to live for Him than for self, and that consciousness cannot but modify to some extent the manifestations of the hostility, but it is there all the same, and whosoever will be a Christian after Christ’s pattern will find out that it is there.

Let a man for Christ’s sake avow unpopular beliefs, let him try honestly to act out the New Testament, let him boldly seek to apply Christian principles to the fashionable and popular sins of his class or of his country, let him in any way be ahead of the conscience of the majority, and what a chorus will be yelping at his heels! Dear brethren, the law still remains, ‘If any man will be a friend of the world he is at enmity with God.’

III. Thirdly, note how you may escape the hostility.

A half-Christianised world and a more than half-secularised Church get on well together. ‘When they do agree, their agreement is wonderful.’ And it is a miserable thing to reflect that about the average Christianity of this generation there is so very little that does deserve the antagonism of the world. Why should the world care to hate or trouble itself about a professing Church, large parts of which are only a bit of the world under another name? There is no need whatever that there should be any antagonism at all between a godless world and hosts of professing Christians. If you want to escape the hostility drop your flag, button your coat over the badge that shows that you belong to Christ, and do the things that the people round about you do, and you will have a perfectly easy and undisturbed life.

Of course, in the bad old slavery days, a Christianity that had not a word to say about the sin of slave-holding ran no risk of being tarred and feathered. Of course a Christianity in Manchester that winks hard at commercial immoralities is very welcome on the Exchange. Of course a Christianity that lets beer barrels alone may reckon upon having publicans for its adherents. Of course a Christianity that blesses flags and sings Te Deums over victories will get its share of the spoil. Why should the world hate, or persecute, or do anything but despise a Christianity like that, any more than a man need to care for a tame tiger that has had its claws pared? If the world can put a hook in the nostrils of leviathan, and make him play with its maidens, it will substitute good-nature, half contemptuous, for the hostility which our Master here predicts. It was out-and-out Christians that He said the world would hate; the world likes Christians that are like itself. Christian men and women! be you sure that you deserve the hostility which my text predicts.

IV. And now, lastly, note how to meet this antagonism.

Reckon it as a sign and test of true union with Jesus Christ. And so, if ever, by reason of our passing at the call of duty or benevolence outside the circle of those who sympathise with our faith and fundamental ideas, we encounter it more manifestly than when we ‘dwell among our own people,’ let us count the ‘reproach of Christ’ as a treasure to be proud of, and to be guarded.

Be sure that it is your goodness and not your evils or your weakness, that men dislike. The world has a very keen eye for the inconsistencies and the faults of professing Christians, and it is a good thing that it has. The loftier your profession the sharper the judgment that is applied to you. Many well-meaning Christian people, by an injudicious use of Christian phraseology in the wrong place, and by the glaring contradiction between their prayers and their talks and their daily life, bring down a great deal of deserved hostility upon themselves and of discredit upon Christianity; and then they comfort themselves and say they are bearing the ‘reproach of the Cross.’ Not a bit of it! They are bearing the natural results of their own failings and faults. And it is for us to see to it that what provokes, if it does provoke, hostile judgments and uncharitable criticisms, insulting speeches and sarcasms, and the sense of our belonging to another regiment and having other objects, is our cleaving to Jesus Christ, and not the imperfections and the sins with which we so often spoil that cleaving. Be you careful for this, that it is Christ in you that men turn from, and not you yourself and your weakness and sin.

Meet this antagonism by not dropping your standard one inch. Keep the flag right at the masthead. If you begin to haul it down, where are you going to stop? Nowhere, until you have got it draggling in the mud at the foot. It is of no use to try to conciliate by compromise. All that we shall gain by that will be, as I have said, indifference and contempt; all that we shall gain will be a loss to the cause. A great deal is said in this day, and many efforts are being made-I cannot but think mistaken efforts-by Christian people to bridge over this gulf in the wrong way-that is, by trying to make out that Christianity in its fundamental principles does approximate a great deal more closely to the things that the world goes by than it really does. It is all vain, and the only issue of it will be that we shall have a decaying Christianity and a dying spiritual life. Keep the flag up; emphasise and accentuate the things that the world disbelieves and denies, not pushing them to the ‘falsehood of extremes,’ but not by one jot diminishing the clearness of our testimony by reason of the world’s unwillingness to receive it. Our victory is to be won only through absolute faithfulness to Christ’s ideal.

And, lastly, meet hostility with unmoved, patient, Christlike, and Christ-derived love and sympathy. The patient sunshine pours upon the glaciers and melts the thick-ribbed ice at last into sweet water. The patient sunshine beats upon the mist-cloud and breaks up its edges and scatters it at the last. And our Lord here tells us that our experience, if we are faithful to Him, will be like His experience, in that some will hearken to our word though others will persecute, and to some our testimony will come as a message from God that draws them to the Lord Himself. These are our only weapons, brethren! The only conqueror of the world is the love that was in Christ breathed through us; the only victory over suspicion, contempt, alienation, is pleading, persistent, long-suffering, self-denying love. The only way to overcome the world’s hostility is by turning the world into a church, and that can only be done when Christ’s servants oppose pity to wrath, love to hate, and in the strength of His life who has won us all by the same process, seek to win the world for Him by the manifestation of His victorious love in our patient love.

Dear brethren, to which army do you belong? Which community is yours? Are you in Christ’s ranks, or are you in the world’s? Do you love Him back again, or do you meet His open heart with a closed one, and His hand, laden with blessings, with hands clenched in refusal? To which class do I belong?-it is the question of questions for us all; and I pray that you and I, won from our hatred by His love, and wooed out of our death by His life, and made partakers of His life by His death, may yield our hearts to Him, and so pass from out of the hostility and mistrust of a godless world into the friendships and peace of the sheltering Vine. And then we ‘shall esteem the reproach of Christ’ if it fall upon our heads, in however modified and mild a form, ‘greater riches than the treasures of Egypt,’ and ‘have respect unto the recompense of the reward.’

May it be so with us all!

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

15:18-27 Disciples must be like their master in every respect, both in showing love and obedience and in experiencing the antagonism of those who oppose their message (15:20-21; see 9:1-41; 11:16). If the darkness is opposed to the light (1:5), and if Jesus’ followers are bearers of that light in the world (1 Jn 1:7; 2:9), they should expect the world to hate them in the way it hated Jesus (see John 17:14). Jesus’ disciples share his separation from and conflict with the world.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Joh 15:18. Μισεῖ, hates) So far from loving you. [In this there is described, 1) the unreasonable hatred of the world in general, Joh 15:18-25: 2) the confirmation of the truth which stands in contrast to the same, Joh 15:26-27: 3) the hatred accompanied with more violent paroxysms, Joh 16:1-4: 4) the greater force of the confirmation, Joh 15:5-11.—V. g.]—γινώσκετε, know ye) [But Engl. Vers. ye know]. They did know it: ch. Joh 11:8, “The disciples say, Master, the Jews of late sought to stone Thee:” and yet they are ordered now more to reflect on this very fact: Joh 15:20, Remember, etc., ch. Joh 16:4.—πρῶτον) prior to its hating you.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh_15:18-19. But now your relation to the world! as far as Joh_15:27.

In your fellowship, love; from without, on the part of the unbelieving, hatred against you! Consolation for you: γινώσκετε (imperat.) ὅτι ἐμὲ πρῶτον ὑμῶν (Joh_1:15), μεμίσηκεν. Comp. 1Pe_4:12-13. This hatred is a community of destiny with me. A further consolation: this hate is the proof that you no longer belong to the world, but to me through my selection of you (Joh_15:16); therein exists the reason for it. How must that fact tend to elate you! Comp. 1Jn_3:13; 1Jn_4:5.

The fivefold repetition of κόσμος is solemn. Comp. Joh_3:17.

τὸ ἔδιον] Suum dicitur pro vos, atque sic notatur interesse mundi, Bengel. Comp. Joh_7:7. They have become a foreign element to the world, and therewith the object of its antipathy; χαίρει γὰρ τῷ ὁμοίῳ τὸ ὅμοιον, Euth. Zigabenus; comp. Plat. Lys. p. 214 B; τὸ ὅμοιον τῷ ὁμοίῳ ἀνάγκη ἀεὶ φίλον εἶναι.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh 15:18-25 . The relation of the disciples to the world .

Joh 15:18 . Εἰ ὁ κόσμος … μεμίσηκεν , “If the world hates you,” as it does (indicative); “the world” is contrasted with “one another” of Joh 15:17 , with the disciples who were to love. γινώσκετε , “ye know,” or, if it be taken as an imperative, “know ye,” that it has hated me, πρῶτον ὑμῶν , “before you,” and, as in Joh 1:15 where also the superlative is found, not only “before” in point of time, but as the norm or prototype.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vv. 18-20. “If the world hates you, know that I have been the object of its hatred before you. 19. If you were of the world, the world would love what belongs to it; but because you are not of the world and I have drawn you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 20. Remember the word which I have said to you:the servant is not greater than his master; if they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my word, they will keep yours also.”

Jesus does not wish merely to announce to His disciples the hatred of which they are going to be the object on the part of the world; He wishes to fortify them against it; and He does so by saying to them, first: it will hate you as me (Joh 15:18-20); then: it will hate you because of me (Joh 15:21-25). Nothing makes us more ready to suffer as Christians than the thought that there happens to us only what happened to Christ, and that it happens to us for Him. Γινώσκετε may be taken as an imperative, like μνημονεύετε (remember), Joh 15:20 : “Consider what has happened with regard to me, and you will understand that everything which happens to you is in the natural order.” The indicative sense, however, is more simple: “If a similar experience befalls you, you know the explanation of it already: you know indeed that....”

By their union with Christ, the disciples represent henceforth on earth a principle foreign to humanity which lives apart from God, to the world. This manifestation therefore appears strange to the world; it is offended by it; it will seek to get rid of it.— ᾿Εξελεξάμην, I have chosen, indicates here the call to faith, not to the apostleship; by this word to choose Jesus would designate the act by which He has drawn them to Himself and detached them from the world; the thought of divine predestination is not found here, any more than in Joh 15:16. The close relation formed by this act of Jesus between Himself and the disciples is formulated in Joh 15:20 by the expressions master and servant. The quoted axiom has the same sense as in Mat 10:24, but a different sense from Joh 13:16. In ch. 13 it is an encouragement to humility; here it is an encouragement to patience.

It is natural to regard the two cases set forth by Jesus in Joh 15:20 as both real. The mass of the people will no more be converted by the preaching of the apostles than by that of Jesus. But as Jesus has had the satisfaction of rescuing isolatedindividuals from ruin, this joy will also be granted to the disciples. This meaning seems to me preferable to that ofGrotius, who gives to the second clause an ironical sense, or to that of Bengel, who takes τηρεῖν, to keep, in the sense of maliciously watching, or, finally, to the interpretation of Lucke, Meyer, de Wette, Hengstenberg, Weiss, who see in the two sides of the alternative proposed only two abstract propositions between which the apostles can easily decide which one will be realized for them; as if Jesus and themselves had not also gained some of the members of the κόσμος .

2. 15:18-16:4.

Opposite to this spiritual body whose inward life and outward activity He has just described, Jesus sees a hostile society arise, which has also its principle of unity, hatred of Christ and of God: the world, natural humanity, which will declare war against the Church, and which is represented at this moment by the Jewish people. Jesus draws a first picture of its hatred to believers, Joh 15:18-25. Then, after having pointed out in passing, as if to reassure the disciples, the succor which will be given them, He reproduces with still more living colors the description of the hostility of the world, Joh 15:26 to Joh 16:4.

ADDITIONAL NOTES BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR.

Vv. 18-16:4.

1. The word γινώσκετε, which Godet prefers to take as an indicative, is better taken as an imperative. Jesus is giving them comfort and strength in view of the hatred of the world, and bids them bear in mind the fact that they would only be meeting what He had met before. He then reminds them, as a second thought, that it was the fact that He had chosen them, and that thus they did not belong to the world, which was the reason of the hatred. The hatred would therefore be an evidence that they were really His followers. ᾿Εξελεξάμην evidently means here a choice, not to the apostleship, but to discipleship as contrasted with the world.

2. Meyer regards the conditional clauses of Joh 15:20 as abstract cases supposed, the minds of the apostles being left to decide which would be realized. Godet, on the other hand, thinks both suppositions are intended to represent real cases. The mass of the people will not receive their message, but some will. The fact that the entire context refers to the opposition of the world seems to make the view of Meyer the more correct one.

3. The statement that they would not have had sin, Joh 15:22; Joh 15:24, is to be explained in connection with the accompanying statement: “But now they have no excuse for their sin.” It is sin with no possible ground of excuse for it of which Jesus is speaking.

4. We see in Joh 15:22; Joh 15:24 the two evidences, which are presented throughout this Gospel, brought forward once more—the words and the works—and the parallelism and partial repetition in these two verses are to be accounted for as connected with the desire to set them forth.

5. In Joh 15:26-27 Jesus makes a new reference to the Spirit, by way of encouragement and support in view of the opposition of the world. As this was His purpose, it was natural that He should set forth here the testimony which the Spirit should give, and which should help the disciples in their conflict with the world. In Joh 14:16 Jesus says that He will ask the Father, and the Father will give the Spirit; here, He says that He will send the Spirit from the Father; in Joh 16:7 He says that He will Himself send the Spirit. The same indication of close union between Himself and the Father is given here, which we find in many places in this Gospel. Godet presses the distinction of the prepositions ἐκ and παρά, and the difference in the tense of πέμψω and ἐκπορεύεται, as showing that in the latter verb there is a reference to an emanating (essentially and eternally) from the Father. That this may be the correct view may be allowed, but as the verb ἐκπορεύεται is itself used with the preposition παρά, and as it does not, in itself, necessarily mean come forth out of the being or nature of God, it must be regarded as doubtful whether this interpretation can be insisted upon.

6. The present tense in μαρτυρεῖτε is doubtless used because the testimony of the disciples had already begun. The allusion to the disciples is secondary to the allusion to the Spirit, but it calls to mind the fact that they were, and were to be, a power in the world for the truth.

Frédéric Louis Godet — Commentaries on Luke, John, Romans, and 1 Corinthians — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1870s–1890s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

It ought not only not to fear, but rather confirm the faithful ministers of Christ, when they shall be hated of the world as their Master was.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 18. If the world hate you] As the followers of Christ were to be exposed to the hatred of the world, it was no small consolation to them to know that that hatred would be only in proportion to their faith and holiness; and that, consequently, instead of being troubled at the prospect of persecution, they should rejoice, because that should always be a proof to them that they were in the very path in which Jesus himself had trod. Dr. Lardner thinks that πρωτον is a substantive, or at least an adjective used substantively, and this clause of the text should be translated thus: If the world hate you, know that it hated me, your CHIEF. It is no wonder that the world should hate you, when it hated me, your Lord and Master, whose lips were without guile, and whose conduct was irreproachable. See the doctor's vindication of this translation, WORKS, vol. i. p. 306.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

18. If the world hate you. After having armed the Apostles for the battle, Christ exhorts them likewise to patience; for the Gospel cannot be published without instantly driving the world to rage. Consequently, it will never be possible for godly teachers to avoid the hatred of the world. Christ gives them early information of this, that they may not be instances of what usually happens to raw recruits, who, from wont of experience, are valiant before they have seen their enemies, but who tremble as soon as the battle is commenced. And not only does Christ forewarn his disciples, that nothing may happen to them which is new and unexpected, but likewise confirms them by his example; for it is not reasonable that Christ should be hated by the world, and that we, who represent his person, should have the world on our side, which is always like itself.

You know. I have translated the verb γινώσκετε in the indicative mood, you know; but if any one prefer to translate it in the imperative mood, know ye, I have no objection, for it makes no change in the meaning. There is greater difficulty in the phrase which immediately follows, πρῶτον ὑμῶν, before you; for when he says that he is before the disciples, this may be referred either to time or to rank The former exposition has been more generally received, namely, that Christ was hated by the world before the Apostles were hated But I prefer the second exposition, namely, that Christ, who is far exalted above them, was not exempted from the hatred of the world, and therefore his ministers ought not to refuse the same condition; for the phraseology is the same as that which we have seen twice before, in John 1:27 and 30, He who cometh after me is preferred to me, (ὅτι πρῶτός μου ἦν,) for he was before me

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(18) If the world hate you.—He has spoken of their close union with Himself, and of their love to each other. He proceeds in the remainder of the chapter to speak of their relation to the world. There is a striking contrast between the “love” in the last verse, and the “hatred” in this. There was the more need for them to be close bound to each other, and to their Lord, on account of the hatred which awaited them in the world.

Ye know that it hated me before it hated you.—It is better to take the first word as an imperative, “Know that it hated . . .” The very hatred, then, is a bond of union with their Master, and this thought should supply strength to meet it, and joy even when suffering from it (Joh_15:11). (Comp. 1Pe_4:12-13.)

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

18. ye know that it hated me] Better, know that it hath hated me (comp. Joh_15:20). As in Joh_14:1 the principal verb may be either indicative or imperative, and the imperative is preferable: the second verb is the perfect indicative, of that which has been and still is the case.

before it hated you] ‘It hated’ is an insertion by our translators, and ‘before you’ is literally ‘first of you,’ like ‘before me’ in Joh_1:15 (see note there) and 30; excepting that here we have the adverb and there the adjective.

18–25. The Hatred of the World to both Him and them

In strong contrast to the love and union between Christ and His disciples and among the disciples themselves is the hatred of the world to Him and them. He gives them these thoughts to console them in encountering this hatred of the world. (1) It hated Him first: in this trial also He has shewn them the way. (2) The hatred of the world proves that they are not of the world. (3) They are sharing their Master’s lot, whether the world rejects or accepts their preaching. (4) They will suffer this hatred not only with Him, but for His sake. All this tends to shew that the very hatred of the world intensifies their union with Him.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Remember the word that I said unto you,.... For their further consolation under the hatred of the world, he puts them in mind of a saying of his, which he had lately used, Joh 13:16; to teach them humility, self-denial, and brotherly love, and elsewhere, as in Mat 10:24; for the same purpose as here; namely, to engage them patiently to bear the hatred of men, and all indignities and insults from them, for his name's sake:

the servant is not greater than the Lord: nor so great, and consequently not more, nor so: much deserving of respect, or to be treated in a better manner; suggesting, that Christ was their Lord and master, as he was, and they were his servants; and therefore were not greater than him, but much inferior to him, and could not expect better usage from men than he had:

if they have persecuted me; as they did, both by words and deeds, as before observed:

they will persecute you; and so they did in like manner, and from place to place:

if they have kept my saying; which is either ironically spoken, or designs that insidious malicious observation of Christ's words, made by the Jews, with an intent to catch and lay hold on something to improve against him:

they will keep yours also; that is, either they will attend to your doctrines, or they will make the same spiteful remarks, and put the same evil constructions on your words as on mine.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

18 If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.

Ver. 18. If the world hate you, &c.] As it will because it is condemned by your contrary practice, and is carried on by a contrary principle. Moab was irked because of Israel, or, did fret and vex at them, Num 22:3-4. Bats fly against the light. Some barbarous nations curse the sun when it shines hot upon them, and shoot up their arrows against it.

Ye know that it hated me first] Shall we think to speed better than our betters? Elias is not better than his fathers. Luther was angry with those that set forth his sufferings, since they were nothing to the sufferings of Christ. All our troubles are but as the slivers and chips of his cross.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

If the world hate you - The friendship of the world they were not to expect, but they were not to be deterred from their work by its hatred. They had seen the example of Jesus. No opposition of the proud, the wealthy, the learned, or the men of power, no persecution or gibes, had deterred him from his work. Remembering this, and having his example steadily in the eye, they were to labor not less because wicked men should oppose and deride them. It is enough for the disciple to be as his Master, and the servant as his Lord, Mat 10:25.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

If the world hate you. The wicked, unbelieving world, hate and persecute you, as they have done me; remember, that the servant must not desire to be treated better than his master. (Witham)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

In the latter part of this chapter our Lord cometh to comfort those who were his true disciples, against that third trouble, from the prospect they had of that hatred which the world would pour out and execute upon them, as soon as he should be withdrawn from them. Hatred is rooted and originated in the heart, and is properly a displeasure that the mind taketh at a person, which, fermenting and boiling in the mind, breeds an abhorrence of that person, anger, and malice, and a desire to do him mischief, and root him out; and then breaks out at the lips, by lying, slanders, calumnies, cursings, wishing of evil, &c.; and is executed by the hands, doing to such persons all the harm and mischief within the power of him that hateth: all this is to be understood under the general term

hate. By

the world here must be meant wicked men, in opposition to good men, who are often in Scripture called the world, because they are of the earth, earthly; they relish and savour nothing but worldly things, and pursue nothing but worldly designs. Against this our Saviour comforts them; first by telling them, that this part of the world hated him before it hated them, which must needs be so, because they hated them as his disciples, and for that very reason.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

You need net be surprised if the world hate you. "The world," kosmov (five times used in strongly emphatic manner), is humanity apart from grace. This world will despise and hate your mutual love, will scorn your love to itself for my sake; will detest the higher and unworldly standard which you will set up. But here is some consolation. Know (ginwskete imperative, as mnhmoneuete in Ver. 20) that it has hated me before (it hated) you. "Me first, me most" (Lange). "The superlative contains the comparative" (Tholuck). "This hatred is a community of destiny with me" (Meyer). You know how it has hated me, and hunted me from Bethlehem to Egypt, from Nazareth to Capernaum, from Gergesa to Jerusalem. Be not surprised if it hate you.

Vers. 18-21. The world"s hatred.

Our Lord enjoined that within the Church there should prevail love and brotherhood. But at the same time he foretold that from without Christians should meet with hatred and opposition, enmity and persecution.

I EVIDENCES OF THE WORLD"S HATRED OF CHRISTIANS.

1. We are constrained by facts to rank with the world, in this respect, the adherents of the Jewish system. As his own countrymen were our Lord"s opponents and in truth his real murderers, so were the Jews the earliest opponents of the Church of Christ. The Book of the Acts of the Apostles exhibits the hostility of the leaders of Israel to the society which was called by his Name whose crucifixion they had brought about. The Jews attempted to silence the first preachers of Christianity. And this they did under the influence of hate towards Christ himself. They regarded the new religion for such it seemed to them as subversive of their own, not discerning that it was the fulfillment of what was Divine in Judaism. And they hated a doctrine which, by laying stress upon the personal and spiritual elements in religion, imperiled their own rulers" authority, and the whole system of form and ceremony with which they were associated.

2. Our Lord doubtless looked forward to the time when the vessel of the Church should quit the narrow straits of Judaism, and should sail out into the open seas of the world, there to encounter fiercer storms. Then he foresaw the hatred of the world should take a more formidable, though not a more virulent, shape. In the Roman empire, Christianity, we know as matter of history, encountered fierce hostility mainly because of its exacting, exclusive claims, because of its open hostility to all that savored of idolatry, and because of its rapid, and (to the heathen) unaccountable progress. Hence the several persecutions which arose under successive emperors, verifying the predictions uttered by the Divine Founder of our faith. Hence the long roll of confessors and martyrs who sealed their testimony with their blood.

3. But it must not be overlooked that, where persecution is impossible, hatred often prevails, and manifests its presence and power in many distressing forms. There are at the present time, even in the midst of professedly Christian communities, not a few who are suffering from that hate which our Lord here foretold.

II EXPLANATIONS OF THE WORLD"S HATRED OF CHRISTIANS.

1. The world knows not God, and hence hates the Church which is in possession of this knowledge. Had the world known God, it would have recognized among Christians the tokens of the Divine presence and operation.

2. Christians are not of the world. The world loves its own, but hates that which is out of harmony with it. If Christians do not adopt the world"s spirit and language and habits, this singularity and nonconformity naturally excites dislike and provokes to ill treatment.

3. It cannot but be that the world must be rebuked by the presence of the Church, confronting and reproving it. Whether by a public protest against the world"s sins, or by the silent protest of a pure and upright life, Christians are bound to a course of action which will bring down upon them, now and again, the enmity and the anger of the world.

III CONSOLATION FOR CHRISTIANS UNDER THE WORLD"S HATRED. All true comfort comes from that personal relation to the Lord Jesus upon which such stress is laid in these discourses recorded by St. John, and which is exhibited as the inspiration not only of consecrated activity but also of patient endurance.

1. The hatred which besets Christians was first directed against Christ himself.

2. The servant must expect to follow in his Master"s steps, and to meet with the same treatment.

3. When Jesus says, "For my Name"s sake," he presents to us a motive to patience which is divinely fortifying and persuasive. T.

The world hating the servants of Jesus.

Jesus speaks here of love and hate, and of no third thing lying between them, and being neither one thing nor another. What looks like indifference is only sleeping love or sleeping hate. There are those who only need sufficient stirring up in order to become devoted lovers of Jesus and his cause. And so with the stirring up of hatred to Jesus. Character and disposition must in due season come out to the full light of day. The sleeping tiger is none the less a tiger for being asleep.

I THOSE WHO POSSIBLY MAY BE HATED. Christians may be hated because of their Christianity. Private malice is not at all in the question. Some of these disciples may have had enemies already; if not, they were very likely to have them in abundance soon. Observe how Jesus puts the thing hypothetically. Much depends on ourselves. If we are consistent, resolute, lively, energetic, perfectly uncompromising and open in our attachment to Jesus, we must make ready for hatred; but if, professing to love Jesus, we do not love him with all our heart, and soul, and strength, and mind, the world will not trouble to hate us. It may despise us and laugh at us, but it will not hate. Why should the world hate us, if we do nothing to inconvenience it, nothing to peril its aims, its possessions, and its pleasures? This is a very astonishing thing, that the world should hate us the better we are. If our hearts are filled with the spirit of love, if we desire only the good of everybody, why should we be hated? The truth is, Jesus understands human nature far better than the shrewdest of us. He, the best that ever trod the earth, was treated as if the worst. And similar experience, in a less conspicuous way, happened to his servants, e.g. Paul at Philippi and at Ephesus. And, underlying all these illustrations, there lies one common cause for the hostility in this that Jesus must, by the very nature of his light-bringing work, interfere with the vested interests of men in darkness.

II THE PECULIAR DESCRIPTION OF THE HATERS. They are described compendiously as the world. They are not to be singled out in their individual capacity. Individuals are constantly passing over from the world to the side of Jesus, but the spirit of the world remains unchanged, unchangeable. And this spirit is to be dealt with indirectly for the most part. Argument, expostulation, and entreaty are not the main weapons of success. The victory that overcometh the world is mainly to be gained in our own character. Jesus wants opposition to be swallowed up in reconciliation to him and to his truth. What we want to bear up against the world"s hatred is:

1. Faith. We live amidst an unbelieving world, as it were amidst east winds and north winds, and all sorts of unfavorable climatic conditions. The colder the weather is, the more must we look after everything that will keep up vital heat. When earth is dull and stubborn to us, we must refresh ourselves from heaven.

2. Courage. We must go on. So we shall find out what a poor, foundationless thing the opposition of the world is. Its first appearance is its best appearance. It may hurt the outer skin, but cannot touch the heart and citadel of life. We must needs know the worst of the world in order that we may know the best of Jesus.

3. Meekness. Faith and courage, bathed and penetrated with gentleness this is to win the world. The world has no gentleness, unless fair-spoken craftiness be so called. Our main spirit must be that of Jesus on the cross: "Father, forgive them; they know not what they do. Y.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

world

kosmos = world-system. Joh 16:11; Joh 16:33; Joh 7:7. (See Scofield "Rev 13:8").

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

18. If the world hate you. The world is the unregenerate portion of mankind. It hated and slew the Lord. It has never loved his disciples. Satan is its prince.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

If the world hates you ... therefore the world hates you

Jesus uses the term "world" in these verses as a metonym to refer to the people who do not belong to God and are opposed to him. (See: Metonymy)

love

This refers to human, brotherly love or love for a friend or family member.

translationWords

world

love

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

18–25. THE HATRED OR THE WORLD TO BOTH HIM AND THEM

In strong contrast to the love and union between Christ and His disciples and among the disciples themselves is the hatred of the world to Him and them. He gives them these thoughts to console them in encountering this hatred of the world. (1) It hated Him first: in this trial also He has shewn them the way. (2) The hatred of the world proves that they are not of the world. (3) They are sharing their Master’s lot, whether the world rejects or accepts their preaching. (4) They will suffer this hatred not only with Him, but for His sake. All this tends to shew that the very hatred of the world intensifies their union with Him.

18. γινώσκετε] Either ye know, or know ye, that it hath hated Me. As in Joh 14:1, the imperative seems preferable to the indicative: in Joh 15:27 and Joh 5:39 the context throws the balance the other way.

μεμίσηκεν expresses what has been and still is the case. Πρῶτον ὑμῶν is similar to πρῶτός μου (see on Joh 1:15); first of you, first in regard to you. To avoid the unusual construction some good authorities omit ὑμῶν. Comp. 1Jn 3:13.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

18-27.] Their relation to the world: and, vv. 18-21, ground of the world’s hatred. On the connexion, see above.

18.] See ch. 7:7. γινώσκετε, most probably imperative, know ye.… The assertion of their knowledge of the fact would in all likelihood be conveyed in the past tense, οἴδατε, or ἔγνωτε, or ἐγνώκατε: cf. for the imperative, ch. 24:43: Luk 10:11; Luk 12:39: Gal 3:7: Heb 13:23; for the indicative, ch. 14:17: Act 20:34: 2Co 8:9: Php 2:22: 1Jn 2:29 (see note there); 4:2; for both combined, Mat 24:32, Mat 24:33 ║; for the past tense in assertion, Luk 16:4: ch. 5:42; 6:69; 8:52, 55 al. The great proof of this hatred to Him was yet to come, but is viewed as past. This knowledge brings comfort, 1Pe 4:12, 1Pe 4:13.

Ver. 19 not only explains this hatred, but derives additional comfort from it, as a sign that they were not (any longer) of the world; but chosen out of it by Him, and endued with a new life from above.

In τὸ ἴδιον ἐφίλει, not ὑμᾶς ἐφ., we have the true practice of the world hinted at, and the false character of the world’s love, as a mere φιλαυτία, set forth. “Suum dicitur pro vos, atque sic notatur Interesse mundi,” Bengel. In this ‘loving their own,’ the children of this world fall into hating one another.

Meyer remarks the solemnity of κόσμος thus repeated five times.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

18. εἰ ὁ κόσμος ὑμᾶς μισεῖ κτλ. The disciples are not to expect that the world will love them (cf. 1Jn 3:13), and of its future hostility they are now warned explicitly (see on 16:4 below). Jesus had told His “brethren” that the world could not hate them (7:7), but that was because they were on the world’s side, and not on His, as all His disciples must be.

γινώσκετε ὅτο ἐμὲ πρῶτον ὑμῶν μεμίσηκεν, “know (scitote) that it has hated me first.” γινώσκετε is imperative, like μνημονεύετε in v. 20. Despite His words on a former occasion (7:7), the disciples had not yet realised the measure of the “world’s” hatred for Jesus, the world being here represented by the hostile Jews.

ὑμῶν is omitted by אD a b c e ff2, but is found in אcABLNΘ f g l vg. etc. and the Syriac vss. If it be omitted, the constr. is easy; but if it be retained, πρῶτον ὑμῶν presents the same difficulties as πρῶτός μου in 1:15. Abbott (Diat. 1901) would translate here “that it hath hated me, your Chief, ” which might be defended by the vg. priorem uobis. But this seems unsatisfactory, and it is best to take πρῶτον ὑμῶν as if it were πρότερον ὑμῶν (see on 1:15).

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

If the world hate [ει μισει] . Literally, hates. The indicative mood with the conditional particle assumes the fact as existing : If the world hates you, as it does.

Ye know [γινωσκετε] . This may also be rendered as imperative : Know ye.

It hated [μεμισηκεν] . The perfect tense, hath hated. The hatred continues to the present time.

Before it hated you [πρωτον υμων] . Literally, first in regard of you. See on 1 15.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.