18 “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. 21 But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 He who hates Me hates My Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father. 25 But this happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law, ‘They hated Me without a cause.’
Commentary
Vs. 18 “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.”
In this section of Scripture Jesus makes it clear that we will be hated by the world, and not for what we have done, but for who we are, His disciples. For the world loves only those who live and believe as they do, and so whatever the tenure or mood of the world is at any given time, Christians who reflect and represent the unchanging moral and Spiritual character of the Lord Jesus Christ will only find the worlds hatred and wrath. For through us they feel the guilt and condemnation of their own sinful and unbelieving lives. And so, Jesus here reminds us that we are hated by the world because it first hated Him! For they did not want His Lordship and rule over their persons and lives when He came to them, but instead drove Him out and Crucified Him, and so just as they hated Him so they will hate us, for we bear the Spiritual and moral likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ!
Vs. 19 “If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”
Jesus makes it clear that those who are of the world, who have not been chosen by Him, and thus born-again by His Spirit, are loved by the world. For they belong to the world and world knows and loves its own, just as the Lord Jesus Christ knows and loves His own! Therefore, because we are not of the world, because Jesus choose us out of the world to be His own, the world now hates us!
Vs. 20 “Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also.”
Here the Lord Jesus says we should expect no better treatment from the world than He Himself received from it! For as He says, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ Therefore, if they persecuted Him, they will also persecute us, thus we should not think that there is something we can do or say that would make them like us. For they will always think evil of us, just as they thought evil and did evil towards the Lord Jesus Christ, for as they rejected Him and His Word so they will reject us. However, Jesus also says, “If they kept My word, they will keep yours also.” Indicating again that from the world Jesus will choose people to believe in Him and follow Him in discipleship just as He choose us! And these we will know when they keep our word, meaning His Biblical Apostles’ Word.
Vs. 21 “But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me.”
Again, Jesus makes it clear that the hatred of our person and rejection of our word (i.e. our preaching and teaching His and the Biblical Apostles Word), they will do to us for His Names sake, because they do not know God the Father who sent Him! Thus, both the outwardly religious Jews and ungodly Gentiles who know neither God nor Christ His Son whom He sent to them, will hate us for our faith in and profession of the Lord Jesus Christ to them and to all!
Vs. 22 “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.”
Here their sin is one of unbelief, of not repenting and believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. For no one ever spoke as Jesus did, nor has anyone done the works that Jesus has done and continues to do. Therefore, in coming to the Jews first, being sent by His Father to them, to reveal and bring salvation first to them, and then to all, they then in rejecting Him have no excuse for their sin. For the Lord Jesus Christ came to them according to the Scriptures prophecies about Him, and lived amongst them, preaching and teaching the Gospel to them all. There is then no excuse for their sin, for they now have the way of salvation clearly preached and presented to them, and now even purchased and brought near to them by His Death on the Cross and Resurrection from the grave! Therefore, neither they, nor anyone else has any excuse for their sin, because the Lord Jesus Christ has had made the way to turn every believing sinner into a Godly saint!
Vs. 23 “He who hates Me hates My Father also.”
Here Jesus makes it clear that to hate Him is to hate His Father who is always with Him! Therefore, to claim to belong to His Father and yet hate Jesus Christ is only to be lying! For to hate the Lord Jesus Christ is only to hate His Father in heaven who sent Him, for they are One!
Vs. 24-25 24 If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father. 25 But this happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law, ‘They hated Me without a cause.’
Here the Lord Jesus Christ strengthens His condemnation of them, for not only did His Word which came from God in heaven reveal to them that He is the Messiah, but also His very works that He did openly amongst them, which no else did, clearly revealed Himself to them. Therefore, they have no excuse for their sin, for having heard and seen the Lord Jesus Christ, God clearly revealed Himself to them through His Son. However instead of repenting and believing in Him they only went on to hate Him, just as they hate His Father in heaven. Therefore, Jesus knowing this now recalls how this was all foretold in the O.T. prophecy of David in Psalm 69:4 when he himself foresaw that they would do this to Him, not that they had to do this, but that they themselves would chose to do that, and thus they themselves would be the means by which that prophecy would be fulfilled, and not only them, but also everyone since who likewise hates the Lord Jesus Christ.
Scripture Quotations
New King James (1982):Thomas Nelson.
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