18 If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but 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 also keep yours. 21 But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know Him who sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 Whoever hates me hates my Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. 25 But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: “They hated me without a cause.”
Up until this point in Jesus’ Farewell Discourse which began in chapter 14, He has taught some of the wonderful advantages we are promised as we follow Him. He has spoken about eternal life, our access to the Father through prayer, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the home Jesus has prepared for us in eternity. He has urged us to abide in His love and that we are to love one another, but now there is a dramatic change as He warns that our love for Him means we will be hated by the world.
Jesus had taught His disciples some of the blessings which come exclusively to those who follow Him, partly because they were concerned that He was about to leave them, however the emphasis changes from the privileges of being a disciple of Christ to the persecution they will face as a result of their decision to follow Him. Eight times in the passage we’re looking at today, Jesus uses the words hate and hatred. It’s a strong word, but it was appropriate for the disciples 2000 years ago, and it remains appropriate in our day. The truth is that the non-believing world hates Jesus Christ, and if you love Him, the world hates you too.
Jesus begins by teaching His disciples that the world will hate them, and He goes on to explain why, giving three important reasons.
Firstly, the world hates Christians because, as He says in verse 19, “you are not of the world.” He is referring of course, to the world system, rather than the created world. The world system consists of those who live their lives in rebellion against the God who created them. 1 John 3:1 says, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know Him,” and in his introduction to the Gospel of John, speaking of Jesus, he writes, “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, yet the world did not know Him.” Those who do not know Christ as the Saviour who came into the world, do not know the Father who sent Him, and that is a very bad place to be. This is the great divide between the saved and the lost, and is the reason the lost hate the saved. Christians are not like the world, or at least, we are not meant to be. The irony is that the world tells us that we need to strive for our own individuality and identity, but the truth is that the world wants us all to conform to their ungodly and evil patterns. It is the refusal to conform which brings hatred.
Paul challenges us in Romans 12:2 when he writes, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” The moment you refuse to conform to the world’s standards and turn to Christ instead, you will be ostracised and hated for making that choice.
A second reason Jesus gives for the world’s hatred of His followers is also in verse 19. “I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” Jesus has chosen His own as He calls us out of the world system. The one thing the world system hates more than anything else is to hear the truth that we are all sinners who need to be saved from the consequences of our sin. I’m okay, you’re okay, we’re all okay. That’s the mantra of the world. It’s all about the pursuit of happiness and following your own heart, but the moment you talk about their need of a Saviour from sin, the world will turn on you. The world system hates Christ because it refuses to acknowledge the sin problem.
And what are we commissioned by Christ to do? To share the Gospel, and when we do it correctly, the first thing we do is talk about the sin problem. Telling the lost that God loves them and He has a wonderful plan for their life is not an offensive message because it is not the Gospel. That will never bring the lost to salvation, because it completely negates the need for a Saviour. Instead, we are to tell the world that there is bad news, but there is also good news. There is hope, if only they would turn from their sins, repent and accept the free gift of salvation which God brings through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ alone, but it is this message which is hated more than anything else in the world today. And those who proclaim this message are hated.
Non-believers don’t shrug their shoulders and say, “whatever,” when they hear the Gospel being presented. Instead, they are offended at the very suggestion that they might be sinners who are living under the righteous wrath of God.
Thirdly, the world hates Christians because of their identification with and allegiance to Jesus Christ. He said in verses 20 and 21, “If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name.” Why does the world hate Christians? The answer is simple. It’s because the world hates Jesus Christ, which leads to another question. Why is Jesus hated so much?
He answers this in verses 22- 24. “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father also. If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father.”
The first reason for the world’s hatred of Jesus is His teaching, His words. “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.” There are people we might dislike or even hate for the things they have said. Human history is littered with some extremely nasty individuals who, through their twisted beliefs and ideologies, have brought about untold suffering and heartache for countless people.
Also, we can all think of people who are arrogant, selfish and mean. They are not nice people, and most of us try to avoid associating with them. But what about Jesus? He was none of these things. Jesus was anything but arrogant. He was the most humble man who ever lived. Neither was He selfish, proven by the fact that He, the eternal creator of the Universe, humbly took on frail human flesh. He became one of us for the purpose of dying a death He did not deserve so that we could be saved from the eternal wrath our sins deserve.
Neither was Jesus a mean person. Some people can be very nasty with the words they speak, and we can all remember some very cutting words spoken to us many years ago. Try as we might, we cannot forget just how mean and hurtful those words were. This can’t be said of Jesus though. He was never mean. He said in Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
So bearing all of this in mind, why is Jesus hated so much for what He taught and said? Because He exposed human sin. The world hates Jesus and it hates the Bible because He and His written word reveals the true nature of the human heart, and rebellious sinners do not want to hear the truth. They hate Jesus because He spoke the truth, and they know it. And the truth is that we are all guilty before God.
Jesus is not only hated for His words, but also His works. Verse 24: “If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father.” His works, just like His words, exposes human sin.
As we’ve seen throughout the Gospel of John, he refers to the miracles of Jesus as signs. Signs, by their very definition, point us to something or someone, and we must remember that Jesus never performed a miracle just for the sake of it. There was a purpose behind each one - to point to Himself as the Saviour who came into the world. He said in John 5:36, “The works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me, 10:25-26, “The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep,” and in 14:10-11 He said to Philip, “The Father who dwells in me does His works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.”
The greatest work performed by Jesus while on earth was of course, the sacrificial death He was to suffer the next day as He bore the wrath of God at human sin, which explains why His works, His miracles are offensive to the world, because they all point to the cross. The cross of Christ is hated by the world because it exposes not only human sin, but also reveals that there is nothing the world can do about it.
This merely adds to the hatred of Jesus. He is hated because He was doing the works of God, and just like the words of God, the works of God do the same thing: They reveal our sin and depravity, and hence our need for a Saviour.
Christians are often surprised at the depth of the hatred we experience, as well as some of the vitriol aimed at us by the unbelieving world, but we should not be surprised. Jesus warned His disciples and us that this would happen, and it is not going to get any easier to be a Christ-follower in this ever-darkening world. It is going to become harder with each passing day. Why does the world hate us? Because it hates Christ, and the world hates Christ because it hates God the Father.
Jesus said in verse 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 also keep yours.” What this means is that we must expect, rather than be surprised at the persecution and hatred we face because we love Christ.
The world that crucified Jesus will not stop there, but as history and current events have shown, the persecution is extended to those who follow Jesus too, and this is something we need to be aware of. The world that responded to Jesus’ teaching with anger will respond in the same way to the proclamation of the Gospel.
What this means is that there is a cost to following Jesus. For now, for us in this little corner of the world, the persecution we face is not much more than ridicule, and maybe the loss of a few friendships along the way, but again, it’s not going to get any easier.
Read the book of Acts, which records the early days of the Christian Church just after Jesus ascended to Heaven, and you can see the opposition the apostles faced whenever they preached the Gospel. Peter and John healed a crippled man and boldly proclaimed the Gospel, so they were hauled before the Jewish council in chapter 4 where they were warned to stop preaching the Gospel.
“Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, ‘Rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead - by Him this man is standing before you well. This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.’ Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognised that they had been with Jesus. But seeing the man who was healed standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition. But when they had commanded them to leave the council, they conferred with one another, saying, ‘What shall we do with these men? For that a notable sign has been performed through them is evident to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it. But in order that it may spread no further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name.’ So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered them, ‘Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.’” (Acts 4:8-20)
So they ignored the council and went on preaching Jesus Christ as the only means of salvation. We pick up the story in the next chapter when they were arrested and questioned again. “The high priest questioned them, saying, ‘We strictly charged you not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.’ But Peter and the apostles answered, ‘We must obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging Him on a tree. God exalted Him at His right hand as Leader and Saviour, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him.” (Acts 5:27-32)
Not long after this, Stephen was stoned to death, the first of countless faithful followers of Jesus who have paid the ultimate price for their faith. With the exception of John, who died in his nineties on the island of Patmos, all of the apostles were martyred for their faith in Jesus.
Jesus said something which challenges us in Matthew 10:32-33. “Everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.”
How do we respond when our faith is questioned? Warren Wiersbe wrote in his commentary on this passage, “The only way a believer can escape conflict is to deny Christ and compromise his witness, and this would be sin. Then the believer would be at war with God and with himself. We will be misunderstood and persecuted even by those who are the closest to us; yet we must not allow this to affect our witness. It is important that we suffer for Jesus’ sake, and for righteousness’ sake, and not because we ourselves are difficult to live with. There is a difference between the offence of the cross and offensive Christians.”
I believe that last phrase is important, and it also helps us to understand how we can be faithful to the Gospel in the face of persecution, ridicule and hatred. Paul wrote in Colossians 4:6, “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” Here is the key to speaking the truth without compromising the truth.
We can speak in love, but we cannot compromise the truth. Persecution, even if it is nothing more than ridicule, is guaranteed. J. C. Ryle wrote, “Persecution, in short, is like the goldsmith’s hallmark on real silver and gold: it is one of the marks of a converted man.”
Paul wrote in Philippians 1:29, “It has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in Him but also suffer for His sake.”
We simply cannot afford to fall away from the faith, because we have nothing else, and no-one else to turn to. When so many rejected Jesus and His teachings He asked His disciples in John 6:67, “Do you want to go away as well?” Peter’s reply should be ours too: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:68-69)
Sadly, there are many professing Christians who either change the true Gospel in order to make it less offensive to those who hate Christ, and there are some who fall away from the faith in the face of the world’s hatred and persecution.
Some do continue to believe in Jesus Christ but they live so close to the world that it’s hard to tell just what they believe, and this happens so subtly, which makes it even more dangerous. Those of you who attend our Wednesday Bible study will have heard me say this before: We all have friends and family who are not Christians - people that we love dearly. We are not to cut those people off. Remember that we are called to be salt and light in the world, and those people need to hear the truth, and they need our prayers, but we must also remember that Jesus has called us out of the world. We are in the world, but not of the world, so our constant prayer should be that God would guard our hearts and keep us faithful to Him.
Proverbs 4:23-27 says, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you. Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil.”
As we have seen, particularly in the last couple of decades, the hatred of the world towards Jesus Christ and those who profess faith in Him is gaining momentum, and this raises many questions.
What will I do when I face persecution and hatred? Will I stay faithful to Christ, regardless of the cost, or will I fall away? We’ve all asked those questions of ourselves, and Jesus goes on to remind His disciples into John 16 of the promised Holy Spirit. Those promises apply to us too. We are engaged in a battle, but we are not in this battle alone. In chapter 14 Jesus taught His disciples about the Spirit, and now, immediately after telling them that they would be hated and persecuted for their faith, He reminds them again that He will continue to guide and protect them through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, which we’ll look at in more detail next week.
Finally, just because the world hates us and the truth we proclaim, does not mean we are to hate the world. Our model is God Himself. He loved the world so much that He sent His only Son to be its Saviour. As Warren Wiersbe said, the cross and the Gospel may be offensive to the lost, but we are not to be offensive Christians. Our call is to love the lost enough to be bold, yet gracious witnesses of the Gospel. In verse 26 Jesus said, “They hated me without a cause.” In other words, there was no valid reason for the world to hate Him, but they did, so if the world hates us, let it not be because we have given them a valid reason to hate us. If we are going to be hated, let it be because we are gracious, yet faithful witnesses of the love of God.
We looked at the persecution the apostles faced in the early days of the Church in Acts 4 and 5 a little earlier, and this is how Luke records what happened at the end of chapter 5: “A Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law held in honour by all the people, stood up and gave orders to put the men outside for a little while. And he said to them, ‘Men of Israel, take care what you are about to do with these men. For before these days Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him. He was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing. After him Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him. He too perished, and all who followed him were scattered. So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!’ So they took his advice, and when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonour for the name. And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus.”