Hatred of the World
The world did not show appropriate hospitality to Jesus, the Heavenly Stranger. Jesus instead welcomed those who would accept Him and made them His friends. By becoming a friend of the Heavenly Stranger, one becomes a stranger to the world.
The “disciple whom Jesus loved,” known as John, either John ben Zebedee (the Apostle), or John the Elder, wrote his recollections of his experiences with Jesus so that those who hear or read would believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and would find eternal life in His name (cf. John 20:31).
Jesus knew His time to suffer, die, be raised, and ascend to the Father was coming very soon (John 13:31-32); His disciples did not, and throughout John 13:1-17:26, Jesus sought to prepare them for what was about to occur.
And so Jesus washed the feet of His disciples, and explained to them how they should follow His example and humbly serve one another (John 13:1-17). Jesus spoke of His imminent betrayal and sent Judas Iscariot out in John 13:18-30. Jesus, focusing on the eleven remaining disciples, would then begin a discourse in John 13:31 which would conclude with His “High Priestly Prayer” in John 17:1-26. He began this discourse by emphasizing how God would be glorified in the Son of Man, and it was for them to love one another as He had loved them (John 13:31-35). They could not yet go where He was going, but He went to prepare a place for them: less about spatial distance, and more about relational distance, for Jesus would suffer and die to reconcile them to God, and would not leave them as orphans but give them the Spirit of God (John 14:1-31). Jesus illustrated His relationship with the disciples in terms of a vine and its branches (John 15:1-8).
Jesus strongly reiterated His core theme: the disciples needed to love one another as Jesus had loved them (John 15:9-17). In the midst of doing so He called the disciples His friends, for no greater love exists than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends (John 15:13-15). The disciples would need to love one another as Jesus loved them, at least in part, because of what they were about to experience, and for which Jesus began to prepare them in John 15:18-16:11.
If the disciples would experience the world’s hatred, they should know Jesus experienced it first (John 15:18). The hostility has been engendered by their election in Christ out of the world, and thus they no longer belong to the world or its ways (John 15:19). Jesus had told them before how a slave is not greater than his master (cf. John 13:16): if they persecute Jesus, they will persecute His disciples; if they obey Jesus’ word, they will obey the word which the disciples would preach (John 15:20).
Jesus then explained why this would come to be: those in the world do not know the Father who sent Him (John 15:21). They would not be guilty of sin if Jesus had not come to speak to them; now they have no excuse (John 15:22). They saw what Jesus did in the name of His Father, and by rejecting Him they testify to their hatred of the Son and the Father, just as it had been predicted and prophesied (John 15:23-25; cf. Psalm 35:19, 69:4; Jesus continued to use an “expanded” definition of “the law” to include all the written Scriptures, as also in John 10:34).
Jesus then assured His disciples: the Advocate (Greek parakletos, the “Paraclete”), the Spirit of truth who would proceed from the Father, would testify about Jesus, and the disciples would also testify since they had been with Jesus since the beginning of His ministry (John 15:26-27).
Jesus further explained Himself and His words: He was preparing them for what they would encounter and experience so they would not fall away in the moment of crisis and trial (John 16:1). The disciples would be put out of the synagogue (John 16:2): this would not only involve alienation from the religious life among fellow Israelites, but would most likely have also involved ostracization from fellow Jewish people. In fact, Jesus warned, some would think they were offering service to God by killing Jesus’ disciples (John 16:2)! Jesus then expressed the profoundly sad irony of it all: in so doing they would prove how they did not really and truly know the God in whose service they were doing these things (John 16:3). How tragic to cause such pain, suffering, and violence, and all motivated by misguided zeal!
But why would Jesus wait until this point to tell them these things? Jesus did not set forth a “bait and switch”; instead, He had been with them from the beginning, and thus He would absorb and suffer the hostility and persecution of the Jewish authorities and people (John 16:4). But He was now going back to the One who sent Him, and so He was preparing them for what they would be about to endure (John 16:4-5).
The disciples were not asking Him where he was going; instead, they were deeply saddened in heart because of His departure (John 16:5-6). Jesus thus encouraged them: it was actually better for Jesus to depart so the Advocate would come to them, for He could not come to them until after Jesus departed and sent Him to them (John 16:7). Jesus assured the disciples regarding how the Spirit would indict and judge the world regarding sin, righteousness, and judgment: they did not believe in Him, Jesus would have been made Lord and Christ in His death, resurrection, and ascension, and as a result, the “ruler of this world,” Satan and his minions will have been condemned (John 16:8-11). This would be the message the disciples would proclaim by means of the Spirit, and God in Christ would thus judge Israel and all people on account of it.
We can find many of the same themes from John 15:18-16:11 in Matthew 10:1-42: the commission to go and bear witness regarding the Kingdom of God in Christ; preparation for experiencing hostility and persecution from fellow Jewish people, and the ultimate confidence in what they would say and do by means of the Spirit.
Jesus was right to prepare the disciples for this kind of hostility. The Acts of the Apostles bears witness to the hostility the disciples would suffer from the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, King Herod Agrippa I, and Jewish people in Jerusalem and throughout the Diaspora: imprisonment, beatings, civic agitations, and even executions. The disciples would be cast out of synagogues; Saul of Tarsus was not alone among Jewish people in believing he was zealous for the customs of Moses by persecuting Christians unto death (cf. Acts 7:58, 8:1, 9:1-2).
There would have been many times during which the disciples would have been given reason to remember Jesus’ words to them as recorded in John 15:18-16:11, and they no doubt provided the encouragement and strength to persevere. Their suffering was not evidence of God’s abandonment or their transgressions; instead, they were found worthy to suffer for the Name, and glorified God in it (e.g. Acts 5:41).
But what about believers in Christ today? We have not been with Jesus “from the beginning.” Most believers today come from among the nations, and thus would not be liable to be cast out of the synagogue.
Nevertheless, we can take similar encouragement and strength from Jesus’ words. We should be prepared to endure hostility from people in the world who resist God and His purposes in Jesus. Plenty of people remain who reject the witness of God in Christ and will treat those who proclaim Jesus poorly. To this very day, some people think they are giving service to God by killing disciples of Jesus. They testify to their ignorance regarding the God of heaven.
As always in John’s writings, “the world” does not refer to the material creation per se. Birds, rocks, and trees do not prove inimical to Jesus or His people; being human is not the problem. The problem involves all those people who are deceived by the “ruler of this world” into living according to their various passions and who therefore reject and resist the testimony of the deeds and words of God in Christ.
We should also keep in mind how Jesus began His exhortation: “if the world hates you” (John 15:18). In the first century, Judaism and Christianity were both faiths featuring a small minority of the population in the Roman Empire and the greater world, surrounded by people who found their dedication to one God as disruptive to the good health and order of society. To many Jewish people, Christianity represented the abandonment of the customs of Moses.
Today we live in the shadow of Christendom, for better and for worse. Principles of the Christian faith have made significant impressions on many societies and cultures, especially in the Western world. Following Jesus in the West in the early twenty-first century does not come with the same social and cultural stigmas and intrinsic hostility as it did in the first century.
Christians today often have some anxiety regarding persecution: they feel they are not sufficiently faithful to Jesus because they are not suffering as their ancestors in the faith did. Unfortunately, some Christians will develop a kind of martyr complex: they go out and speak and act in harsh and sharp ways among unbelievers, and when unbelievers respond in kind, they go away feeling justified because they suffered “persecution” in Jesus’ name. God in Christ is not glorified by His servants acting like jerks; if we manifest the works of the flesh and are treated like people who manifest the works of the flesh, we have obtained our just deserts and have given Gentiles reason to blaspheme (cf. Romans 2:24, 1 Peter 2:20). But there are there still times and ways in which we will experience hostility among people in the world by our faithful witness to the ways of God in Christ through the Spirit, even in the Western world of the twenty-first century, from people in general as well as the authorities. But it does not necessarily have to look as sharp and stark as it does in John 15:18-16:11.
We are often tempted to associate “the world” with those in unbelief: the pagans in ancient times, and secularists and others today. Such people are indeed in “the world,” but we should note how Jesus’ primary concern in John 15:18-16:11 are Israelites according to the flesh, the people who should be the people of God. Roman authorities would not be casting disciples of Christ out of synagogues; Jewish authorities and people would. Jesus did not speak and perform signs and wonders primarily before pagans; He did so before Israelites. While there were no Christians yet when Jesus spoke to the disciples in John 15:18-16:11, we should not be surprised when the hatred, hostility, and persecution we experience comes from people who profess to believe in Jesus as Lord and to be His followers. In fact, we may experience more hostility from fellow “believers” than we might from “godless secularists”!
No one enjoys suffering hostility, persecution, and suffering. But Christians should be well prepared for it and maintain their confidence in what God has accomplished in Christ. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and they killed Him; what, then, will they do to those who follow Jesus as the Way, the Truth, and the Life (cf. John 14:6)? Hostility and persecution often tell us more about others than about us, for people thus tell on themselves in terms of their relationship with God based on how they treat us.
All these things are not evidence God has abandoned us; quite the contrary! God in Christ has sent and given of His Spirit, and we maintain our confidence in the testimony of the Spirit and of the disciples who were with Jesus from the beginning. It will be through tribulation we enter the Kingdom of God (cf. Acts 14:22); we can only reach Zion through, and not around, Calvary. May we continue to entrust ourselves to God in Christ through the Spirit no matter what we might experience, and thus obtain the resurrection of life!
Ethan R. Longhenry
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