John 15:21-25

But all these things will they do unto you

The world’s hatred, as Christ saw it

I. THE WORLD’S IGNORANCE (John 15:21). “The world,” in Christ’s language, is the aggregate of Godless men. There is no mincing of the matter in the antithesis which Christ here draws; no hesitation, as if there were a great central mass, too bad for a blessing perhaps, but too good for a curse. No I however it may be with the masses beyond the reach of the truth, the men that come into contact with Him, like a heap of metal filings brought into contact with a magnet mass themselves into two bunches, the one, those that yield to the attraction, and the other those that do not. The one is “My disciples,” and the other is “the world.” And now, says Jesus Christ, all that mass that stands apart from Him, have, as the underlying motive of their conduct and their feelings, a real ignorance of God.

2. Our Lord assumes that He is so completely the revealer of the Divine nature as that any man that looks upon Him has had the opportunity of becoming acquainted with God, and that any man who turns away from Him has lost that opportunity. Out of Him God is not known, and they that turn away from His beneficent manifestation turn their faces to the black North, from which no light can shine.

3. But there is a deeper meaning than simply the possession of true thoughts concerning the Divine nature. We know God as we know one another; because God is a Person, as we are persons. And the only way to know persons is through familiar acquaintance and sympathy. And so the world which turns away from Christ has no acquaintance with God. This is the surface fact. Our Lord goes on to show what lies below it.

II. THE WORLD’S IGNORANCE IN THE FACE OF CHRIST’S LIGHT IS WORSE THAN IGNORANCE: IT IS SIN.

1. Mark how He speaks (verses 22, 24). He puts before us two forms of His manifestation of the Divine nature by His words and His works. And of these two He puts His words foremost, as being a deeper and more precious and brilliant revelation. Miracles are subordinate, they come as a second source of illumination. The miracle to the word is but like the picture in the child’s book to the text, fit for feeble eyes and infantile judgments, but containing far less of the revelation of God than the sacred words.

2. But notice, too, how decisively, and yet sorrowfully, our Lord here makes a claim which, on the lips of any but Himself, would have been mere madness of presumption. Think of any of us saying that our words made all the difference between innocence, ignorance, and criminality! Think of any of us pointing to our actions and saying, in these God is so manifest that not to see Him augurs wickedness, and is condemnation! And yet Jesus Christ says all this. And what is more wonderful, nobody wonders that He says it, and the world believes that He is saying the truth when He says it. How does that come? There is only one answer. He Himself was Divine.

3. But, notice how our Lord here declares that in comparison with the sin of not listening to His words, and being taught by His manifestation, all other sins dwindle into nothing. “If I had not spoken, they had not had sin.” That does not mean, of course, that these men would have been clear of all moral delinquency. There were men committing all the ordinary forms of human transgression amongst them. And yet, says Christ, black as these natures are, they are white in comparison with the blackness of the man that, looking into His face, sees nothing there that he should desire.

4. As light grows responsibility grows. The truth that the measure of light is the measure of guilt turns a face of alleviation to the dark place of the earth; but adds weight to the condemnation of you, who are bathed in the light of Christianity. No shadows are so black as those which the intersest sunshine at the tropics casts.

III. THE IGNORANCE WHICH IS SIN IS THE MANIFESTATION OF HATRED.

1. Observe our Lord’s indentification of Himself with the Father, so that the feelings with which men regard Him are, ipso facto, the feelings with which they regard God.

2. You say, “I do not pretend to be a Christian, but I do not hate God. Take the ordinary run of people round about us in the world; if you say God is not in all their thoughts I agree with you, but if you say that they hate God, I do not believe it.” Well, do you think it would be possible for a man that loved God to go on for a twelvemonth and never think of the object that he loved? And inasmuch as, deep down in our moral being, there is no such thing as indifference in reference to God, it is clear, that although the word must not be pressed as if it meant conscious and active antagonism--where there is no love there is hate. If a man does not love God, he does not care to please Him. And if obedience is the very life breath of love, disobedience or non-obedience are the manifestation of antagonism, and antagonism is the same thing as hate. There is no neutrality in a man’s relation to God. It is one thing or other. “Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.” “The friendship of the world is enmity against God.”

IV. THIS IGNORANCE, WHICH IS SIN AND HATRED, IS UTTERLY IRRATIONAL. (verse 25). One hears sighing through these words the Master’s meek wonder that His love should be so met. The most mysterious and irrational thing in men’s whole history and experience is the way in which they recompense God in Christ for what He has done for them. Think of that Cross! Do we not stand ashamed at the absurdity as well as at the criminality of our requital? Causeless love on the one side, and causeless indifference on the other, are the two powers that meet in this mystery--men’s rejection of the infinite love of God. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Persecution for Christ’s name’s sake

Among all the malefactors you condemn there is not a Christian to be found chargeable with any crime but His name. So much is the hatred of our name above all the advantages of virtue flowing from it. Setting aside all inquiry into the principle of our religion and its Founder, and all knowledge of them, the mere name is laid hold of; the name is attacked; and a word alone prejudges a sect unknown, and its Author also unknown, because they have a name, not because they are convicted. (Tertullian.)