John 15:18 - Meaning and Application

Here Christ speaks about hatred, which is the mark and spirit of the devil’s kingdom, just as love marks Christ’s kingdom. Notice, first, who this hatred is found in: the world, meaning the children of this world, as different from the children of God. These are people who side with the god of this world, bear his likeness, and live under his power. This includes all, whether Jews or Gentiles, who would not join Christ’s church, which he openly calls out and visibly separates from this evil world.

Calling these people “the world” suggests three things. First, there are many of them, a whole world of people against Christ and Christianity. Second, they are united together. These many hosts are gathered into one, as in (Psalm 83:5). Jews and Gentiles, who could agree on almost nothing else, could join together in persecuting Christ’s servants. Third, it shows their spirit and way of life. They are people of this world, as in (Psalm 17:13-14), fully devoted to this life and its things, and never thinking about the world to come.

God’s people are taught to hate the sins of sinners, but not their persons. They are to love and do good to all people. A bitter, malicious, envious spirit is not the spirit of Christ, but of the world. This hatred is aimed against Christ’s disciples, against Christ himself, and against the Father.

The world hates Christ’s disciples. Jesus says, “The world hates you” (John 15:19), and he speaks of this as something they must expect and be ready for (John 15:18), as in (1 John 3:13). Christ had just spoken of his great love for them as friends, but he also gave them a thorn in the flesh, as Paul had, that is, reproaches and persecutions for Christ’s sake (2 Corinthians 12:7, 2 Corinthians 12:10). He had assigned them their work, and now he tells them the hardships they would meet, so they would not be surprised and could prepare. He had also told them to love one another, and they needed that greatly, because the world would hate them. They would need kindness from one another, since they would receive so much unkindness from outsiders. Those who live among enemies need to stay close together.

The world’s enmity against Christ’s followers shows itself in two main ways. First, it hates them. People blessed by Christ are often cursed by the world. Those who belong to heaven have seldom been loved by this world, ever since the old hostility was set between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. Why did Cain hate Abel, except that Abel’s works were righteous? Why did Esau hate Jacob except because of the blessing? Joseph’s brothers hated him because their father loved him. Saul hated David because the Lord was with him. Ahab hated Micaiah because of his messages. These are the strange and unfair reasons behind the world’s hatred.

Second, this hatred leads to persecution. Hatred is never still for long. Those who want to live godly lives in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution (2 Timothy 3:12). Christ knew the bad treatment his messengers would face in the world, and yet he sent them out like sheep among wolves because of the few people who would be called out of the world through their ministry. Another result of this hatred is that the world rejects their teaching. When Jesus says, “If they have kept my word, they will keep yours,” he means they would treat the apostles’ teaching just as they had treated his own, that is, they would not keep it. Gospel preachers cannot help seeing the despising of their message as a great wrong done to them, as Jeremiah was deeply insulted when people said, “Let us not listen to any of his words” (Jeremiah 18:18).

The world hates them for a clear reason: they do not belong to it. “If you were of the world,” Jesus says, meaning if they shared its spirit and interests, “the world would love you as its own. But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, it hates you” (John 15:19). We should not be surprised when people devoted to the world praise and favor others like themselves, as in (Psalm 10:3, Psalm 49:18). And we should not be surprised when those who have been delivered from the world are slandered by it. When Israel was brought out of Egypt, the Egyptians chased after them.

The reason Christ’s disciples are not of the world is not their own wisdom or virtue. It is because Christ chose them out of it and set them apart for himself. This is why the world hates them. The glory they are meant for lifts them above the world and stirs its envy. The saints will judge the world, and the upright will have dominion, so they are hated. The grace they have from this choice also puts them against the world. They move against the stream, do not copy the world, and testify against it.

This should help them bear the trouble that comes from the world’s hatred. They are hated because they are the chosen ones of the Lord Jesus, and because they do not belong to the world. This is no good reason for the world to hate them. If we make ourselves hateful by our own sin, we should grieve over it. But if people hate us for the very things that should make them love and honor us, we should pity them, not torment ourselves. Indeed, this gives believers reason for joy. A man mocked because he is rich and successful may not care who is upset by it, so long as he has the comfort of it. Much more should those rejoice whom the world hates, but whom Christ loves.

Another reason the world will hate them is that they belong to Christ. Jesus says it will happen “for my name’s sake” (John 15:21). Here is the heart of the matter. Whatever excuse people give, this is the real cause of the conflict. They hate Christ’s disciples because they bear his name and uphold his name in the world. It is the mark of Christ’s disciples that they stand for his name. The name they were baptized into is the name they live for and die by. And it has usually been the lot of those who stand for Christ’s name to suffer for it, and to suffer many hard things.

It is a comfort to the worst sufferers if they suffer for Christ’s name. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed (1 Peter 4:14). That blessing is true not only because such suffering carries honor (Acts 5:41), but because it brings deep comfort and leads to the crown of glory. If we suffer with Christ and for Christ, we will also reign with him.

The real cause of the world’s hatred toward Christ’s disciples is its ignorance (John 15:21): “Because they do not know him who sent me.” First, they do not know God. If people truly understood the most basic truths of natural religion, they could not hate and persecute Christianity, even if they did not accept it. Those who destroy God’s people show that they have no true knowledge of God (Psalm 14:4).

Second, they do not know God as the one who sent our Lord Jesus and gave him authority as the great Mediator, the one who brings peace between God and us. We do not really know God if we do not know him in Christ. And those who persecute the people he sends prove that they do not know that he came from God. See (1 Corinthians 2:8).

The world also hates Christ himself. Jesus says this here for two reasons. First, it should ease his followers’ trouble and make the world’s hatred less strange and less painful (John 15:18): “You know that it hated me before it hated you.” This may mean, “It hated me first, before it hated you.” Or it may mean, “It hated me as your superior, your first one, your chief, your captain.” If Christ, who was full of goodness, perfectly innocent, and always doing good, was hated, why should we expect our own goodness to protect us from malice? And if our Master, who founded our faith, faced so much opposition while planting it, his servants should expect the same while preaching and living it.

For this reason, Jesus points them back to his own words spoken when they first became disciples: “Remember the word that I said to you.” It helps us understand his later teaching when we compare it with what he said before. Nothing gives more comfort than remembering the words of Christ, because they explain his providence. Here is a plain truth: “The servant is not greater than his lord.” He had said this before (Matthew 10:24). Christ is our Lord, so we must watch his lead and accept his rule patiently, because the servant is below his master. Simple truths can support hard duties. Elihu answered Job’s complaints with this one truth, that God is greater than man (Job 33:12).

From that truth comes a clear conclusion: if they persecuted Christ, they will also persecute you. You should expect it. They will do the same to you because you will do what he did. You will rebuke their sins, call them to repent, and give them strict rules for holy living, which they will not like. And you cannot do more to deserve their kindness than Christ did. After such treatment of him, no one should be surprised if they suffer for doing good. Jesus adds, “If they kept my word, they will keep yours also.” As only a few were changed by his preaching, only a few will be changed by theirs. Some take this another way: “If they watched my words to trap me, they will do the same to you.”

Second, Jesus says this to show how wicked the unbelieving world is. It was evil enough to hate and persecute the apostles, but it was far worse to hate and persecute Christ himself. Scripture often speaks badly of the world, and nothing makes its guilt clearer than this, that it hated Jesus Christ. There is a world of people who are haters of Christ.

Jesus gives two reasons to show how great their sin was. First, they had every reason to love him. People’s good words and good works usually win respect. Christ’s words deserved their love (John 15:22). “If I had not spoken to them,” he says, “trying to win their love, they would not have had sin.” Their rejection would not have become a hatred of him. Their sin would have been, in comparison, no sin. But since I have spoken so much to recommend myself to them, they have no excuse.

This shows the blessing of having the gospel. In it, Christ comes and speaks to people. He spoke in person to that generation, and he still speaks to us through our Bibles and ministers. He speaks with unquestionable authority, but also with kind concern. Every word from him is pure, full of power, and yet tender enough, one would think, to move the hardest heart. It also shows the sorrow of those who do not have the gospel. If Christ had not spoken to them, if they had never heard of Christ and salvation through him, then their guilt would not be this kind of sin. They would not be guilty of rejecting Christ, because he had not come offering his grace to them. As sin is not charged where there is no law, unbelief is not charged where there is no gospel. And where it is charged, it is the one sin that ruins people, because it rejects the remedy for all other sins. Their other sins would also not be as great, because God overlooked the times of ignorance (Luke 12:47, 48).

So those to whom Christ has come and spoken, but in vain, are in a far worse position. Those he has called and invited in vain, and with whom he has reasoned and pleaded in vain, have no excuse for their sin. They will be speechless on the day of judgment. The clearer and fuller the grace and truth of Jesus Christ are made known to us, the greater our sin if we do not love and believe in him. The word of Christ strips sin of its cover, so that sin appears as sin.

Second, his works deserved their love, just as much as his words (John 15:24). He says, “If I had not done among them, in their own country and in plain sight, works no one else ever did, they would not have had sin.” In other words, their unbelief and hatred would have had some excuse if he had not given clear proof of his divine mission. But he did give proof, through works that no other man did.

As the Creator shows his power and divine nature through his works (Romans 1:20), so the Redeemer does as well. His miracles, his acts of mercy, his works of wonder, and his works of grace prove that he was sent by God, and sent on a kind mission. Christ’s works were unlike anything any other man ever did. No ordinary person, one who had no commission from heaven and no special help from God, could work miracles (John 3:2). And no prophet ever did such miracles, so many of them, or so great.

Moses and Elijah worked miracles as servants, by power given to them. Christ worked as a Son, by his own power. This is what amazed the people. With authority he commanded diseases and demons (Mark 1:27), and they said they had never seen anything like it (Mark 2:12). All his works were good works, works of mercy. That seems to be the main point here, because he is rebuking them for hating him. One who was so useful to everyone, more than any man had ever been, should have been loved by all. Yet even he was hated.

The works of Christ increase the guilt of sinners’ unbelief and hatred to the highest degree. If they had only heard his words and had not seen his works, unbelief might have claimed there was not enough proof. But now it has no excuse. Worse than that, rejecting Christ, both in their case and in ours, includes not only stubborn unbelief but also shameful ingratitude. They saw that Christ was lovely and eager to do them good, yet they hated him and tried to harm him. We see in his word how great his love for us is, and still we are not moved by it.

There was also no reason at all why they should hate him. Some people say and do things that are pleasant at one time, and then say and do things that offend later. But our Lord Jesus not only did much to win people’s respect and goodwill, he never did anything that justly deserved their displeasure. He proves this by quoting Scripture (John 15:25): “They hated me without a cause.” He says this happened so the word written in their law would be fulfilled. Here “their law” means the Old Testament, which they received as law. David said this of himself as a type of Christ (Psalm 35:19; Psalm 69:4).

Those who hate Christ hate him without any just cause. Their hatred is unreasonable. We think some people deserve hate because they are proud and harsh, but Christ is gentle and humble, compassionate and tender. We think others deserve hate because they are dishonest, jealous, and revengeful, but Christ gave himself to serve those who used him, even those who abused him. He labored for other people’s ease and made himself poor to make us rich. We think hateful are those who harm kings and nations and disturb public peace. But Christ was the greatest blessing his country could have had, and yet he was hated. He did warn them that their works were evil, but he did it to make them good. To hate him for that was to hate him without cause.

In this, Scripture was fulfilled, and the pattern matched the reality. Saul and his courtiers hated David without cause, though David had helped Saul with his harp and with his sword. Absalom and his party hated David, though David had been a kind father to him and a great benefactor to them. So the Son of David was hated and chased unjustly. Those who hated Christ did not mean to fulfill Scripture, but God allowed it with that purpose in view. This strengthens our faith that Jesus is the Messiah, because even this was foretold about him and then happened exactly as foretold. We should not think it strange or too hard if something like this happens to us as well. We often defend our complaints by saying the injuries were undeserved. But the more undeserved they are, the more they resemble Christ’s sufferings, and the easier they should be to bear.

In Christ, the world hates God himself. That is said here twice (John 15:23). “He who hates me,” even if he thinks his hatred stops with Jesus, really hates my Father also. And again, “They have seen and hated both me and my Father” (John 15:24). There are people who hate God, even though they can see the beauty of his nature and the goodness of his care. They are angry at his justice, like the demons who believe it and tremble. They are offended by his rule, and would gladly break his bonds apart.

Those who will not say there is no God, but still wish there were none, see him and hate him. Hatred of Christ is treated as hatred of God, because Christ is his Father’s exact image in his person, and his chief agent and messenger in his office. God wants all people to honor the Son as they honor the Father, so whatever welcome the Son receives is counted as the Father’s welcome. From this it is easy to see that those who oppose the Christian faith, even while praising natural religion, are really against all religion. In effect, deists are atheists, and those who mock the light of the gospel would, if they could, put out even the light of nature and throw off all duty to conscience and the fear of God.

Let the unbelieving and malicious world know this, their hatred of the gospel of Christ will be treated on the great day as hatred of the blessed God himself. And let all who suffer for what is right, according to God’s will, take comfort from this. If God himself is hated in them and attacked through them, they need not be ashamed of their cause or afraid of the outcome.