Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to John · About this commentary
It Hated Me Before It Hated You
John 15:18-27
18 If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you. · WEB
They are told what to expect from the world, and why it is not personal.
"If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you" John 15:18.
The subject changes abruptly from love inside the group to hatred outside it, and the two belong together — a community with the marks of the last paragraph will be conspicuous.
The comfort offered is not that it will not happen. It is priority: whatever arrives has been through him first.
"If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, since I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you" John 15:19.
The mechanism is belonging rather than behavior. The world is not described as reacting to obnoxiousness but to strangeness — and the cause is traced back to the choosing in verse sixteen, so even the hostility is a consequence of something done to them.
It is worth adding what this does not license. The hatred in view is what happens to people who are not of the world, not what happens to people who are unpleasant. This Gospel gives no permission to earn hostility and then claim the promise.
"Remember the word that I said to you: 'A servant is not greater than his lord.' If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you" John 15:20.
The proverb from the foot-washing returns John 13:16 and is turned to a different use. There it removed an excuse for not serving; here it removes a surprise about being treated badly.
And the second half is honest in both directions: if they kept my word, they will keep yours also. Some will.
"But all these things they will do to you for my name's sake, because they don't know him who sent me" John 15:21. The root is named, and it is ignorance of God rather than dislike of them.
"If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin" John 15:22.
The claim is not that nobody sinned before he arrived. It is that a particular kind of guilt requires a particular kind of light — which is the third chapter's account of judgment John 3:19, and the ninth chapter's verdict on men who said we see John 9:41.
Responsibility is proportioned to what has been shown. That principle cuts in a comforting direction as well as a severe one.
"He who hates me hates my Father also" John 15:23. The two cannot be separated, which the book has said from the other side John 14:9.
"If I hadn't done among them the works which no one else did, they wouldn't have had sin. But now they have seen and also hated both me and my Father" John 15:24.
The evidence is named twice, words and works, and the response to both was hatred. Not indifference and not confusion — the account will not let the opposition be described as an honest misunderstanding.
"They hated me without a cause" John 15:25 Psalms 69:4. The psalm is the one his disciples had quoted at the temple clearing John 2:17, and its phrase is the truest thing that can be said about the week ahead.
"When the Counselor has come... he will testify about me. You will also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning" John 15:26–27.
The chapter ends by pairing two witnesses, and the pairing describes this book. The Spirit testifies, and men who were there from the beginning testify — which is precisely the claim the writer makes for himself at the end John 21:24.
settled What this mark means