Expository Thoughts (continued)
Let us leave the whole subject with a feeling of deep pity for those who persecute others on account of their religion. Often, very often, as our Lord says, they do it because they know no better. "They know not Him that sent Me." Like our Divine Master and His servant
Stephen, let us pray for those who despitefully use us and persecute us. Their persecution rarely does us harm, and often drives us nearer to Christ, the Bible, and the throne of grace. Our intercession, if heard on high, may bring down blessings on their souls.
Technical Notes:
17. These things I command you, that ye love one another. 18. If the world hates you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. 19. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own. But because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 20. Remember the word that I said to you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they have kept my word, they will keep yours also. 21. But all these things they will do to you for my name's sake, because they do not know him who sent me.
17.—[These things...love one another.] The expression "these things" must either refer backwards to what has just been said or forwards to what is going to be said. I prefer the latter view. "I press on you these repeated charges to love one another, because you must expect the hatred of the world. The more the world hates you, the more you ought to love one another and stick together."
18.—[If the world hates you, etc.] The object of this verse is to encourage and comfort the disciples under the hatred and enmity of the unbelieving Jews. "Do not be surprised and discouraged if you find yourselves hated and persecuted by an unbelieving world. Do not think the fault is yours. You know, and have seen, and must remember that this same world has always hated and persecuted Me before you, although it could lay no fault to my charge."
The principle of the verse will be found true in every age. It is not the weaknesses and inconsistencies of Christians that the world hates, but their grace. Christians should carefully remember that their spotless and blameless Master was bitterly hated by the world when He was on earth, and they must count it no strange thing if they are treated in the same way. Hengstenberg thinks that the words "ye know" should be taken as an imperative and not an indicative, like "remember" in verse 20. I doubt this; but the construction of the Greek language makes it an open question. The Greek word rendered "before" is literally "first." It is the same that is translated "before" in John 1:15 and 30.
19.—[If ye were of the world, etc.] In this verse our Lord shows the disciples that the hatred of the world, however painful to bear, is a satisfactory evidence of their state before God. It is like, "Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you," and, "Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you." This comes out more clearly if we invert the order of the verse. "The world hates you because you are not like itself but have a different faith and live a different life, and because I have drawn you out of it to be my disciples and apostles. The world always loves what is like itself, and would love you if your standard of faith and life was like its own. The very hatred of the world, therefore, is a satisfactory evidence that you are my disciples." Luther remarks: "Towards each other, apart from Christ, the men of the world are as little friends as dogs and cats. In all that concerns Christ, they are unanimous in hatred."
The expression "his own" means literally "its own thing," its own spirit, tone, character, faith, and life. The whole verse contains rich experimental comfort for true Christians. There are few things that we are so slow to realize as the enmity of natural man against God and all who have anything of God's image. Forgetfulness of it often brings believers into much trouble and perplexity of mind. They do not expect the world's hatred and are surprised when they meet with it. This verse teaches plainly that they ought not to be surprised.
Burgon quotes a saying of Bishop Sanderson: "The godly are in the world as strangers, and in a foreign, yea in an enemy's country; and they look upon the world, and are looked upon by it, as strangers, and used by it accordingly."
20.—[Remember the word, etc.] Our Lord continues in this verse the same subject: viz., what the disciples must expect from the world. He reminds the eleven of the things He had said before, when He first sent them out to preach (Matt. 10:24, Luke 6:40). He had always told them that they must not expect to be better treated than He had been Himself. He quotes the proverbial saying that "a servant must not expect to fare better than his master." "Did they persecute Me? Then they will persecute you. Did they keep, mind, and attend to my teaching? As a rule, the great part did not; and you must expect the same."
We ought to observe carefully how strongly this lesson about the world is laid down by our Lord. It was doubtless spoken for all time and with a special reference to believers' slowness to realize it. If there is anything that true Christians seem incessantly forgetting, and seem to need incessantly reminding of, it is the real feeling of unconverted people towards them and the treatment they must expect to meet with. Wrong expectations are one great cause of Christians feeling troubled and perplexed. That word "remember," "do you remember," has a mine of meaning in it.
Gataker, Bengel, and some others think that the Greek word here rendered "keep" means "to observe with a malicious intention to carp at it; but this seems improbable. Whether, however, there is not a latent irony in the sentence is doubtful."
21.—[But all these things...name' sake.] Our Lord here tells His disciples that He Himself was the cause of all the enmity and hatred they would meet with. They would be hated on account of their Master, more than on account of themselves. "These things" must refer apparently to the expression, "hate, persecute, and keep your word."
It may be some comfort to a persecuted Christian to think that it is for his Master's sake that he is ill used. He is "filling up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ" (Col. 1:24). He is "bearing the reproach of Christ" (Heb. 11:26).
[Because they do not know Him who sent Me.] This sentence is elliptical. It means that dark ignorance was the great cause of the conduct of the unbelieving Jews. They did not rightly know God the Father who had sent Christ into the world. They did not know that Christ was the Messiah whom the Father had promised to send. In this state of ignorance, they blindly persecuted Christ and His disciples.
This judicial blindness and hardness of the Jewish nation in the time of our Lord and His Apostles is a thing that ought to be carefully observed by all Bible-readers. (See Acts 3:17, 13:27, 28:25-27, 1 Cor.
2:8, 2 Cor. 3:14.) It was a peculiar judicial blindness, we must remember, to which the whole nation was given over, like Pharaoh, as a final punishment for many centuries of idolatry, wickedness and unbelief. Nothing but this seems thoroughly to account for the extraordinary unbelief of many of our Lord's hearers.
In leaving this passage we should not fail to notice the singular frequency with which our Lord speaks of "the world." Six times he mentions it. We should also notice the singular resemblance between the line of argument adopted in the passage and the line of St. John in the third chapter of his first Epistle. The Apostle writes his Epistle in that part as if he had this chapter before him.
JOHN 15:22-27 "If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. But they no longer have any excuse for their sin. The one who hates me hates my Father too. If I had not performed among them the miraculous deeds that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen the deeds and have hated both me and my Father. Now this happened to fulfill the word that is written in their law, 'They hated me without reason.' When the Advocate comes, whom I will send you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me, and you also will testify, because you have been with me from the beginning."
In these verses our Lord Jesus Christ handles three subjects of great importance. They are difficult subjects, no doubt, subjects on which we may easily fall into error. But the words before us throw much light upon them.
We should observe, for one thing, how our Lord speaks of the misuse of religious privileges. It intensifies man's guilt, and will increase his condemnation. He tells His disciples that if He had not "spoken" and "done" among the Jews things which none ever spoke or did before, "they would not be guilty of sin." By this, we must remember, He means, "they had not been so sinful and so guilty as they are now. But now they were utterly without excuse." They had seen Christ's works, and heard Christ's teaching, and yet remained unbelieving. What more could be done for them? Nothing. absolutely nothing! They willfully sinned against the clearest possible light, and were of all men most guilty.
Let us settle it down as a first principle in our religion, that religious privileges are in a certain sense very dangerous things. If they do not help us toward heaven, they will only sink us deeper into hell. They add to our responsibility. "To whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required." (Luke 12:48.) He that dwells in a land of open Bibles and preached Gospel, and yet dreams that he will stand in the judgment day on the same level with an untaught
Chinese, is fearfully deceived. He will find to his own cost, except he repents, that his judgment will be according to his light. The mere fact that he had knowledge and did not improve it, will of itself prove one of his greatest sins. "He that knew His Master's will and did it not, shall be beaten with many stripes." (Luke 12:47.)
Well would it be for all professing Christians in England, if this point was more thoroughly considered! Nothing is more common than to hear men taking comfort in the thought that they "know what" is right, while at the same time they are evidently unconverted, and unfit to die. They rest in that unhappy phrase, "We know it, we know it," as if knowledge could wash away all their sins—forgetting that the devil has more knowledge than any of us, and yet is no better for it. Let the burning words of our Lord in the passage now before us, sink down into our hearts, and never be forgotten— "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they would not be guilty of sin—but now they have no cloak for their sin." To see light and not use it, to possess knowledge and yet not turn it to account, to he able to say "I know," and yet not to say "I believe," will place us at the lowest place on Christ's left hand, in the great day of judgment.
We should observe, for another thing, in these verses, how our Lord speaks of the Holy Spirit. He speaks of Him as a Person.
He is "the Comforter" who is to come; He is One sent and "proceeding;" He is One whose office it is to "testify." These are not words that can be used of a mere influence or inward feeling. So to interpret them is to contradict common sense, and to strain the meaning of plain language. Reason and fairness require us to understand that it is a personal Being who is here mentioned, even
He whom we are justly taught to adore as the third Person in the blessed Trinity.
Again, our Lord speaks of the Holy Spirit as One whom He "will send from the Father," and One "who proceeds from the Father."
These are deep sayings, no doubt, so deep that we have no line to fathom them. The mere fact that for centuries the Eastern and Western Churches of Christendom have been divided about their meaning, should teach us to handle them with modesty and reverence. One thing, at all events, is very clear and plain. There is a close and intimate connection between the Spirit, the Father, and the Son. Why the Holy Spirit should be said to be sent by the Son, and to proceed from the Father, in this verse, we cannot tell. But we may quietly repose our minds in the thought expressed in an ancient creed, that "In this Trinity none is afore or after other—none is greater or less than another." "Such as the Father is such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit." Above all, we may rest in the comfortable truth that in the salvation of our souls all three Persons in the Trinity equally co-operate. It was God in Trinity who said, "Let us create," and it is God in Trinity who says, "Let us save."
Forever let us take heed to our doctrine about the Holy Spirit. Let us make sure that we hold sound and Scriptural views of His nature, His Person, and His operations. A religion which entirely leaves Him out, and gives Him no place, is far from uncommon. Let us beware that such a religion is not ours. "Where is the Lamb, the Lord Jesus
Christ?" should be the first testing question about our Christianity.
"Where is the Holy Spirit?" should be the second question. Let us take good heed that the work of the Spirit is not so buried under extravagant views of the Church, the ministry, and the Sacraments, that the real Holy Spirit of Scripture is completely put out of sight. "If any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His." (Rom. 8:9.)
No religion deserves to be called Scriptural and apostolic, in which the work of the Spirit does not stand forth prominently, and occupy a principal place.
We should observe lastly, in these verses, how our Lord speaks of the special office of the Apostles. They were to be His witnesses in the world. "You also shall bear witness."
The expression is singularly instructive and full of meaning. It taught the eleven what they must expect their portion to be, so long as they lived. They would have to bear testimony to facts which many would not believe, and to truths which the natural heart would dislike. They would often have to stand alone, a few against many, a little flock against a great multitude. None of these things must move them. They must count it no strange thing to be persecuted, hated, opposed, and discredited. They must not mind it. To witness of Christ was their grand duty, whether men believed them or not. So witnessing, their record would be on high, in God's book of remembrance; and so witnessing, sooner or later, the Judge of all would give them a crown of glory that fades not away.
Let us never forget, as we leave this passage, that the position of the Apostles is that which, in a certain sense, every true Christian must fill, as long as the world stands. We must all be witnesses for Christ. We must not be ashamed to stand up for Christ's cause, to speak out for Christ, and to persist in maintaining the truth of Christ's Gospel. Wherever we live, in town or in country, in public or in private, abroad or at home, we must boldly confess our Master on every opportunity. So doing, we shall walk in the steps of the Apostles, though at a long interval. So doing, we shall please our Master, and may hope at last that we shall receive the Apostles' reward.
Technical Notes: