A Servant Is Not Greater Than His Master
A SERVANT IS NOT GREATER THAN HIS MASTER
JOHN 15:20-27
Don’t be surprised if you are mocked or attacked at home, school, college or work for being a Christian! Jesus warned us!
The new relationship which Christ offers to his disciples is such that it makes all the more inevitable that they will stand alongside him and share the world’s reaction to him. They have been called friends, but there is still a proverb about servants which fits their case. “A servant is not greater than his master.” There will be identification, at least to some extent, with his fate. While the note of warning predominates—that there will be persecution—there is also a note of encouragement—that some, at least, will keep their words. Yet the emphasis seems to be on the adverse reaction, which happens for his sake, through people’s failure to know God (8:19,55; 16:3).
What is the root cause of sin? The Jews might have been able to make excuses for their sin had not the light come and shone in their midst, and had not the words and deeds of Jesus been witnessed by them. Their hatred of the light, their hatred of Jesus, was hatred of the Father. This is a hatred which fulfilled Scripture, being without any valid cause.
All this must be seen and understood in the light of the great new fact—the personal coming of the Holy Spirit. The Paraclete was to be sent by the Son from the Father. He was the Spirit of truth sent to combat the falsehood and unbelief in the world. It was one of the functions of the Holy Spirit to bear witness to Jesus. It was also the task of an apostle to bear witness to Jesus. They were qualified to do this because they had been with him from the beginning of the ministry (cf. Acts 1:21f.) and were consequently able to testify to the truth of the apostolic preaching (kerygma) about him. So we in our generation rely on this twofold witness: the historical witness of the apostles to the facts and their meaning, which by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is recorded in the New Testament, and the “existential” witness of the Holy Spirit at work in the world today.
Notes 15:20: see 13:16. 15:21: “on my account”—cf. Matthew 5:11; 10:22; Mark 13:13. 15:22: for the Law also as a revealer of sin, see Romans 7:7. For the guilt of unbelief, cf. 9:41. 15:25: “their law”which they profess to believe in (cf. 5:45-47). 15:26: there is no reason to suppose from this verse that the Spirit does not come from the glorified Son as well as from the Father (cf. 16:7).
For prayer See Philippians 1:12ff. as an example of 15:26f., and pray jor Christians who are being persecuted today.