Study Notes for John 15:18-16:4

Facing the Opposition

Gerald Neufeld

Setting:

This passage is a continuation of Jesus’ private teaching to his disciples that began back in Chapter 13 with Jesus washing the disciples feet and the Final Supper. From the passage last week (John 15:9-17), Jesus gave his disciples the (new) command to love one anther. Jesus defined depths of love as a friend who would sacrifice his own life. We know that Christ loves us this way (1 John 3:16). This kind of love is the fruit that a branch bears when part of the vine. It is the kind of love others will see how Christians are very different from the world.

Because the world does not know God (v. 21), it is against the things of God. It does not revere God, love God, worship God or is obedient to God. Therefore, it is opposed to those who do these things and who believe that God is the only one who should be worshiped. True followers of Christ can expect the same treatment from the world that Christ himself received.

Reasons the World hates the Disciples (15:18-24)

15:18-19 The ‘world’ in these verses means the world of men and women opposed to God and his Son, Jesus Christ. This includes all those who are not true followers of Christ. They do not want to come under the lordship and sovereignty of Christ and they do not wish to live in a society that does. The disciples should expect this since they hated Christ first. The meaning of “hate” is to reject, to abhor and to be hostile. Why do they hate? The world will hate the disciples because they do not join them in their way of living. This is often received an implied or even explicit criticism and as a result they react to it. As well, they do not approve of the disciples insistence that Jesus is the only way. This is often viewed as intolerant and dogmatic. There is a battle between Christ and this “world.” Christ wants to change the world and the world wants to change Christ. Christ wants to change the world into his image; that is, the image of God – the world wants to change Christ into its own image; that is, the image of man.

Although the disciples lived in the world, they could not belong to both the world and to Christ. They way of the world and to Christ are completely incompatible. Jesus tells them all this and not to be surprised by it because this is exactly how the world treated him. Since Jesus has chosen the disciples out of the world, they should expect the same treatment (cf. v. 20b).

15:20-21 Jesus is here stating that he expects the disciples to continue his teaching after his resurrection and departure. When they do, they should expect the world to hate them because they follow the teachings of Christ and the world has always hated his teaching. There are two ways that the world deals with Jesus’ teaching; either it will discard and ignore it entirely or will modify it to make it acceptable to them. However, if they do accept some parts of Christ’s teaching, it is simply accepted as wise words and not as the Word of God to which they must be subject.

Jesus is telling the disciples that after his departure, they could not hide in anonymity but were to continue to teach others what they had learned and to expect they same treatment he had received. The world does not accept that Jesus is divine or that he came from God and so they do not know the Father. This is the key verse of the passage. The only way to know the Father is through Christ. It is only through our understanding of who Christ is that we understand who the Father is.

The phrase “because of my name” means “because of me”. The response to the disciples is not because of who they were, but ultimately because of who Jesus is (Carson, 526).

15:22 Jesus condemns them because of the knowledge he has given them. They have listened and understood but have rejected what he says and so they have not been cleansed of original sin, their own sins and now the most central of sins: rejecting God’s only Son and their only way to salvation. See also John 3:19-21; 9:39-41; Matt 11:20-24; and Luke 11:31-32. Jesus is not saying that those who do not hear the Gospel are sinless; just sinless of the sin of rejecting Him.

15:23 They reject the divine Christ and in fact hate him for claiming to be the Messiah and so they, by implication, also hate the Father. It is not possible to reject the Son and accept the Father. So it is not possible to worship God (in any other religion) and not accept God’s only Son as the only way to the Father. The connection between the Father and the Son is very strong in John.

15:24 Jesus not only taught them but performed many mighty works of God in their presence, yet they still would not believe in him. Whether they wanted to accept it or not, Jesus’ work was God’s work. As Carson states, “Rejection of Jesus’ words (v. 22) and works (v. 24) is thus the rejection of the clearest light, the fullest revelation; and therefore it incurs the most central, deep-stained guilt” (Carson, 526).

The Reason the World hated Jesus

15:25 So they hate Christ but they have no valid reason for it other than he is opposed to their status quo and so they must change their way of life and thinking to his. The quote here is from Psalm 35:19 (or 69:4 or 109:3) which describes hatred with no foundation. This is the kind of hatred the Jewish authorities had towards Jesus. Jesus makes it clear that this is fulfilled by “their Law” – not to distance himself from the law but to point out that the Scriptures they hold so dearly condemn them (Note that although “Law” strictly means the first five books of the Bible, it can also mean all of the Hebrew Scriptures). As Morris states, “The Jews saw themselves as the upholders of the Law, but in their zeal for the Law they incurred the condemnation of the Law by rejecting the Christ to whom the Law bore its witness” (Morris, 605).

Jesus spoke he spoke the words of God (5:19ff). Jesus did the will of God perfectly (4:34). And in seeing Jesus, one sees the Father (14:9). Therefore, to hate Jesus is equivalent to hating God.

The world today does not want to hate Jesus so it changes what Jesus says to make him more acceptable to them. It does this by accepting only bits and pieces of his teaching as words of wisdom, yet they reject his work on the cross, his deity or the resurrection.

The Work of the Holy Spirit

Jesus has much to say about the Holy Spirit throughout the Upper Room Discourse (14:17,26; 15:26; 16:13,15). Here Jesus described the Spirit’s work with respect to the world; it is to convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment. Not something the world is particularly eager to hear.

Earlier Jesus stated that the Spirit would be sent in response to his prayer (14:16) and that the Father would send the Spirit in the name of Christ (14:26). In these verses, Jesus states that he will send him from the Father. The close relationship between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is evident.

This interjection of the work of the Spirit breaks up the teaching on persecution that continues again in verse 16:1. Its purpose is to show the response of Jesus’ disciples to persecution rather than its cause. Up to know the cause of persecution is because the world hated Jesus, but with Jesus going away what will happen now. The answer is that persecution will continue because the Spirit will testify on Jesus’ behalf through the teaching of the disciples.

15:26 The word “Counselor” (literally, parakletos) is used in John’s gospel by Jesus to refer to the Holy Spirit’s work in the life of the disciple. The Spirit will always be with (“in”) the disciples (14:16-17). The Spirit will be the disciples teacher and remind them of what Jesus had told them during his ministry (14:26) and so bears witness (“testifies”) to Christ (v. 26). The word parakletos is a difficult one to translate. It has the meaning of counselor (NIV), or helper (NASB, ESV), or comforter (KJV) or even advocate (NET). In this verse counselor (in the legal sense) might be best since he bears witness to Christ.

The Holy Spirit will testify to the unregenerate people of this world that Christ is the only way to the Father. He will do this even when they do not believe.

15:27 The work of the Holy Spirit however will not be done without the participation of the disciples. They are closes associated with the activity of the witness of the Spirit (Morris, 607). The disciples cannot assume that the Spirit will do all the work and so Jesus again makes it clear that he expects the disciples to continue his teaching to the world. In this verse, he gives them a direct command to testify about him after he leaves.

This verse contains a wonderful truth about the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of people in evangelism. As Morris states, “ There is a responsibility resting on all Christians to bear witness to the facts of saving grace. They cannot evade this. But the really significant witness is that of the Holy Spirit, for he alone can bring to people’s hearts the truth and the significance of the truth” (Morris, 607).

The Greatest Opposition – Religion

16:1 “fall away” (NIV) or “go astray” (ESV) also means to stumble or to cause to sin; it does not mean that they will be lost forever but they could for a time be in confusion and doubt when persecution began (see other examples of the same Greek word in 6:61; Mark 14:27 and 1 John 2:10). The disciples thought that Jesus would bring in the kingdom of the Messiah in the form they had long expected. Jesus knew when this would not happen it would really throw them for a loop. Jesus knew of all the opposition they would soon face. Followers of Jesus had already been expelled from the local synagogues (9:22; 12:42). This opposition would increase to the point where Saul thought that it was pleasing to God to kill Christians (Phil 3:6). There is no doubt that the disciples were heading into a time of great opposition and uncertainty first from Jewish religious authorities and later from Rome. As Temple states, “it is hard to believe that a cause is truly God’s when it seems to meet with no success, and all power is on the other side” (quoted in Morris, 614). It would have been difficult for the disciples to believe that their faith, which was so vilified by the Jews and Romans alike, would one day – for good or ill – become the state religion of the Roman Empire.

16:2 Jesus is talking about Jewish opposition here – rather than Roman opposition (what the Christians at the time of the writing of John would have been experiencing). The stoning of Stephen is a notable example. At the time John was writing his Gospel, synagogue prayer included a curse on Christians to ensure that followers of Jesus would not be able to take part in the services (Bruce, 317). It was the “godly” religious authorities of the day that claimed God on their side that caused the greatest opposition and oppression of the early church. This has also been true throughout history. Those claim a belief in God, other than one that includes Christ Jesus as Lord, have caused the greatest damage. Ironically, those who believe they are offering genuine service to God are also the ones most deluded. The reason is that they do not really know God because they do not know Christ (Hanneman, 1).

16:3 It is impossible to know God the Father without knowing Jesus. For humankind they are linked in that order. We only know the Father by knowing Jesus his Son first.

16:4 This is warning to the friends who Jesus loved enough to die for. He is greatly concerned for them and wants them to be forewarned so that when opposition came it would be expected. New converts to Christ should be similarly warned. Commitment to Christ means being chosen from the world and dying to the way of the world – opposition should be expected.

References

F.F. Bruce, The Gospel of John, Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishers, 1983.

D.A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, The Pillar New Testament Commentary, Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1991.

John Hanneman, Notes on John 15:9-17, Private Communication, September, 2007.

Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, Revised, The New International Commentary on the New Testament, Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishers, 1995.

Earl Palmer, The Book that John Wrote, Vancouver, B.C.:Regent College Press, 1999.