'But all these things will they do unto you for My name's sake, because
they know not Him that sent Me. If I had not come and spoken unto them,
they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin. He that
hateth Me, hateth My Father also. If I had not done among them the
works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they
both seen and hated both Me and My Father. But this cometh to pass,
that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They
hated Me without a cause.'--JOHN XV. 21-25.
Our Lord has been speaking of the world's hostility to His followers,
and tracing that to its hostility to Himself. In these solemn words of
our text He goes still deeper, and parallels the relation which His
disciples bear to Him and the consequent hostility that falls on them,
with the relation which He bears to the Father and the consequent
hostility that falls on Him: 'They hate you because they hate Me.' And
then His words become sadder and pierce deeper, and with a tone of
wounded love and disappointed effort and almost surprise at the world's
requital to Him, He goes on to say, 'They hate Me, because they hate
the Father.'
So, then, here we have, in very pathetic and solemn words, Christ's
view of the relation of the world to Him and to God.