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Men hate true love because men worship false gods. They may use love terminology, they may use religious love terminology, but it will not do to have a sovereign and sacrificial God of love.

Men prefer ditch gods, gods without balance or even tension. On one side they make believe gods who rule because deep down they wish that they could. They want to be like the authoritarian bully gods. Other men, or perhaps another generation—much like our current generation—stick the wheels off the other side of the road. They want either no authority or at least for authority with soft sides. This generation was hurt by the power grabbers so they want to take the power out of everyone’s hands. Of course, all these softies open themselves up as soft targets for the next generation or the next idol followers who see these lovers as weak.

Finding a man of power/authority who recognizes the weapon that love is proves rare. This comes from a worship crisis. If we knew God, Father and Son and Spirit as revealed to us in Scripture, we would see who were were made to be. We were made to love others, to love haters in such a way that overcomes their hate. That is true power.

The gospel is not that God found the diamonds in the rough and sent His Son to dig them up and polish out their rough spots. The gospel is not that the Son came to abandon His sovereignty, give up His agenda, let others run over Him, but at least He could show people He cared. The gospel is obviously not that the God’s Son has stronger anger than an unbeliever’s anger in order to push him to peace. Jesus took on flesh, endured hostility, and took a towel to His battle station, finishing His work on a cross. His love beats all it aims to conquer.

The final chapters before good Friday lifted up Jesus’ love for His disciples and Jesus’ command for them to love one another. He loved them for them to love others. He enlivened them as the vine does branches for sake of fruit bearing, fruit that grows into a culture of disciples loving one another.

But one man’s fruit is another man’s fury. A culture of love grows in the midst of a culture of hate and, when love abounds, hate abounds much more. Hate and envy and selfishness and ungratefulness are as natural as breathing. But because of how sin works, nothing is quite as fun as envying a man of contentment, being self-absorbed about not being selfless, and hating those who love. Sin is why Jesus died on the cross; it requires radical treatment.

Jesus prepares His soldiers of love with the weapon of proper expectations. He explains that their mission would be fruitful and hated. In John 15:18-25 Jesus states the hate eight times through six conditional constructions, with the two in verse 20 so similar that I’ve put them together. Last week we considered the first three: 1) Hatred is not new. 2) Hatred is not unnatural. And 3) Hatred is not different, at least not different than what Jesus endured. There are two more things to learn about hate in verses 22-25.

Hatred Is Not Excusable (verses 22-23)

No man can justify his hatred toward Jesus or Jesus’ representatives. It cannot be excused due to ignorance or to zeal.

If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father also. (John 15:22–23, ESV)

The next conditional construction introduces the incarnation and teaching of Jesus. If I had not come, but I have, and (if I had not) spoken to them, but I have done this too, then they would not have been guilty of sin. Jesus’ presence and His preaching demanded repentance, and who wants to do that? When men realized the nature of Jesus, they dropped to their knees in shame. He was holiness in the flesh; His bright perfections showed every flaw and crack in men. His verbal communication corroborated it. He told men that they were sinners and that irritated them.

To say but now they have no excuse for sin swivels to see how it is. It does not mean that they were innocent before Jesus came and spoke. It means that now they could plead ignorance and it would be more laughable than ever.

The hatred directed at Jesus, and nowadays at those doing Jesus’ work of love, is an inexcusable hatred because it is a response to knowledge and conviction. Unbelievers don’t hate because they don’t know better but because they know too well. They know that their love is inferior. They know their excuses don’t and won’t fly and they hate it.

The hatred goes all the way to the heavens. Whoever hates me hates my Father also. It could be that Jesus means, “The man who learns about Me and hates Me doesn’t even know who he’s hating; he’s hating the one whose nature I share.” As if one’s hatred of how an instrumentalist played a piece of music also meant he hated the composer, even if he didn’t realize the instrumentalist wasn’t the composer.

Probably, though, Jesus means that those who think that they love God actually hate God if they hate Jesus. At the beginning of chapter 16 Jesus predicts that “the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God” (16:2). This is the argument men gave against Jesus; they were protecting God from such irreverence (as Jesus displayed by healing on the Sabbath). They justified their hatred as zeal for God.

Hating the Son of love and the sons of love proves one’s theology. According to Jesus, a man has no biblical / theological / religious / Christian foot hold for hating Christ or His followers.

Hatred Is Not Reasonable (verses 24-25)

More than not having a good excuse for hatred, it doesn’t even make sense.

If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without a cause.’ (John 15:24–25, ESV)

The final condition in verse 24 hits the evidence they demanded and ignored. If I had not done among them works that no one else did, but I did. They had had healers but no one whose hem could stop a twelve year hemorrhage. No one else raised the dead by his word. No one turned a few loaves and fish into a meal for thousands with leftovers. All along Jesus told men to listen and watch. He claimed to do nothing but what His Father commissioned and empowered. No one else did what Jesus did because Jesus was God.

If He had not worked so well then they would not be guilty of sin, as with His words in verse 22. But now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. They know full well who they hate.

Then Jesus explained why. But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled, ‘They hated me without a cause.’ The quote comes from Psalm 69:4 referred to as Law in the sense that the entire Old Testament could be called the Law. It was their own book that explained their behavior. David wrote Psalm 69 and, while he originally meant it about himself, since David was the type of Christ, he suffered in ways that the Savior would fulfill even more.

To say, they hated me without a cause does not mean that no one gave a reason but rather that any reason they gave was unreasonable. “Without a cause” translates the adverb δωρεάν meaning “freely given” or “gratuitously.”

Think about how unreasonable sin is. Jesus offered freedom from sin and they got mad that He called them slaves. Jesus told them truth and the preferred to believe the lie that they had the truth. Jesus gave a blind from birth man sight and they were mad about possibly losing their position of influence. Jesus came for the sick and unrighteous and they didn’t want to admit the diagnosis applied to them. Jesus loved and served and sacrificed His life; they hated and murdered Him because of it.

Conclusion

Remember why Jesus says all this. He’s equipping His men with expectations for how they will be treated. They will be treated the same way that Jesus was treated because it’s the same spiritual battle.

Hatred will always be unreasonable. We so often want to point out the inconsistency, the foolishness, the craziness of how someone responds to our love. We expect blind men to see what we’re showing them. We expect a self-centered man to break out of his self-orbit if we just show him the sun.

If their arguments were logical then perhaps we could point out flaws in a certain step and help them back on the right way. But they hated Jesus without one good cause. They heard His inerrant arguments and watched His miraculous signs. If we can’t debate, then what should we do?

We should love. “But,” you say, “that won’t work. I’ve already tried that and it made them more mad.” Doesn’t that show that you’re doing the right thing, not that you need to do something different?

God overcame our hatred by love though He uses a number of means. Love came first, even if it made us angry at first. What do you have to lose? You cannot win arguments over color with men covering their eyes. You cannot win debates with the kind of person who says all true is relative or that no one can ever know the truth or that tolerance is so virtuous that we must not tolerate the intolerant.

We should love. That will feel impossible or futile. Abide in the vine. You can’t do it on your own; you weren’t made to. With His life and love coursing through your veins, imagine the fruitfulness. He promised it by His power. The only thing you really have to lose is joy. Losing your life won’t lose joy, but life won’t be much without joy. Joy goes to the abiders and abiders abound in love, even and especially when hated for it. It’s nothing new or unnatural or different, it’s not excusable or reasonable. But love does win.

We are chosen to be fruitful in the world, to represent Jesus and His Father, to love one another in a rejected sub-culture, to be hated or to draw men out of hatred.

It is part of the joyification process. We imitate God in what makes Him glad, overcoming hatred by love.