17 "These things I command you, so that you will love one another.
18 “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. 21 But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.22 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. 23 Whoever hates me hates my Father also. 24 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. 25 But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without a cause.’
26 “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.27 And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning."
John 15:17-27
The hatred of the world (18) is invited and invoked by the believer's separation from the world, for as a believer he is alien to the environment (19). Furthermore, the world's opposition is to the Christ in the believer, not to the believer in himself. It is interesting to see the context of the words Jesus quotes in 20 - here is a significant application of what He had earlier said, in 13:16. We may gather from this that the association of the servant with his Lord is not to be confined to the one example of feet-washing, but applied to the whole of life. Not only must the disciple show the same spirit of self-emptying humility as our Lord did in washing the disciples' feet, but show also the same attitude as our Lord did to the persecutions and contumely of the world. In 22-24 Jesus analyses the attitude of the world to what He has said (22) and what He has done (24) - His words and works. Once men have heard God's word, Jesus means, it places them in a far more critical position than they would have been if they had not heard it. Having heard what Jesus had said, and deliberately resisted and refused it, they are thereby left without excuse. This, we should note, defines sin not so much as doing bad things as standing in a wrong relationship to Christ. The same can be said about His works; far better, says Jesus, never to have seen Me raising Lazarus, or cleansing the lepers or giving sight to the blind, than, having seen all this, still remain in unbelief, for this makes them far more accountable in God's sight. The works He did claimed deity for Him, and it was this that they refused. It was unbearable for them to acknowledge that He was God manifest in the flesh.