If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
ει εκ του κοσμου ητε ο κοσμος αν το ιδιον εφιλει οτι δε εκ του κοσμου ουκ εστε αλλ εγω εξελεξαμην υμας εκ του κοσμου δια τουτο μισει υμας ο κοσμος
13 Church Fathers comment on this verse
Such a reason was still not sufficient for their consolation. Therefore, leaving it, He offers another. Which one? That this serves as proof of the highest virtue, and that one should grieve not because you will now be hated, but rather if you were loved. He hints at this in the words: "If you were of the world, the world would love its own." Therefore, if you were loved, this would be a clear sign of your depravity.
Then He adds another and more compelling form of consolation. On the contrary, He says, you ought to grieve if the world, that is, evil men, loved you. For if they loved you, it would be a sign that you yourselves had communion with them in the same malice and wickedness. But now, when the wicked hate you, rejoice. They hate you for virtue. Otherwise, if you were not virtuous, the world would love its own. But since I have separated you from worldly malice, the world hates you because you do not participate in its works.
With great skill He makes the heaviest thing light, and in a wondrous way causes them to rejoice over what should have caused no small grief.
Hatred from someone is indeed heavy, because of the harm that sometimes arises from it and because of unexpected plots.
Yet this too is pleasant for God’s sake, and when it happens for piety, it serves as the clearest proof that the one who suffers it from someone is not a worldly man.
In bodies, and likewise, I think, in manners, there must be kinship.
Identity of manners and likeness in all things can serve as an expression of closeness by blood.
“Every animal loves its like,” as it is written, “and a man will cleave to one like himself” (Sir 13:19-20).
Since unity of manners bears witness to the law of love for one another, the holy man must dwell with the holy.
It will be very pleasant and most beloved for them to be together. In the same way, a man of like disposition will associate with a sinner.
For this reason the law of Moses distinguished between the holy and the unclean, keeping them separate from one another and not mixing them together (Lev 10:10).
This was according to the law of love, “for evil conversations corrupt good character” (1 Cor 15:33).
Manners of different kinds almost always war against one another, and contrary dispositions, as it were, accuse one another, since each approves only its own manifestations.
Therefore the lover of virtue necessarily arouses hatred against himself by what ought to call forth reverence for him.
That is, he exposes evil and brings to view the shame of bad men by the contrast of his own manners.
For when good appears, the shame of evil is necessarily revealed.
For this reason, I think, those who do not emulate a way of life like theirs rage against the lovers of virtue.
Therefore He does not allow His disciples to grieve, even if they see themselves hated by the world because of their virtue and piety toward Him.
Rather, He teaches them to rejoice as those who receive hatred from the world as proof that they will be glorious with God and worthy of every praise.
See, then, how He pointed out the danger if they would not wish to endure what they had to resolve upon.
Hatred from someone is, without doubt, not entirely harmless. Yet God does not free them from it.
On the contrary, there is a certain great gain in the desire to endure it.
If the one hated by those who think worldly thoughts is considered, as it were, outside the world, then one must think necessarily that the one toward whom there is no hatred already shares in the evil of the world.
What, then, did Christ teach through this?
He taught them to preach with boldness, and not to leave their hearers without benefit from fear of any impious men.
Such men do not wish to obey the divine preaching and hinder the teaching that calls to chastity.
But the disciples must despise the harm that can often come from hatred.
They must have a fervent and sincere resolve, counting nothing at all and judging nothing more profitable than pleasing God.
Paul also beautifully explains this when he writes: “Am I now pleasing men or God? Or am I seeking to please men? If I were still pleasing men, I would not be a servant of Christ” (Gal 1:10).
It is entirely impossible to please evil men and God.
Can the two be united together, when the desires in each case come to complete opposition?
One is directed toward virtue, and the other toward evil.
Therefore the one who wishes to serve only God without division, and counts nothing better than piety toward Him, is necessarily persecuted by those who love the world.
This happens when he persuades others to have thoughts that remove them from the abomination of the world.
Counsels that call to another disposition are unbearable to lovers of pleasure.
So too are beneficial medicines, though bitter, unbearable to those whose bodies have been corrupted by these passions.
“If you were of the world,” He said, “the world would love its own.”
He is speaking, of course, about the whole Church, for which He also often uses the name “world.”
For example: “God in Christ reconciled the world to Himself” (2 Cor 5:19).
Likewise here: “For the Son of Man came not to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him” (cf. Jn 3:17).
And John says in his Epistle: “We have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 Jn 2:1-2).
Therefore the whole world is the Church, and the whole world hates the Church.
Thus the world hates the world. The hostile world hates the reconciled world.
The condemned world hates the saved world, and the impious world hates the pure world.
But that world which God in Christ reconciles to Himself, which is saved through Christ, and to which every sin is forgiven through Christ, was chosen out of the hostile, condemned, and defiled world.
For from this mixture, which wholly perished in Adam, vessels of mercy are made, in which the world of reconciliation is found.
It is hated by the world of vessels of wrath, made from the same mass and prepared for destruction (cf. Rom 9:21-23).
Finally, after saying, “If you were of the world, the world would love its own,” He immediately added: “But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”
So they were from the place from which they were chosen, in order not to belong to it.
They were chosen not according to their merits, because no good works preceded this.
Nor were they chosen according to nature, which had been wholly corrupted at the root by free will.
They were chosen by free, that is, by true, grace.
For He who chose a world out of the world Himself made what He chose. He did not find it already such.
For “according to the election of grace a remnant has been preserved; but if by grace, then not by works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace” (Rom 11:5-6).
But if it is asked how the world of perdition loves itself, though it hates the world of redemption, we must answer that it loves itself with a false love, not a true one.
Therefore it falsely loves itself and truly hates itself.
For “he who loves iniquity hates his own soul” (cf. Ps 10:5 LXX).
Yet it is still said to love, because it loves the iniquity through which it is impious.
Again, it is said to hate itself because it loves what harms it.
Therefore it hates nature in itself and loves vice.
It hates what was made by the goodness of God and loves what was made in it by free will.
For this reason, if we understand correctly, we are both forbidden and commanded to love it.
We are forbidden when we are told: “Do not love the world” (1 Jn 2:15).
We are commanded when we are told: “Love your enemies” (Lk 6:27), who are the world that hates us.
Therefore we are forbidden to love in it what it loves in itself.
And we are commanded to love in it what it hates in itself, namely the workmanship of God and the various consolations from His goodness.
Certainly, we are forbidden to love vice in it and commanded to love nature.
Meanwhile it loves vice in itself and hates nature.
Thus we must rightly love and hate it, while it perversely loves and hates itself.
The Lord testified that the disposition of the disciples was pure and collected, saying: "You are not of this world" (Jn 15:19).
"If you were of the world, the world would love its own," that is, like rejoices in like. "But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." Thus, the fact that the wicked hate you serves as proof of your virtue, just as it would serve as proof of your wickedness if such people loved you. Having somewhat strengthened the disciples' downcast spirit, Jesus Christ again consoles them concerning what must happen to Him Himself.
The reproaches of the ungodly are praise for our way of life, for it becomes clear that there is something righteous in us when we begin to displease those who displease God. No one can by one and the same deed please the Almighty Lord and His enemies. He is not a friend of God who pleases His enemy. The one who subjects his mind to Truth itself resists the enemies of Truth.
As soon as someone receives grace, he immediately turns away from fleshly impulses. He begins to hate worldly desires, and by the grace of God becomes unaffected by them and dead to them. From this he fulfills the divine commandments of Christ with all joy and zeal. His soul no longer inclines toward any fleshly pleasure, or toward possessions, honor, or glory. It is as though he were outside the body and outside the world, as the Lord says: you are not of the world (Jn 15:19).
Everyone avoids and withdraws from a traveler as from one who is not their own, but a foreigner. So all lovers of the world and sons of this age avoid, withdraw from, and persecute the true Christian as one not their own and useless to them. Christ says of this: "If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you" (Jn 15:19). It is said that the sea casts out dead bodies. So the world casts out the one who has died to the world. Every stranger and sojourner in the world must be dead to the world.
Love one another, and do not be troubled when you see that the world hates you for your love even toward enemies. Know that before you, the world hated Me, who send you to preach.
"You are not of the world" Jn 15:19
Our calling is not here on earth. Our homeland and our goal are there, in that world to which the Lord has called us.
We are sometimes inclined to justify by this thought our inattentiveness toward what surrounds us, and our coldness toward the people with whom we live. By it we also cultivate in ourselves a dreamy, objectless mood. Then we place our heaven somewhere in a spatially unreachable distance, wholly detached from our earthly life.
We are almost ready, telescope in hand, to search for that world into which we shall suddenly be carried by a mysterious beckoning from above. From the height of distant heavenly perspectives, in the imagined greatness of an inhabitant of some remote planet yet to appear, we look, at best, only condescendingly upon the small sphere of activity and corner of nature set before us in our present life.
Those who have no sympathy for the Church use this to point to the Church's teaching about that life as some dark and objectless mysticism.
Is this so? Are we right?
We Christians are not of this world. Yet this does not mean that our world is somewhere billions of versts away from here, beyond endless starry worlds. Not at all. It is within us ourselves, in the nature around us, in every place, and in every soul.
It is separated from us not by external and distant spaces, but only by the surface of the very same life which, here on this earth, encompasses us on every side. Its light and breath are immediately close to us. They breathe upon me from the inner depth of the spirit this very minute, here in this place where I write, in my own soul, which I now feel.
They breathe from behind this very nature and setting which surround me at this moment.
To strive from this world into that one does not mean to rush and tear oneself away into boundless stellar distance, into unknown spaces of suns and constellations. No. It means simply to enter within what is in us and around us.
In my soul, whatever it may now be, something higher, nobler, and holy still shines through: good thoughts, feelings, and desires. It is the same soul, but in a more perfect and beautiful form of being.
To go there, toward that opening of light, to become at home with what is revealed through it, to live into its atmosphere, and to weave from it the threads of one's life, this means to go into that heavenly world to which we are called by the Lord.
There is much evil in my body. Yet even in it, in its God-created form and in the waves of its vital energy, one feels the higher beauty, the higher good of being, and the reflection of life's pure happiness.
To bring down one's spirit and heart into this nobler element of one's own body, into the perfection of its ideal forms enclosed within us, is to go toward the kingdom not of this world.
It means to breathe into oneself only the purest fragrance of life, which wafts through its harmonious manifestations. It means to strain and gather one's vital attention only into this refined and luminous realm of one's own bodily self-awareness.
It means in no way to let oneself go, or allow crude waves of lust to overflow. It means not yielding to external and internal disharmonious influences, but spiritualizing and illumining every movement of life.
Around me is nature, on this small patch of space embraced by my eye. If I run over it carelessly with my consciousness, or relate to it crudely and externally, it presents nothing particular to me. I either pass by it, use it outwardly, or destroy it.
But let me look into it with love, with whole feeling and consciousness, childlike and in a godly way. Let me not scatter myself in every direction, but give myself wholly to it. Then every leaf of a little tree, every tiny flower, every blade and grass will suddenly shine for me with radiant paradisal beauty.
It will bathe me in such warmth and light of life, and in such grace of every curve and tone, that paradise will be opened before my eyes.
What does this mean? Whence comes such a wondrous transformation?
It is very simple. We have penetrated within what we saw daily from without. With whole feeling we have sensed the whole life of nature, which we constantly break into pieces by our distracted outward consciousness.
In the contemplation of love, we gave ourselves for a moment without reserve to this little tree and this flower. We did this instead of selfishly wondering whether one could be cut down and the other plucked.
In a word, in that wondrous moment nature remained the same. Yet we entered that illumined divine world of its being and its forms, which is enclosed within it. Because of distraction and coarseness, we had not noticed it until now.
To strive to give our deep and whole attention to everything living around us, to everything existing near us, to every blade of grass and every thing, is to go into the kingdom not of this world.
It means entering with a peaceful heart into that luminous and beautiful being which penetrates all and is reflected in all. It means contemplating everything in God, renouncing oneself.
We are not of this world. Yet this does not mean that we have turned away from this nature and are gazing into some emptiness, into something dark and wholly unknown.
No. That world is only the illumination, refinement, and spiritual flowering of this one. We look upon the same things others look upon, but we see in them that world which for others remains hidden for now.
In what seems dead, an inner spiritual life trembles for us. In what is mute, heavenly words resound for us. In what is accidental and mechanical, a wondrous meaning and a higher rational beauty are revealed to us.
Can we imagine what the unnoticed flower, the lily, spoke to the heart and eyes of the Lord, when He cast down before it all the glory of Solomon?
And this spiritually revealed world of beauty and higher life is not an illusion or a poet's fantasy. It exists. It really exists behind the same forms and the same nature which surround us.
What for the poets of this world is only an idea, a dream, is for the Christian not of this world a higher real actuality, in a still more illumined form. In it he lives.
It is hidden from bodily eyes and impure hearts. It cannot be expressed in coarse human language, or represented by pale earthly colors.
We are not of this world. Yet this does not mean that we must inwardly estrange ourselves from the people with whom actual life brings us together, and dream of other beings more suited to our ideal.
Yes, we must be as far as possible from everything evil, both in ourselves and in others. Our duty is to struggle against it unceasingly and mercilessly.
But this evil is precisely what estranges people from one another and produces hostility and disorder among them. By withdrawing from it, the Christian leaves this elemental world, where people are mutual enemies, for that world where they can be friends and brothers.
Yet that world is not in the dreamy heights of fantasy. It is precisely in the very same environment and in the very same people among whom we live.
However much they may be hostile among themselves, they still feel that there is in them a certain higher world of good feelings: love, truth, goodwill, and self-sacrifice.
Outwardly, and by the inertia of the passions, they wage a cruel mutual warfare. Yet inwardly they cannot but honor the one common shrine of all, which invisibly and inaudibly penetrates the very depth of their sinful souls.
In this real shrine of the real people around us lies that world in which we, as Christians, must live.
People of this world think this shrine is only a dream, only a nonexistent ideal. They think it exists only in each person's private fantasy and good impulses, and has in itself nothing truly authoritative and real.
It colors this heavy and prosaic life with its dreams, but it is itself only a dream and nothing more. A man dies, the body disperses, and the dream disappears like mist.
The Christian directly experiences in his spirit the reality of this shrine. He feels that this world of love and harmony already exists. It already is in the depth of the spirit in each of those around him. One need only wish and know how to enter it.
He is aware that this is not merely his own creation, nor only his good impulse. It is a far more objective and eternal reality than everything else visibly set before us.
He penetrates to that inner depth where the people hostile around him have come together by roots of their spiritual being unknown to themselves, and are immersed in the grace-filled peace of the heavenly kingdom.
This world is within them, but so deeply, and behind so many veils and masks often woven by themselves, that they do not know it well. They do not fully feel the whole beauty and power of its entirely real life.
The Christian sees it and goes toward it.
The Christian must thirst wholly for this inner kingdom. Yet this does not mean that he must therefore be inertly inactive or idly dreaming in this world.
The grace-filled life of heaven is revealed to us according to the free illumination of the earth. To make one's soul and body pure and holy is the surest and proper path to the kingdom not of this world.
It means raising the nature around us toward its most perfect forms, illuminating the whole sphere of concrete life given to us, and vivifying our neighbors by the breath which we ourselves receive from above.
It means giving them the joy and grace which embrace us, opening in them the heaven that has opened in us, and giving them our life, so that it may be reborn and blossom in them.
In brief, it means imitating Christ, the Apostles, the holy hierarchs, and the martyrs.
Thus the believer in that kingdom enters into the most inward communion with the people around him, even though they often do not know it. He does not seek apart from them the heaven to which he is called, but in them and through them.
He goes toward that world through active communion with the neighbors of this world, whether in the sphere of thought, deed, or invisible prayer and love.
What may seem to be the Christian's solitude is only appearance. He is closer to his neighbors than the neighbors are to one another and to themselves.
He does not dream, but really lives in that actual world which our earthly dreams hide from our spirit. His kingdom is not of this world. It is not in a misty distance of times and spaces.
It is not in the abstract emptiness of inventions and phantoms, as with earthly poets and thinkers. It is now, at this moment, in this small space, in this environment, among these neighbors.
Through them, in their own depth, he sees the illumined and wondrous world of that kingdom of all beauty, life, and harmony. It always embraces them, but they cannot enter it.
They glide irresistibly over the shining surface of this world, into the unfolding series of grand external perspectives set before them.
"The kingdom of God is within you" (Lk 17:21).
If the world, as the sum of all that is hostile to Christ and God, hates you, and so forth: see the note on Jn 7:7. "Me before you," because I am the Head and Leader of this community of believers in Me, hated by the world. I was the first to lay the foundation for the formation of this community. By faith in Christ and union with Him, His disciples brought into the world a new principle of spiritual, religious, and moral life. It must influence every sphere of life. The world finds this new principle of life alien and hateful to itself, and strives to keep it from entering its life and to destroy it by violence.
Therefore, if you were of the world, guided in life by its principles and permeated by its interests and aspirations, it would love you as its own offspring and as belonging to it. But since you are not of the world, and I have chosen you out of the world and separated you from it as bearers and representatives of a new principle of spiritual, religious, and moral life, the world hates you as representatives of this new principle of life which it hates. "On the contrary," He says, "you would need to grieve if the world, that is, evil people, loved you. For if they loved you, this would be a sign that you yourselves shared with them in the same malice and wickedness. But now, when the evil hate you, rejoice" (Theophylact, cf. Chrysostom).
Here is the explanation that the cause of the world's hatred for Christ's followers lies in the world itself. The blind self-love of the world forces the world to hate Christ's followers. If Christ's followers belonged to the world in their thoughts, dispositions, and life, the world would love its own. It loves that in which it finds what is its own and itself. It loves its own rules, its customs, its way of thinking and acting. Let all this be unworthy of the higher needs of man. What of it? The world loves its own and does not love what is alien. Its pride blinds it. Its pride is also offended because the life of Christ's followers, even without words, exposes and discredits what the world values above all.
It does not tolerate seeing its beloved way of thinking and acting humiliated before all. It takes revenge on those who allow themselves to do this. Before Christ's followers were separated from the world by Christ's calling and teaching, they too belonged to the world. They too were, as the Apostle testifies, foolish, disobedient, deceived, and slaves of passions (1 Tim 3:3-5). Then the world did not persecute them. In the same way the world loves preachers of falsehood and corruption, because they are its own and because they preach what the world loves. "They," the false teachers, "are of the world. Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them" (1 Jn 4:5).
Passages read together with this verse.
Greek text, 31 words with lemma, transliteration and Strong’s number. Tap to expand.
THEOSIS