John 15:21Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Thus, when they were once summoned before the impious tribunal of the Jews and were beaten in body for Christ, they went out “from the presence of the council rejoicing,” as it is written, “that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name of the Lord” (Acts 5:41). He also plainly commands us to suffer for this and not to be crushed at all, even if something very grievous should happen for Christ’s sake. “Let none of you suffer,” it is said, “as a murderer, or a thief, or an evildoer. But if as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this name” (1 Pet 4:15-16). Therefore it is pleasant to suffer for Christ, and danger is sweet when the cause of its coming is love for God. Notice how here also, showing His unity with His Father, He says that the Jews, who will persecute the preachers of Christ’s name, know neither the Father nor the Son. Certainly the hater of the Father is the one who thinks it right to dishonor the Son. For he plainly sins not against some other nature, but rises up against the very dignity of the Godhead by nature. No one will be found insulting the Son if he honors the nature of the Father. If someone truly knows what the Father is by His activity, how can he not know that He begot from Himself? Or does not one reproach the plant who blasphemes the fruit born from it? Therefore sin against the Son is an undeniable proof of ignorance of both God and the Father. Since He did not now say, “because they do not know” My Father, but “Him who sent Me,” in my judgment He wishes to express this. His aim, it seems, was clearly to show that those who persecute His adherents thereby bring upon their own heads a kind of double iniquity. They will almost be found not to know Him from whom I exist, He says. They will not receive a just accusation of godlessness alone, but will at last be convicted of reviling even the very Wisdom of God and the Father. For if He sent His own Son to restore the fallen, renew the broken, and impart life to those in the world, while they hinder and impiously resist those who wish to preach the Author of all this, how will they not prove utterly ignorant and enemies of Him who sent Me? Through the term “sending” He indicates to us the whole divine economy with the flesh. Whoever does not know “Him who sent” at once does not know God, and dishonors the mystery of the sending.

But when He says, “All these things they will do to you for My name’s sake,” what else is said except this? “They will hate Me in you. They will persecute Me in you. They will not keep your word, because it is My word.”

For “all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake” means, “not for your name, but for Mine.” Therefore those who commit this evil for His name are more wretched, just as those who suffer it for His name are more blessed.

Of this He Himself says elsewhere: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake” (cf. Mt 5:10). That is, “for My sake,” or “for My name’s sake.” For, as the Apostle teaches, He became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let him who glories, glory in the Lord” (1 Cor 1:30-31).

Certainly the wicked do this evil wickedly, but not for righteousness. Therefore, in such a case, both are equally wretched: those who do it and those who suffer it. The good also do this to the wicked, that is, they hate, persecute, and do not listen to their words. Yet, although they do it for righteousness, the wicked certainly do not suffer it for righteousness.

But someone will say: “If the wicked sometimes persecute the good for the name of Christ, and the good suffer for righteousness, then the wicked must be causing them this for righteousness’ sake. If this is so, then when the good persecute the wicked for righteousness, the wicked also suffer for righteousness.

For if the wicked can persecute the good for the name of Christ, why can the wicked not suffer persecution from the good for the name of Christ? And what is this, if not to suffer persecution for righteousness?

If the good do not do this for the same reason for which the wicked suffer it, since the good do it for righteousness and the wicked suffer it for unrighteousness, then the wicked cannot suffer it for the same reason for which the good suffer.

For the wicked commit this evil for unrighteousness, while the good suffer for righteousness. How then can this be true: ‘All these things they will do to you for My name’s sake,’ if those wicked men do this not in Christ’s name, that is, not for righteousness, but for their own unrighteousness?”

This question will be resolved if we understand “all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake” as referring entirely to the righteous. It is as if He had said, “All these things you will suffer from them for My name’s sake.” Thus “they will do to you” means the same as “you will suffer from them.”

But if “for My name’s sake” is taken as though He had said, “for My name, which they hate in you,” it may also be understood as “for the righteousness which they hate in you.” Then, when the good persecute the wicked, it can indeed be said that they do this for righteousness. They persecute the wicked out of love for righteousness, and also because of the unrighteousness which they hate in the wicked.

Therefore it can be said that the wicked suffer for unrighteousness, which is punished in them, and for righteousness, which is manifested in the very act of their punishment.

Someone may also ask: “If the wicked persecute the wicked, as when impious kings and judges, themselves persecutors of the pious, punish murderers, adulterers, and other criminals whose deeds are known to be contrary to civil laws, how should we understand the Lord’s saying, ‘If you were of the world, the world would love its own’ (Jn 15:19)?”

For the world does not love those whom it punishes. Indeed, we see that the world commonly punishes the crimes just mentioned. Perhaps this should be understood in this way. On the one hand, the world is in those who punish such crimes. On the other hand, the world is also in those who love such crimes.

Thus the world, as seen in the wicked and impious, both hates its own and loves its own. It hates its own in that part of mankind whom it punishes as criminals. It loves its own in that part of mankind, its companions in crime, to whom it shows favor.

Therefore “all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake” is said either in the sense, “you will suffer for My name’s sake,” or in the sense, “they will do this to you for My name’s sake.” For in persecuting you, they hate in you the very thing for which they persecute you.

And He added, “because they do not know Him who sent Me.” This must be understood according to that knowledge of which it is written elsewhere: “To know Thee is complete righteousness” (Wis 15:3). Certainly those who know the Father, who sent the Son, with such knowledge do not persecute those whom Christ gathers. For they themselves are gathered with them by Christ.

In His death and in the ascent to heaven that followed it, His holiness was fully revealed. Finally, He will prove to the world that its prince is judged, weakened, and cast down from his throne. In place of his kingdom, the kingdom of God will be established. In this lies the whole essence of Christianity: consciousness of sin, recognition of the Lord Christ as Redeemer from sin, and triumph over the enemy, the source of all evil.

This ignorance, however, does not excuse the persecutors, because it is voluntary, not involuntary. Therefore it contains enmity and hatred, which are absent from involuntary ignorance. The Lord unfolds this in the following discourse. Thus this enmity is enmity not only against Christ, but also against God the Father. “Therefore, if nothing else, this very fact, that the same persons are enemies to you, to Me, and to My Father, ought to serve for your consolation” (Theophylact; cf. Chrysostom).

Yet even in this corrupted world there will be many who, seeing your zeal in keeping all that I commanded you, will heed your words and keep them. The embittered world of the Gentiles will persecute you even for the mere mention of My name. It will act this way because it does not know Him who sent Me. Of course, this cannot justify the world. Not knowing either Me or Him who sent Me, it will persecute you and all whom you draw to Me. If I had not come to them, spoken with them, and done among them all My works, they would have no sin. But now they have seen, and nevertheless have hated both Me and My Father. For he who hates Me at the same time hates My Father, who abides in Me. Yet that this would happen was foretold by their prophet David, who said, ‘They hated Me without cause.’”

Knowing oneself, one’s corruption, and one’s guilt, one cannot fail to recognize the need for the Savior of the world. Therefore whoever knows himself and God receives with an open soul the Savior of the world, sent by God the Father (Jn 3:16-17). By contrast, the world does not want to know about Jesus Christ. It says, “My God! My Creator! My Provider! Good Providence!” Of Christ Jesus there is not a word, because the name of Jesus requires one to acknowledge oneself an answerless sinner. Because of this coldness toward Jesus Christ, the world cannot endure those who in deed and truth honor this all-venerable Name. “You will be hated for My name’s sake,” said the Lord (Mt 10:22). This is being fulfilled and will be fulfilled. “All who desire to live piously in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim 3:12).

“But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake,” says the Lord. He refers “all these things” to the hatred which the children of the world will display. This applies to the Jews, as does the following verse, and also to the Gentiles, though with a somewhat different meaning.

The Lord adds: “because they do not know Him who sent Me.” For the Jews, ignorance is not properly the absence of knowledge, but the absence of the will to know and believe. Among the Jews there was malicious resistance to God, as is clear from Acts 5:33, when the members of the Sanhedrin were “cut to the heart” on hearing the rebuke of the Apostle Peter.

Complete ignorance belonged only to the Gentiles. They did not obey the voice of conscience, that voice of God inscribed in the hearts of all men (Rom 2:14-15). They fell lower and lower (Rom 1:20-24), until in their moral corruption they became worse than wild beasts.

They were the ones who raised the most savage persecutions against Christ and His Church. If the Jews would not acknowledge Christ as Lord, because they truly did not wish to know Him who sent Him, then the Gentile persecutors also did not know the Creator of the universe. These corrupt masters of the world had forgotten the laws “inscribed in their hearts.”

But those among the Gentiles and Jews who knew and remembered God, and came to know Him either from the Law or from His works, soon joined the one refuge of righteousness in the world, the Church of Christ. “For His invisible things, His eternal power and Godhead, have been seen from the creation of the world through contemplation of the things that are made” (Rom 1:20).

The Lord’s words, “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin,” refer first of all to the Jews. Then they also refer to all who heard the good tidings of the Apostles.

The Jews were counted worthy to hear the word of God from the mouth of the Lord Himself. Yet as a people they rejected Him and His word. Therefore not only the separate persons who rejected Him, but the whole Jewish people bears punishment, for it has no excuse for its sin.

The Lord came to His own, and “His own did not receive Him” (Jn 1:11). The teachers of the Law answered words of love, mercy, rest, and righteousness with malice and crime. They disregarded those indications of the Law and the Prophets which foretold the coming of the Messiah, and which were fulfilled in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Then the Gentiles, though they had not been prepared by the Law to receive the Messiah, were still answerable before God for not preserving within themselves the image and likeness of God. This image is placed upon every man and is expressed in the striving toward goodness and righteousness.

But according to the Lord’s word they still had an excuse until they heard of the Lord’s coming and His words of grace. This good tidings explained to those who had preserved the image and likeness of God within themselves what God requires of man.

Having heard this, and having believed, loved, and called upon the name of the Lord (Joel 2:32; Rom 10:13-16), they became children of God, and their sins were forgiven them (1 Jn 2:2, 12; Rom 3:30; 4:7; 5:1; Col 2:13, and many others).

But the preaching of Christ filled the world, as it is written: “Their proclamation has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world” (Rom 10:18; Ps 18:5).

By the time of the Lord’s coming, the pagan world had long since lost faith not only in its mythological tales, but also in all the allegorical and symbolic explanations of them offered by different philosophical schools.

Then human thought was struck by the new teaching of love. Those who began maliciously to oppose this teaching, though it answered the highest aspirations of man, became guilty before the Lord by His words: “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.”

But now the teaching of the Lord has taken possession of the world. It has created the order of Christian life. The preaching of love has been set, in principle, above all human strivings. Man has become a new man, wholly unlike, in the foundations of social life, the corrupt and bloodthirsty member of Roman society, despite all his intelligence.

With what excuse, then, will the man of our own time appear before God? He has been taught that the Lord came to earth. He has studied His words. He knows what the Lord’s teaching has accomplished. And after this he rejects Him.