John 15:22Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

But if the Lord says this only of the Jews, who heard His teaching often and yet learned nothing of what He commanded them to think and do, then understand it in this way. He says: they will not receive your teaching, but will bring trials and persecutions upon you. They will devise every kind of hindrance against you, and from vexation they will be inflamed with unjust hatred.

They will be unable to point to any transgression, but will accuse only your love for Me. As though defending the cruelty of their madness and washing away from themselves the disgrace of sensuality, they will continually put forward Moses and his commandments. They will hypocritically shelter themselves under the ancestral laws.

But if I had not come and shown a commandment far better than Moses, and if I had not proved by many words that the time of the types had now passed, and that there had been enough of figures and shadow. And that the time had come for the truth itself to shine forth, then they would have had reasonable grounds for their madness against Me and against you.

If I had not shown this from the Law itself, saying very clearly, “If you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote of Me” (Jn 5:46), and if I had not shown My word to agree with the testimonies of the Prophets, and My coming as already foretold and proclaimed, then they would have had such grounds.

But since nothing has been omitted, and since everything necessary has been said, the ground they invent to justify so naked a sin is vain. This, I think, is the meaning which should correspond here to the Savior’s words.

Yet by showing the disciples that the guilt of those who sin against them is without excuse, and by saying that those who dare such things will one day suffer punishment, He removes and wisely takes away a great part of their grief. This naturally could greatly strengthen them.

For violence sometimes becomes bearable to those who are wronged, once they think that the doers of violence will certainly receive punishment for their crimes. Knowing this, the Master of all Himself says: “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, says the Lord” (Rom 12:19).

So too blessed Paul himself, when he was struck by one of the high priests, had no other consolation in the bitterness of suffering except this. What did he say? “God will strike you, you whitewashed wall!” (Acts 23:3).

Thus this too serves as a medicine for human weakness: the expectation of punishment for those accustomed to inflicting injuries.

Yet the Lord is above human faintheartedness, and that beyond all comparison. “When He was reviled, He did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten,” as it is written (1 Pet 2:23).

And when He was struck, He said nothing insulting. He uttered no threat against the man who dared to strike Him, but with great meekness and complete longsuffering He said: “If I have spoken evil, bear witness to the evil; but if well, why do you strike Me?” (Jn 18:23).

Therefore the word among the Prophets is true: “For who in the clouds can be compared to the Lord, or who among the sons of God shall be likened to the Lord?” (Ps 88:7).

His coming became salvation for believers in the same measure that it became perdition for unbelievers.

"But now they have no excuse for their sin."

Here someone may wish to ask whether those to whom Christ did not come, and to whom He did not speak, have an excuse for their sin.

If they do not, why is it said that these have no excuse because He came and spoke? But if they do, are they freed from punishment, or is it only lightened?

To such questions I shall answer that they have an excuse, but not for all their sins. They have it only for not believing in Christ, because He did not come to them and did not speak to them.

But this number does not include those to whom He came through His disciples, and to whom He spoke through His disciples, as He still does now. Through His Church He came to the Gentiles, and through her He speaks to them.

It remains for us to examine whether those have an excuse who, before Christ came to the Gentiles through His Church and before they came to know His Gospel, had already ended this life or are ending it.

Certainly they have one, yet this is no ground for escaping condemnation. For those who sinned without the law will also perish without the law. Those who sinned under the law will be judged by the law (Rom 2:12).

Such an excuse not only brings them no benefit, but becomes a burden. For those who excuse themselves by saying that they did not hear are those who will perish without the law.

Without doubt, people do not deserve a lighter punishment if, while not sinning under the law, they wholly refused to accept the law of Christ and resisted it as far as they could.

They may excuse themselves by saying that they did not hear of Christ's Gospel, but this will not save them from condemnation.

For whoever is not saved by the Savior, who came to seek what was lost, will without doubt go to perdition.

Yet it is possible to say that for some perdition will be heavier, and for others lighter. That is, in perishing, some will endure greater punishments, and others lesser ones.

Whoever, as punishment, suffers separation from the blessedness granted to the saints is lost to God.

Yet the variety of punishments is like the variety of sins. But which punishments belong to whom is for the Wisdom of God to judge. Human understanding can neither embrace nor express this.

Above, the Lord said to His disciples: "If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name's sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me" (Jn 15:20-21).

If we ask of whom He said this, we shall see that He passed to these words from what had already been said: "If the world hates you, know that it hated Me before it hated you" (Jn 15:18).

Now, by adding, "If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin," He indicated the Jews with all clarity.

Therefore He also spoke those previous words about them, as the connection of the words itself indicates.

For He said, "If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin," about those of whom He had previously said, "If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name's sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me" (Jn 15:22-23).

To these very words He added: "If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin."

Thus the Jews persecuted Christ, as the Gospel shows with all clarity. Christ spoke to the Jews and not to other nations. Therefore He wanted the world that hates Christ and His disciples to be understood as they.

Certainly not they alone, but also those whose belonging to the world He showed.

What then does it mean: "If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin"? Were the Jews without sin before Christ came to them in the flesh? What astonishing fool could say this?

Yet He wished that under this general name not every sin should be understood, but a certain great sin. For this is the sin that contains all sins. Whoever does not have this sin has the other sins forgiven.

This sin consists in their not having believed in Christ, who came so that they might believe in Him. This, then, is the sin which they would not have had if He had not come.

His coming proved as saving for those who believed as it proved destructive for those who did not believe.

So He Himself, the Head and Prince of the apostles, became what they said of themselves: "to some a fragrance from life to life, and to others a fragrance from death to death" (cf. 2 Cor 2:16).

But what He added and said, "But now they have no excuse for their sin," can trouble us and raise a question.

Do those to whom Christ did not come, and with whom He did not speak, have a justification for their sin?

For if they have no justification, why is it said here that those Jews have no justification on the ground that He came to them and spoke to them?

But if they have justification, will they thereby receive freedom from punishments, or will they be punished less severely?

To these questions, as far as I can, with the Lord's help, I shall answer that they have a justification not for all their sins, but for that sin of not believing in Christ, since He did not come to them and did not speak to them.

But such people do not include those to whom He came in the person of His disciples, and to whom He spoke through His disciples, as He continues to do even now.

For through His Church He came to the Gentiles, and through the Church He speaks with the Gentiles.

To this pertain the words: "He who receives you receives Me" (Mt 10:40), and, "He who rejects you rejects Me" (Lk 10:16).

The apostle Paul said: "Do you seek proof of Christ speaking in me?" (2 Cor 13:3).

It remains to learn whether those can have this justification who, before Christ came in the person of the Church to the Gentiles, and before they heard His Gospel, were overtaken by death.

Certainly they can, but on this basis they cannot escape punishment. For "those who sinned without the law will also perish without the law; and those who sinned under the law will be judged by the law" (Rom 2:12).

Since the apostle's word "perish" sounds more fearful than "be judged," these words seem to prove that this justification will not only fail to help them, but will also burden them more.

For those who justify themselves by saying they did not hear will perish without the law.

But a fair question arises. Those who heard Him and despised Him, or even resisted His words, did not merely oppose them. They persecuted with hatred those from whom they heard them.

Should they be counted among those of whom it seems to be said less severely, that they will be judged by the law?

Yet if it is one thing to perish without the Law and another to be judged by the Law, and one punishment is harsher and the other milder, they certainly should not be related to the milder punishment.

They did not sin under the Law. Rather, they utterly refused to accept the law of Christ and, as far as it was in their power, strove to destroy it completely.

Those sin under the Law who are under the Law. That is, they accept it and acknowledge that the law is holy, and the commandment holy and righteous and good (Rom 7:12).

Yet through weakness they do not fulfill what is most justly prescribed in it, about which they cannot doubt.

Perhaps their lot should differ in some way from the lot of those outside the Law, if the apostle's words, "they will be judged by the law," are to be understood as though he had said that they will not perish.

It would be astonishing if this were so.

His subject was not believers and unbelievers, but Gentiles and Jews. They, of course, cannot find salvation except in the Savior, who came to seek what was lost (cf. Lk 19:10).

That is, without doubt they are doomed to perdition.

Yet it can be said that for some perdition will be heavier, and for others lighter. That is, some will receive heavier punishments in their perdition, and others lighter ones.

For it is said that one is lost to God when, by punishment, he is separated from that blessedness which He grants to His saints.

But punishments are as varied as transgressions are varied. What the punishment will be, divine Wisdom will determine. Its judgment is far deeper than human conjectures and powers of speech.

It is clear that those to whom Christ came and to whom He spoke have no such justification for their great sin of unbelief, whereby they could say, "We did not see and did not hear."

Either this justification will not be accepted by Him whose judgments are unsearchable, or it will be accepted so that, if it does not free them from every punishment, they will clearly be punished in some lighter way.

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.

Christ came to earth and did everything on His part for the salvation of men. If men hated Him, they hated Him without cause. It is their own fault that they did not recognize in Him the Messiah, the Savior of the world. This did not take place against the will of the saving God. God foresaw it, foretold it through the mouth of the prophet, and thereby gave men a warning.

But since they blinded their own eyes and, in their blindness, treated Christ with hatred and blasphemy, they fell into a sin which nothing can excuse. For that reason it will not be forgiven them, unless they repent. “If I had not come,” from heaven, from My Father to earth, as the Messiah and Redeemer of mankind, “and had not spoken to them,” setting forth the whole teaching about My person and My work as Messiah. And offering the whole teaching about the redemption of mankind by Me, then they would not have had the sin of unbelief in Me and My Father, nor enmity against Us. Their sin would have been only ignorance of the ways of God. Such ignorance does not lead to hardness and hatred against Christ and God, and can be forgiven with repentance. But now, when the Lord has set forth the teaching about Himself and His work, they have no excuse in this sin of unbelief and hatred against Christ and God.

If there had not been so wondrous an appearing of Christ, so lofty a teaching of Christ, and so full a reflection of the light of the ancient prophecies in the life of Jesus Christ, then the terrible sin of stubbornness against God would not have lain upon the Jews. Christ Jesus Himself said this to them more than once (Jn 3:36; Jn 9:41). “But now they have no excuse for their sin”: now they have nothing with which to excuse themselves in their sin. The Apostle said the same about certain Christians. “If, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them” (2 Pet 2:20-21). A fearful condition.

“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.