Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                   Chapter Fifteen

                                                                                                                                              Verses 23-25

Jesus then informed His disciples that those who hated Him also hated His Father. Jesus' enemies who sought to kill Him actually hated the God whom they claimed to love.

Jesus had severely rebuked the Pharisees and the Sadducees because they had to a large extent replaced God's Law with their own invented laws that they used to excuse their sins, and they thought of themselves as having made themselves righteous and good when they actually needed to humble themselves to God and repent of their self-righteousness and their oppression of their people. The prideful Pharisees and Sadducees were in the first stages of those who desire to replace the true and living God with their own invented religion that they worship as their god. Humans often make a religion their god. Jesus had reminded them that for a long time they had been guilty of murdering the true prophets of God in order to protect their invented religion. The Sadducees, who were materialists, simply ignored the spiritual teachings of the Old Testament. The Pharisees actually sought to replace the true and merciful God of the Old Testament with their own invented religion that they thought would make them righteous and good. Matthew 23:1-36; Luke 18:9-14.

Jesus taught His disciples that if He had not come to perform the miracles that could only have come from God, and if He had not claimed to His enemies that He was God in human form, then they would have had no sin. The root of all evil is the "love of money." I Timothy 6:10. More people worship money than any other god. This phrase symbolically means that all sins are basically the desire to get rid of God so that one can become one's own god by the means of one's religion or by one's own power to live by one's own immoral code. If Jesus had not come to save all of His living humans by the sacrifice of Himself in their place, then humanity would not have had the opportunity to attempt to murder God. Jesus could not have charged them with having any sins. God would have overlooked their inevitable sins, but their sins would nevertheless still cause them to retain an eternal spiritual death which the Devil had injected into their inner beings. The Devil would still have an eternal claim on their lives. Jesus came to earth to break the Devils claim on all of God's living humans that He creates and loves and to cleanse and forgive them of all their sins that cause spiritual death. Hebrews 2:5-18; I John 3:8; John 5:28-29; Acts 24:15; Revelation 21:5. If Jesus had not come to earth to save humanity, then the Devil would have exercised his right to claim the souls and spirits of all living humans and keep them within the regions of death forever. The Devil would have destroyed a part of God's creation forever. But God can never lose anything He has ever created, and His Almighty Love can never fail. Ecclesiastes 3:14; I Corinthians 13:8.

Jesus reminded His disciples that there were Old Testament prophecies that Jesus' enemies would hate both Him and His Father for no good reason. Psalm 35:19; Psalm 69:4. Prideful rebellion against God happens to be a vain and empty reason to desire to murder Him. This prideful sin and evil within all humans nailed Jesus to the cross. Acts 4:25-28. But Jesus took away all of that prideful sin and evil through His death, burial, and resurrection. John 12:31-32; I John 3:8; I Corinthians 15:1-4; Revelation 5:11-14.