My witnesses

 

v18-27    Our responsibility to the world  

My witnesses      From the saints we should experience love; from the world we will experience hatred.  In this context He appeals that we might shew patience and understanding, to become witnesses to the hateful world of a Divine love that can save them.  The word for witness is martur from which we derive the English word martyr which suggests the extreme possibility of loss of life due to witnessing.

“If the world hate you, ye  know that it hated me before it hated you.  If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world therefor the world hateth you.  Remember the word that I said unto you the servant is not greater than his Lord.  If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.  But all these things will they do unto you from my name’s sake.  Because they know not Him that sent me.  If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin.  He that hateth me hateth my Father also.  If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin; but now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father.  But this comes to pass that the word may be fulfilled, that it is written in their law-“they hated me without a cause.”  But when the Comforter is come, whom I shall send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of me.  And ye also shall bear witness, because ye had been with me from the beginning.”

This portion hardly needs any comment being self-interpreting, but we can note the various aspects as we go down the verses:

·      The world’s attitude to you will be the same as it was for me, that of hatred.

·      This is because you are not of the world which is in opposition to God-the world loves its own, you are different.  This is a truth John develops in his writings.

·      In the language of the hymn, “…it is the way the Master went, should not the servant tread it still?”

·      The world is ignorant of Him that sent me.

·      The world rejected my words and now they are exposed.

·      They also rejected my works, when evidence was placed before them.  Their sin is manifest.  It was never because they did not understand, it was because they did not love us, they didn’t want to know.

·      This is simply a fulfilment of what was predicted-citation from Psalm 35v19 and 69v4.

·      You will receive help when the Comforter is come, one just like me who will accompany you in testimony to the world. 

This is the second reference to the coming of the Divine Spirit; the first was to reveal His companionship with the disciples; this one focuses on His testimony to the world-a matter that will be developed in the next chapter.