Digging Deeper: Joy in the House

In chapter 15, Jesus says to his disciples, “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.” 

And he adds, “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.” 

We who are “born from above,” as Jesus said to Nicodemus way back in chapter 3, do not see the world in the same way as the rest of humanity. We have the Spirit, and this access to the Spirit, to the very mind of God, gives us a new perspective on God’s Creation. God made us to be in his “image” and his “likeness.” In the Holy Spirit, the likeness of God is restored within us. We have the very mind of God. The reason the world hates those filled with the Spirit is because they do not have the Spirit living within them. They just don’t get it. It seems like nonsense to them. Their minds are limited to the Creation’s limited perspective because they do not see through the eyes of the Creator.

Many just don’t understand the Spirit, but there are some who even position themselves in opposition to the Spirit. The Spirit represents everything good about God and his dominion over his Creation, and these people want to be their own masters and choose for themselves what is good and what is not. That is why they hate the Spirit… because the Spirit claims to know better than they do. And as long as they are worshiping themselves, the Creation, they cannot love the Creator.

This is what the NET Bible translators have to say about these themes that are presented throughout John’s Gospel, and even in the later writings of John as well:

Two themes are brought together here. In John 8:23 Jesus had
distinguished himself from the world in addressing his Jewish opponents: “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world.” In John 15:16 Jesus told the disciples “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you.” Now Jesus has united these two ideas as he informs the disciples that he has chosen them out of the world. While the disciples will still be “in” the world after Jesus has departed, they will not belong to it, and Jesus prays later in John 17:15-16 to the Father, “I do not ask you to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” The same theme also occurs in 1^st John 4:5-6: “They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us.” Thus the basic reason why the world hates the disciples (as it hated Jesus before them) is because they are not of the world. They are born from above, and are not of the world. For this reason the world hates them.

Jesus also says:

“Whoever hates me hates my Father as well. If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’” 

Jesus is quoting from Psalm 35 when he says this, and he is alluding to the overall tone of that Psalm when he does so. The Psalm itself is a call for God to fight against the liars and the oppressors, those who have distorted justice for their own personal gain, even at the cost of the lives of others. Jesus himself will soon be a victim of these people.

But Jesus then goes on to talk about the future work of the Holy Spirit.

He says:

“When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.” 

The primary task it would seem of the Holy Spirit is to reveal the person of Jesus to people. Sometimes people confuse the primary task of the Spirit to be to impart gifts of the Spirit upon believers, such as gifts of prophecy, healing, or speaking in tongues. But the first and foremost goal of the Holy Spirit is to reveal Jesus to the world. Those other gifts are the natural overflow of getting to know and love Jesus and to be shaped and reshaped by him… and not everybody experiences that in the exact same way. Not everybody has the same gifts… but we all get Jesus.

Jesus also says:

“All this I have told you so that you will not fall away. They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God. They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me.”

Jesus prophecies here about what is going to happen to his followers. We see the disciples get kicked out of the Synagogue in the Book of Acts, and later we even see Paul, a rabbi himself, get kicked out when he comes to see Jesus for who he really is. But this is nothing new. Back in chapter 9, we already saw the blind man whom Jesus healed get kicked out for his testimony about Jesus. Jesus is saying that this kind of treatment shouldn’t come as a shock to his followers.

He also says about the Spirit:

“But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because people do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.” 

Now this passage is a little bit confusing. We’ve already seen the Spirit at work in the ministry of Jesus. Luke’s Gospel even specifically refers to the Holy Spirit at work. And even in the Old Testament we see God’s spirit of power coming upon people and filling them as they perform acts of worship. And yet the Spirit was not given until after Jesus returned to the Father.

So why isn’t the Spirit poured out on all people until after Jesus leaves?

Well, it would seem that the outpouring of the Spirit on all humanity was something that was prophesied about in the Old Testament (see Joel, etc.) as something that would be the inauguration of God’s coming Kingdom on Earth. And while we see the beginnings of God’s kingdom in the Old Testament, and especially later in the incarnation of Jesus, Jesus isn’t inaugurated as King over Creation, the Heavens and the Earth, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, until he returns to the Father to receive his crown from the Father. Once he receives God’s crown and is inaugurated as King (that’s what the ascension is all about), that is when the Spirit is free to inhabit the whole of Creation and not just pockets here and there.

It is because the Creator, in Jesus, became the Created. He became a part of this world, and when he was murdered but came back to life, he conquered the curse of this world… he conquered the world. And when he jumps back up into Heaven 40 days later, he receives the Crown over Creation. He becomes the all-powerful ruler over Heaven and Earth by the command of God… because he triumphed over the grave and over sin. Jesus’ word is now Law. And it is by the order of Jesus that the Holy Spirit is now poured out upon the whole of God’ Creation. Because Jesus has now received the full authority of the Father, and he has made a way for us to have access to God through his Holy Spirit.

Jesus says:

“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine.” 

Jesus says to his disciples that he has many more things he wants to tell them about, but they are not ready to hear them because they do not yet have the Spirit living inside of them. But one day, he says, they will. And when the Spirit comes to live inside of them, they will learn that the things the Spirit says to them are the very things that Jesus has been wanting to tell them this whole time. The words of the Spirit are the same as the words of Jesus. Those who know the Spirit, know Jesus.

Jesus again says that in a little while the disciples won’t see him anymore, but the disciples are still confused as to what Jesus is talking about, so Jesus tells them that very soon the world will rejoice while they mourn. 

He tells them that they will grieve, but they will see him again and they will rejoice when they see him and the joy they will receive is not something that the world is able to take away from them. 

He also tells them that one day he will no longer speak to them figuratively about the Father, but will speak plainly about Him – and not only because Jesus has an in with the Father, but because they love and know Jesus, they also have an in with the Father… because they have met him in Jesus. 

The disciples are like, “Finally! You’re not speaking in metaphors anymore! Now we know that you know all things! You know our questions before we ask them!” 

Jesus is like, “So you believe me now, do you? We’ll see about that. Pretty soon all of you will be scattered and leave me all alone… but I’m not alone… because my Father is with me.”