If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you.
Read Chapter 15
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
If the world hate you, &c. . . . it first hated Me. The Greek is πζω̃τον Ïμω̃ν, which is best rendered adverbially, meaning, the world hated Me before it hated you. I have trodden before you this path of hatred, and made it smooth for you, so that ye, following Me, may walk joyfully in the same way. For I give Myself to you not only as your companion in persecutions, but your standard-bearer, your leader and your guide. Worldly people He calls the world. By them He means1st, The Jews2d, Gentiles addicted to the spirit of the world, and therefore enemies of the doctrine and spirit of Christ.
Christ forewarns His Apostles against the impending hatred and persecutions of the Jews and Gentiles. For the darts which are foreseen are less apt to strike. Thus they would nobly overcome, yea, despise them, and would glory in them as the tokens of Christ. It Isaiah , as Ribera remarks, as though He said, Do not wonder or be troubled when the world hates you. It hated Me before you. R...
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.".
Remember the word that I spoke unto you, The servant is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted me, they will persecute you also.".
Remember the word which I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you."
We shall find the course pursued in each case by our Saviour in no way whatever inferior, as I suppose, to the skill and fine art of physicians, as He everywhere follows a plan profitable to His hearers. For physicians check the stubborn maladies which sometimes arise in bodies by means of the resources of their art. But Christ fences off the entrance to evil, fortifying as it were each individual soul with commands ensuring prevention. Since therefore the disciples were destined to be rulers, not indeed over one nation or one district only, but rather to be the instructors of the universe, and to preach to all throughout the world the message of the Gospel and of God, and to turn their hearers to a belief in the true God alone, and to change them from sin to a willingness to do what became them, and to make the law, I mean that of the Gospel, the rule of their life; He bids them account as nothing the hatred of the world, that is of those who set their hearts on worldly things and cho...
If the world hate you. The wicked, unbelieving world, hate and persecute you, as they have done me; remember, that the servant must not desire to be treated better than his master. (Witham)
