John 15:23

He that hateth me hateth my Father also.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(23) He that hateth me hateth my Father also.—Comp. Note on John 5:23, and John 15:18 in this context. Again the darkness of the world’s hatred is drawn in the successive degrees of sin. Hatred against the disciples is hatred against the Master whom they represent. Hatred against the Son is hatred against the Father whom He represents. Hatred of the Father! There can be no greater darkness. The sinfulness of sin has in this thought reached its limit. God is love. The heart that can hate love has hardened itself, and cannot be loved.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

15:18-25 How little do many persons think, that in opposing the doctrine of Christ as our Prophet, Priest, and King, they prove themselves ignorant of the one living and true God, whom they profess to worship! The name into which Christ's disciples were baptized, is that which they will live and die by. It is a comfort to the greatest sufferers, if they suffer for Christ's name's sake. The world's ignorance is the true cause of its hatred to the disciples of Jesus. The clearer and fuller the discoveries of the grace and truth of Christ, the greater is our sin if we do not love him and believe in him.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

He that hateth me ... - To show them that this was no slight crime, he reminds them that a rejection of himself is also a rejection of God. Such is the union between them, that no one can hate the one without also hating the other. See John 5:19-20; John 14:7, John 14:9.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

22-25. (See on [1861]Joh 9:39-41).

If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin—comparatively none; all other sins being light compared with the rejection of the Son of God.

now they have no cloak for their sin—rather, "pretext."

Matthew Poole's Commentary

This agreeth with what we had, John 5:23. It is a common error of the world, that many in it would pretend to love God, while yet they are manifest haters of Christ and his gospel. Now, saith our Saviour, this is impossible; whosoever hateth him who is sent, hateth also him that sent him. God the Father and Christ are one, and no man can hate Christ, or be an enemy to Christ, but he must be an enemy to his Father: and as this is an aggravation of their sin, so it is a great argument of consolation to the disciples of Christ, that those who should be their enemies were such as were in reality God’s enemies.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

He that hateth me, hateth my Father also. The hatred the world bears to the followers of Christ, is interpretatively hatred to Christ himself; and hatred to Christ himself, is no other than hatred to his Father; and indeed, all the hatred that is shown by the men of the world to Christ, to his Gospel, and to his faithful ministers and followers, originally arises from that enmity, that is naturally in the heart of every unregenerate man against God: now since not only Christ, but the Father also, is hated by the world, the children of God and disciples of Christ may sit easier under all the resentment, frowns, and malice of the world.

Geneva Study Bible

He that hateth me hateth my Father also.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Expositor's Greek Testament

John 15:23. In hating me, they hate my Father whom I represent, ὁ ἐμὲ μισῶν … μισεῖ. In hating and persecuting me, it is God they hate.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

23. hateth my Father also] Comp. John 5:23, John 14:9.

Bengel's Gnomen

John 15:23. Μισῶν, he that hateth) Love accompanies faith; hatred, unbelief: ch. John 3:18-19.—καὶ, also) Implying the enormity of that sin of theirs.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 23. - He that hateth me, and by implication will hate you, hateth my Father also. The hatred of goodness in me, the refusal to accept my representation of their Father and mine, becomes a distinct hatred of God himself as I have revealed him. A God of war, a God of partisan jealousy for the honor of Israel, a God who would palliate fratricidal feud, and overlook blasphemous indifference to his true character, they might have tolerated; but the Father-God, whom they might have heard and seen in Christ, is hated by them. John 15:23