John 16:2, commentary and pictures

Jesus told His faithful disciples beforehand that they would be cast out of the synagogues and killed by people convinced they were doing service to God.
He gave the warning so that when the time comes they would remember He had told them, believe in Him, know they are not forgotten, and not be stumbled, intimidated or turned from the faith.
Such hatred comes without cause because the persecutors do not truly know the Father nor Christ, being worked upon by Satan to mistake darkness for light until zeal becomes a weapon against God, and sincerity does not make them guiltless when light has been willfully rejected.
It was fulfilled when Jewish leaders imprisoned the apostles, when the Jews crucified Christ and Saul pursued Christians thinking it service to God, and it will appear again against those who keep God's commandments and the seventh-day Sabbath when human laws enforce Sunday observance and the State upholds church decrees.
Those who meet it are to stand fast in Christ's peace with patience and meekness, clad in the whole armor of God, never oppressing others for difference of doctrine.

Words and Setting

The warning was spoken alone to the faithful disciples in the upper chamber after Judas withdrew, because the multitude could not understand these sacred truths. It belongs to the farewell words of comfort, counsel and prayer in John 15-17 on the night of His last suffering, given so that troubled hearts would not sink in coming disappointment and trial. It was instruction given before He was separated from them as their visible counselor, preparing them for the work they would have to do without Him. Even the disciples did not fully understand it until after the resurrection, but they repeated it again and again, and its truth spread through their testimony over all lands, to live through all ages to comfort the desponding and give peace and hope to thousands who believe.

The verse is part of the plain outline and plain expression of God's will given in John 13-17, also described with John 6 and with John 14-17 and with John 16:1-15. It is given for those who minister in word and doctrine and are acquainted with present truth, presented as instruction for every church and as a message to be shared in every home. It means just what it says, and those who minister need to be converted in order to understand from it the philosophy of genuine missionary work, and are to believe every verse in these chapters and live them out before their fellow ministers and in practical life. So lived out it cures dissension, producing unity with one another and with Christ and love that stands as an impregnable wall against the assaults of the enemy, so that those who live it will stand the test in the shaking time when everything that can be shaken will be shaken. Its meaning is opened when the Holy Spirit comes as upon the disciples on the day of Pentecost, so that blinded eyes are opened and the scales fall from them. That opened instruction shows what God desires to do for the human race, teaches how to receive Christ's grace, lays down the conditions of belonging to His people when He comes in glory, and shows that God's commandment-keeping people are a distinct people.

Jesus spoke with full foreknowledge, reading the future as an open book and knowing every phase of experience and affliction that would come upon them. He knew He was about to be separated from His disciples and leave them exposed like sheep among wolves to suffer persecution for witnessing to Him as the Messiah and the anointed One. He told openly and plainly beforehand that they would face scorn, expulsion from the synagogues, imprisonment and death, with Stephen the first to win the martyr's crown. He was grieved that they must pass through manifold afflictions from the world and face a time of trial with great temptation to lose their faith and have their faith sorely tried. He did not deceive them with false hope but mingled the dark foretelling with the bright, hopeful part of the future, especially the coming of the Comforter, joining the warning with words of hope and courage about His continued work for them. It belongs to His words of encouragement in John 14, 15 and 16, spoken because He knew the trials that would come to His church, full of encouragement and hope to those who study it, imparting courage to stand fast in the most trying hour and bringing strength and assurance to the true believer as long as time shall last, with lessons given so they would not be left in ignorance and would be strengthened for what lay ahead. This instruction is of highest value for every soul consecrating life to the service of God.

Purpose of Forewarning

Christ spoke beforehand so that when expulsion from the synagogues and killing by those convinced they serve God should come, His followers would remember He had told them, believe in Him as Redeemer, know that God would not forget them and that the Spirit would remain, and would not be offended, stumbled, intimidated, cast down, or turned from faith to avert suffering. The warning was given to prepare them so that trial would not catch them unprepared or cause them to abandon faith, and remembering it upholds believers and fits them to endure without giving up belief. When the Jewish leaders imprisoned the apostles for teaching contrary to cherished doctrines, the Holy Spirit brought these words to their minds, so they were not intimidated or cast down, and their suffering for His name at the hands of those who knew not Him who sent Him was seen as the fulfillment of what had been foretold.

The forewarning teaches that all who are loyal and true according to light received, who obey God's commandments and do His works, will assuredly meet tribulation no less than ancient worthies, for the servant is not greater than his Lord who Himself was persecuted. That hatred is without cause, coming merely because they obey rather than work contrary to God, and a faultless life and blameless character will not prevent it, just as Christ who was pure, holy, undefiled and did only good was treated as a base criminal and condemned to death without evidence. The most bitter hatred does not come from the world who make no profession, but from those professing to be doing God service, and their suffering comes because they follow Jesus and bear His name, even unto indignity, reproach, cruelty, torture and death.

He did not flatter believers with promise of no trials and no difficulties nor leave them to fight alone as a living Saviour, but told beforehand the plan of the battle and what they are to meet. His peace does not prevent divisions or persecution but is given and enjoyed in their midst. That killing in terrible deception reveals a struggle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers and rulers of darkness and spiritual wickedness in high places, so believers must put on the whole armor of God to stand in the evil day, fighting as in the presence of the universe of heaven with angels that excel in strength and Christ as Captain of the Lord's host doing the warring and gaining the victory and giving power to every true soldier through divine power and partaking of the divine nature.

Cause of Persecution

Expulsion from the synagogues and killing by those who think they are serving God happen because the persecutors have not known the Father nor Christ. They have no experimental knowledge of them, having forgotten their Creator while bold in supposed superiority, and even on the cross Christ revealed the love of the God they did not know. The hatred is without cause, coming merely because the loyal obey God's commandments and do His works, and a faultless life will not prevent it, just as Christ who was pure, holy and did only good was treated as a criminal and condemned without evidence. The most bitter hatred comes not from the professing world but from those professing to serve God, and remembering that Christ told it beforehand upholds believers when the time comes and keeps them from being intimidated, cast down, offended or stumbled.

The persecutors are stirred by satanic power and deception, so that they mistake darkness for light and call evil good. Resisting the Holy Spirit once makes it easier to resist again until wrongdoing seems like service, as seen when the Jews rejected Christ until they believed crucifying Him was service to God. Through superstition Satan works upon minds after the pure Word has been presented and resisted, until convicted resisters taken by darkness oppose the truth and all who believe it with intense opposition while thinking they serve God. Through pride, self-righteousness and hatred Satan works on professed followers who reject light, reproof and correction, cling to their own purposes and maintain the independence of the natural heart, until religious zeal is turned into a weapon against God and they misjudge the faithful who obey according to conscience. Oppressing people because they hold a different doctrine is such deception and gives evidence of taking Satan's side, since Satan oppresses those who love God and Christ set no such example, and religious conviction so joined to moral delusion and perversion shows no Christlikeness even when its holders imagine themselves right.

Sincerity in thinking to serve God does not make persecutors guiltless when they have willfully received light and chosen to disregard it. They may have seen the truth's power and holiness, as France had before persecuting Protestants, yet willful rejection of the light that would have saved them from deception leaves them under blood-guiltiness. Professed zeal for God does not make unjust conduct righteous, whether in grave wrongs done in God's name or in Paul's pursuit of Christians from city to city before he believed, which shows a conscience can be mistaken and sincere conviction alone does not make an action right. Religious standing and majority opinion cannot turn a self-willed mistaken course into genuine suffering for Christ, as when a claim to be serving God by a self-imposed practice of health reform could not make it a pattern others should follow.

Past Fulfillments

The warning was fulfilled when the Jewish leaders imprisoned the apostles for teaching ideas contrary to their cherished doctrines. They acted from what they called righteous indignation because they rejected the teaching and would not consider that they had misunderstood Scripture. It had been told beforehand so that the disciples would remember it when the time came and would not be intimidated or cast down. The Holy Spirit brought the words to their minds in that hour, and their suffering for Christ's name at the hands of men who did not know Him who sent Him showed the foretelling come to pass.

It was fulfilled when the Jews rejected Christ because He exposed their hearts and reproved their sins. They would not come to the Light for fear their evil deeds would be reproved, but chose darkness rather than light. Refusing light and correction until self-deceived and deluded, they believed that crucifying Him was doing God service. God sets light before men with evidence sufficient to balance faith on the side of truth and does not compel belief, while Satan presents darkness crying that light and truth are with him. Those who surrender to God choose the light, but those who maintain the independence of the natural heart and stubbornly carry out their own purposes in the face of plainest evidence come into as great deception as came upon the Jews and in blind infatuation go to as great lengths while flattering themselves they are doing work for God. After resisting the Spirit once they find it easier to resist again, until wrongdoing seems like service.

The same delusion led Saul in pursuing Christians from city to city. Later at Lystra false accusations turned people who had been ready to worship Paul and Barnabas into a hostile crowd that thought their deaths would benefit God and humanity. The prediction was fulfilled more broadly in the indignities, reproach, cruelty, torture and death inflicted on His followers for their faithfulness. The danger included poisoning, from which the Lord specially protected His apostles. Their work depended not on their own strength but on the Holy Spirit, and the gospel mission would continue through their successors to the end of time. A hostile public attack such as McCullagh's is of this same morally perverted, self-deluded kind in which deluded judgment persecutes Christ's followers while believing it serves God.

Future Final Crisis

The same spirit that drove past conflicts will appear again in the closing work, when persecution is kindled anew against those who fearlessly serve God according to the dictates of conscience. Their motives will be impugned, their best efforts misinterpreted, and their names cast out as evil by those who seek to destroy the faithful while thinking they are serving God. Professed followers of Christ, driven by pride, self-righteousness and hatred, will misjudge them, falsely accuse them and hate them, mistaking darkness for light and regarding attack on God's children as religious duty under Satan's influence to make evil appear good and good evil. The warning was given beforehand so that followers would remember the words when persecution came, and to stand in that evil day will require moral courage, firmness, and a knowledge of God and His word, for Satan will then work with fascinating power to influence the heart and becloud the understanding.

The warning reaches to later times and applies to those who accept the binding claims of God's law and conscientiously keep the seventh-day Sabbath, who may be turned out of churches yet are precious to God. When civil law no longer protects them, renewed hostility will again be expressed with force, imprisonment, fines and reproach to compel obedience in conflicts over the Sabbath law, continuing the path of trial followed by the church's faithful members. In the trials of the last days even relatives deceived by the enemy will betray believers and try to force them to deny their faith, so believers need Scripture, faith, divine wisdom and trust in Christ to remain steadfast. Honest signers of petitions to make Sunday law suppose they serve God, though Sunday is a spurious sabbath without biblical authority, and in the Southern States and elsewhere religious prejudice, bigotry, blind zeal and human laws opposed to God's law threatened merciless violence against Sabbathkeepers, calling for careful, quiet work that would not needlessly provoke persecution.

Killing believers while claiming to serve God by protecting the rights of church and State comes from human hearts controlled by rage and malice, and almost every century shows what they can do under that plea. It was seen when the Papacy crushed human liberty and killed the saints, and when Protestant churches allied with worldly powers restricted liberty of conscience, and it will happen again when the State enforces the decrees and institutions of the church and Protestant America forms an image of the Papacy. Then human enactments and stringent laws manufactured by satanic agencies under a plea of goodness and restriction of evil will be exalted while God's holy enactments are despised and trampled, and all who prove loyalty by obedience to the law of Jehovah must be prepared to be arrested and brought before councils whose standard is not the high and holy law of God, as at the trial of Christ when rulers condemned Him by their own law. The hatred is without cause, coming merely because the loyal obey the commandments of God and do His works, and a faultless life and blameless character will not prevent it, just as Christ who was pure, holy, undefiled and did only good was treated as a base criminal and condemned without evidence, because persecutors have no experimental knowledge of the Father nor of Christ and are stirred by satanic power. Religious zeal may hide satanic influence while outward religious forms continue even after God's Spirit has been withdrawn, applying both to the killing of Christ's ministers and apostles and to a future decree against those who remain faithful, and France's persecution of Protestants after the nation had seen the truth's power and holiness illustrates the guilt of those whose sincerity does not excuse them when they have wilfully rejected light. The persecuting spirit is unchanged despite a fair front and claims that persecution has ended, and persecution always follows when secular governments favor one doctrine or religion.

In the last days Christ will be rejected and antichrist accepted as human commandments and false laws are rigorously enforced, bringing consciences under human control and setting people against God's immutable law. Believers cut off from church fellowship for expressing their hope in Christ's coming illustrate the foretold exclusion from religious fellowship. Persecutions and trials upon those who have the pure Word of God are right upon us, for after the Word is presented in its purity and people make their decision, those who were convicted but resisted the conviction of the Spirit are taken by the forces of the powers of darkness. Through superstition Satan then works upon their minds until there is an intensity of opposition to the truth and to everybody who believes it, while they think they are serving God.

Faithful Response Today

Opposition to truth may be fierce even to persecution, yet those who oppose may sincerely think they are serving God, as Paul once did in his persecuting course. Those who meet such opposition are to meet it with patience, meekness and long-suffering rather than by denunciation of opponents. In the trials of the last days relatives deceived by the enemy will betray believers and seek to force denial of faith, especially in conflict over the Sabbath law, so believers need Scripture, faith, divine wisdom and trust in Christ to remain steadfast. To stand in that evil day will require moral courage, firmness and a knowledge of God and His word, for Satan will work with fascinating power to influence the heart and becloud the understanding, to make evil appear good and good evil.

Those who fearlessly serve God according to conscience will face persecution kindled anew, with motives impugned, best efforts misinterpreted and names cast out as evil by men professing to be representatives of Christ taking the same course as the priests and rulers in their treatment of Paul. The worst affliction to the church comes not from unbelievers but from unsanctified members inside who think they are doing God's service. Self-willed persons moved by impulse become instruments in Satan's hands to obtain sympathizers and bring weakness, clogging the wheels, questioning, finding fault, and creating suspicion, disunion and a disordered state in school and church, often working as a hidden under-current not yet fully developed, so great caution is needed in choosing persons for responsibility.

The same self-deception leads brethren lacking faith in God's workers to feel it their special duty to make the work as hard as possible for those who most need their help, opposing every step of advance not from design to injure but because they think they do right, having trained themselves for years to oppose whatever their inclination views unfavorably. It leads to opposing God's appointed workers, stirring up prejudice against them, closing the door to fair and Christlike investigation of points of truth, and mistreating and ignoring God's testimony while the spirit at work is not God's Spirit but serves the enemy's cause. It leads to tearing down influence by spreading slander and false reports repeated so long that the repeaters believe them true, with the misguided zeal Saul had in persecution, convinced the attack itself is service to God. It includes creating suspicion, division and disorder under Satan's influence while thinking to do right, even to persecuting and killing Christ's followers in belief of serving God, and it extends to attacks on institutions such as the Health Retreat, to aiming weapons at brethren doing God's appointed work through evil leaven, blindness about speech and self-seeking zeal.

The lesson for those so opposed is to expect disappointment from men, to walk humbly before God, to remain kind and nonretaliatory rather than avenging self, and to keep His honor ever before the mind, trusting in God and seeking His guidance, intercession and approval. A person who undermines God's work may flatter himself that his actions are righteous, but his work will be judged by God. Oppressing people because they hold a different doctrine is a deception reaching down to the present and gives evidence of taking Satan's side, since Satan oppresses those who love God and Christ set no such example. Professed zeal for God does not make unjust conduct righteous, for grave wrongs can be committed while believing to serve God.

That warning applies to those reproved for inconsistency in religious life and conduct dangerous to themselves and others, who refuse the correction sent to set them right, put their own interpretation on Scripture to make it contradict what God has revealed, and keep working with apparent zeal convinced they serve God when God has not given them that work to do, which is Satan working through them to make the testimony of the Spirit of God of no effect. It applies to those claiming great spiritual light who persecute and even kill God's faithful while believing they serve Him, for religious standing and majority opinion do not guarantee truth, and humble seekers who obey Bible truth may be rejected by influential leaders.