The World’s Hatred As Christ Saw It
Oct 30 by Admin
Today many evangelicals as well as many in the Emerging Church are under the mistaken idea that Christianity can live at peace with the world. In stark contrast in this sermon based on John 15:21-25 Alexander MacLaren (1826-1910) begins:
Our Lord has been speaking of the world’s hostility to His followers, and tracing that to its hostility to Himself. In these solemn words of our text He goes still deeper, and parallels the relation which His disciples bear to Him and the consequent hostility that falls on them, with the relation which He bears to the Father and the consequent hostility that falls on Him: ‘They hate you because they hate Me.’
And then His words become sadder and pierce deeper, and with a tone of wounded love and disappointed effort and almost surprise at the world’s requital to Him, He goes on to say, ‘They hate Me, because they hate the Father.’ So, then, here we have, in very pathetic and solemn words, Christ’s view of the relation of the world to Him and to God…
