Persecution from the World
John 16:1-7
Jesus came to this earth so that people would believe in Him and be saved from sin, death and hell. This has been the message of the Gospel of John (John 20:31): “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.” All through our study of the Gospel of John we have seen Jesus presented as the Son of God who lays down His life to save His people from their sins. We have seen what it means to believe in Jesus. And some in the Gospel account have believed. They have stayed with Jesus when others have left. They have received His words. They abide with Jesus. Many of us have followed their example and have believed in Jesus also.
What should a person expect when they, by faith, embrace Christ as their Lord and Savior? As Jesus teaches His disciples on the night He is betrayed in John 13-16, He is brutally honest with them. He has told them He is leaving them. They cannot go with Him where He is going now.
As Jesus prepares His disciples for His departure He presents two parallel tracks in His teaching. One, He gives them wonderful, encouraging promises to comfort and strengthen them. And two, He warns them of the persecution that they will face as His followers. John MacArthur writes about how the promises and the persecution are related. He says,
“…the promises are our hope in the midst of our persecution. … ‘The world will hate you,’ Jesus said, ‘but I will love you.’ … ‘The world will be your enemy, but I will be your friend,’ our Lord said. ‘The world will persecute you, and abuse you, and kill you; but I will supply all your needs, answer all your prayers, and give you everlasting life. The world will give you trouble, but I will give you peace. The world will bring you sadness, and I will give you joy. The world will be under the power of Satan, but you will be under the power of the Spirit.’”
Following Jesus is both challenging and comforting. It will bring adversity and advantage, affliction and affection, suffering and solace. Jesus shows these two aspects of the Christian life again in John 16:1-7,
1 “These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be made to stumble. 2 They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service. 3 And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me. 4 But these things I have told you, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them. And these things I did not say to you at the beginning, because I was with you.
5 “But now I go away to Him who sent Me, and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’ 6 But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. 7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.”
Jesus had already begun to warn His disciples of the hatred of the world starting in John 15:18, “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.” The world will hate them because they are identified with Christ (John 15:18, 20); because they do not belong to the world (John 15:19); because the world does not know God (John 15:21); and because Jesus exposes their sin (John 15:22-24).
But the commission that Jesus gives His disciples in this hostile world is to be His Spirit-empowered witnesses (John 15:26-27), “But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning.”
That is the mission. And here in John 16 Jesus didn’t try to hide the hard truth. It will not be an easy task. Jesus sends us into a self-seeking, pleasure-oriented world to proclaim that the Holy God is going to judge sinners, but that through His Son Jesus Christ He has provided for forgiveness of sins and eternal life. This message is sure to bring hostility from the world that is under the rule of the evil one.
Look at His warnings. Jesus details for His disciples two of the worst forms of persecution that they should expect as they go out into the world as witnesses for Him. Jesus warns them about,
1. The Risks:
A. Removal from the synagogue.
John 16:2a, “They will put you out of the synagogues …”
This wasn’t any light matter for the Jews. All social, economic, and religious life focused on the synagogue. To be cast out of the synagogue was to virtually have your life destroyed. They automatically became religious outcasts, social outcasts, to suffer financial and be shunned by your family.
We already saw a taste of this in John 9 after Jesus healed the man born blind. The Pharisees called in his parents and grilled them about how their blind son was made to see. The parents said (John 9:21), “… we do not know. He is of age; ask him …” Then John writes (John 15:22), “His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had agreed already that if anyone confessed that He was Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue.” When the formerly blind man defended Jesus before the Pharisees “they cast him out” (John 9:34).
Over and over in the book of Acts you will find that those who preach Christ will be thrown out of the synagogues. It was almost inevitable. They would preach Christ to the Jews in the synagogue. A few might believe but most would not. They would be kicked out of the synagogue, then they would go preach the gospel to the Gentiles.
If being put out of the synagogues wasn’t bad enough, Jesus added something else in John 16:2,
B. They will kill you as a service to God.
John 16:2b, “ yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service.”
These very things did happen to the disciples. Who better illustrates this than Saul, before his conversion? Saul of Tarsus, who later became the Apostle Paul, was one of those that persecuted the church in this very manner. The story of this is told in Acts 8 & 9. Saul was a zealous Pharisee who believed that he was serving God by persecuting the followers of Jesus Christ. Not until Jesus revealed Himself and confronted Saul on the road to Damascus did he change his mind and become a follower of Christ.
Paul later gives his testimony in Acts 22 and 26 saying,
(Acts 22:3-4) 3 “I am indeed a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the strictness of our fathers’ law, and was zealous toward God as you all are today. 4 I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women,
(Acts 26:9-11) 9 “Indeed, I myself thought I must do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. 10 This I also did in Jerusalem, and many of the saints I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against [them]. 11 And I punished them often in every synagogue and compelled [them] to blaspheme; and being exceedingly enraged against them, I persecuted [them] even to foreign cities.”
Jesus says “the time is coming” when they will do these things to you. Up to this moment in time, the disciples had not experienced anything like this kind of persecution in the time they had spent with Jesus. Jesus felt the brunt of the opposition so far. But when Jesus is gone and they take his message to the world, all this will come on them too.
Why would this happen to followers of Christ?
2. The Reasons:
If I were to ask you why Christians are persecuted and hated, there might be a number of responses, but for time’s sake we’ll only deal with two that Jesus gave us in the text.
A. Supposed service to God.
First Jesus said that men would kill them thinking that they were doing God a service. That was Saul, right? Sometimes we may be surprised because persecution often comes from the religious world, where we naively might expect a receptive audience. Religion has always been a major perpetrator of persecution. The Pharisees and chief priests persecuted Jesus, the Jews persecuted the apostles, the pagans tried to kill the apostles, the Roman Papal church persecuted true believers, and false religions are still persecuting Christians today.
But then Jesus said in verse three that the real cause of the hatred, the murders and exclusions was
B. Not knowing God or Christ.
He said (John 16:3), “And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me.” If they really knew God and really sought Him, then they would know Jesus and rather than persecuting the believers they would be counted among them.
3. Our Response:
Three responses that Jesus wants from His disciples in the face of this opposition and persecution. You can spot them by looking for the phrase “These things I have spoken to you …” You see that in John 16:1. The again in John 16:4, “But these things I have told you …” And again in John 16:6, “But because I have said these things to you …”
Jesus spoke these hard truths to the disciples so that they would have three responses.
A. Don’t stumble
We saw this in John 16:1, “These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be made to stumble.” Jesus is speaking plainly to them about the hatred of the world and the persecution that they will face because He does not want them to “stumble.” This is the word σκανδαλίζω (skandalízō). It means to be caught in a trap or to cause to trip and fall.
As John is writing his Gospel toward the end of the first century he has seen persecution firsthand. It was inevitable that some of those who called themselves Christians would stumble and fall away under persecution. Jesus pictured these kind of fair-weather followers in His parable of the sower (Matthew 13). Some of the seed fell on stony places where the soil was shallow. Jesus said (Matthew 13:20-21), “But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles.” Same word there “stumbles,” falls away.
Jesus wants better things for His disciples. He disciples who will abide, remain, bear fruit, even in the face of trouble and persecution. This is why He warns them.
Don’t expect to live for Christ and proclaim Christ without suffering for Christ. After Paul and Barnabas had preached the gospel and made disciples Acts 14:22 tells us that they returned, “strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and saying, “We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God.”” Paul wrote to Timothy (2 Tim. 3:12), “Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.” Jesus said that all His disciples must take up their cross (an implement of a slow, tortuous death) and follow Him (Matt. 16:24).
Don’t let the trouble and hardship and persecution cause you to stumble and fall away. Jesus has warned us what it would be like.
B. Don’t be surprised
John 16:4 Jesus says, “But these things I have told you, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them …” He told them so that they would not be surprised. When things would begin to get rough, they’d never be able to sit around and complain about what Jesus had gotten them into. He made it very clear for them.
Peter had a similar message to the churches (1 Pet. 4:12-13), “Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy.”
If we expect persecution we will not be surprised or think it strange that it is happening. Instead Peter says we can rejoice in it. Our inheritance is not in this world, but in Christ. So Paul writes (Rom. 8:16-17), “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.”
Don’t stumble, don’t be surprised and,
C. Don’t sorrow
John 16:6, “But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.” Their sorrow that night was mostly because Jesus had told them He was leaving. They had put all their faith in Jesus establishing the kingdom of God right then during their lives, but now it doesn’t seem to be happening.
Jesus trying to encourage the right response from these men. He knew His words had caused them sorrow that night. But Jesus’ departure through His death would not be the end of the story. Later in John 16:20 Jesus says, “Most assuredly, I say to you that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; and you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy.” Jesus will be crucified that very next day while the world mocked and laughed and they would grieve. But something would change all that. Why would they be able to rejoice? John 16:22, “Therefore you now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you.” Jesus would be raised from the dead. They will see Him again. He will return to His Father and even better, He will give them the Holy Spirit which is far better for them. John 16:7, “Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.”
As Jesus said about the Spirit in John 14:21, “…He dwells with you and will be in you.” Jesus does not leave His disciples as orphans (John 14:22). He comes to them permanently through His Holy Spirit to indwell them and empower them for their mission in this world. Remember in John 14:12 Jesus said that those who believe in Him would do greater works because He goes to His Father.
Rejoice! God has given us His Holy Spirit. He is working through us to win a lost world to Christ through the proclamation of the gospel.
Well to bring it home then, we need to realize that we’re not here today just to enjoy a great church home where you can be comfortable and feel good. Jesus is still concerned about global missions, about reaching people in this town and every town and city and state and nation from here to the other side of the world, and if you’re going to be a part of that then you’ll have to be willing to pay the price.
Are you? Have you been settling for a feel good watered down kind of faith that requires little? Have you been hiding and hoping that God doesn’t want service from you? Don’t stumble, don’t be surprised, don’t sorrow. Christ wants to work through you for His glory.
