If someone came to your town and cured all the sick and crippled and blind, and gave food for the hungry, and did many other things no one else could do, would every one honor that person? That is what we would think everyone would do.
There has only been One who did all those good things for people, and besides, always spoke what was true and what was right for God. That One was the Lord Jesus. Yet many did not honor Him; instead, they hated Him, though he had done no wrong. Jesus said of them, “They hated Me without a cause.”
Kindness Refused
Those words were in the scriptures written long before and told how many hated Him: “They that hate Me ... are more than the hairs of mine head” (Psa. 69:4). Why had they hated Him when He had always been right? It was because they were doing wrong to others and to God, and thought no one knew their sins, and wanted to keep on with them. Because He had come and spoken God’s words to them, they had “no cloak for their sin.” That meant they had no way to cover or hide their sins, no excuse for them.
He had come to save them from their sins, and offer blessing for all. So it was the kindness and love of God they refused in order to have their own ways. Their hatred was so terrible they had tried to stone Him and were then planning His death.
The Lord called the people who were against Him, “the world.” When we use the word “world,” we may mean the countries and all creation, or the people, or the things they have made. The word is used in those ways in the Bible, as “God that made the world” (all creation, Acts 17:24); and “God so loved the world” (the people, John 3:16). But it is also often used as the Lord said here, meaning the people who do not believe or want to know God. “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated Me before it hated you.”
He told the disciples, “I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you” (John 15:19). They were still on earth, but not belonging with those who hated Him.
Blinded
The people who do not believe Christ can soon be led by Satan, who is called “prince of this world.” He is always against the Lord, and has “blinded the minds of them which believe not” until they think the things they can do or have in this world are better than the glory of God (2 Cor. 4:4; Eph. 2:2).
Even children can be led to follow Satan’s ways if they hear of the love of God and of His Son, the Lord Jesus, and do not believe or care to know Him.
The Lord again spoke to the disciples of the Holy Spirit to be sent to those who believed Him. The Spirit would help and comfort them, and teach them of Christ. One of these men, John, afterward wrote to “children” about the Spirit. He said, “greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world” (1 John 4:4).
Further Meditation:
1. What does it mean that they had “no cloak for their sins”?
2. Why is Satan refered to as the “prince of this world”?
3. An excellent and very encouraging book that comments on this portion of God’s Word is The Last Words by H. Smith.