Do not expect a place at the table. Following Jesus means rejecting this world, and the world will most certainly return the favor.
We should love each other the way Christ loves us, and we should bear the hatred of the world because it hated Christ first. Being a friend of Jesus makes us the enemies of the world. He chooses us out of the world, and sets us on the path back to Eden. Eden is not in this world, if you understand “this world” as the fallen human existence. Eden is whence we departed at the birth of this world, so going back to Eden means leaving this world behind. It doesn’t mean leaving the natural world, but leaving the fallen state that keeps us from communion with Creation.
John chose the Greek word for “hounding” to describe persecution. The world hounded Christ to the Cross, and it will try to drive us there with Him. But our embrace of that Cross is our greatest relief from this world. We have no human advantages over Jesus; we should expect no relief from this world except in turning from it. Yet those few in this world who embrace Christ will also embrace us. Jesus told His disciples to seek out the same kind of people who responded to the touch of their Master, and teach them what Jesus taught.
He also warned how the bitterest pill of all is how many would claim Christ artificially, only to turn around and reinforce the persecution of His true disciples. A lot of people will claim Christ without ever having gotten close to the Father. The primary failure of Israel up to this point was moving farther and farther away from divine revelation, yet insisting they were the only earthly source for the Word the Lord gave to them.
Jesus admitted that, had He not volunteered to come down in human form and prophesy and perform miracles, it would be hard for the Father to hold Israel accountable. By coming to provoke their awareness, He took away the false covering Jews wore to hide their sins. Their hatred against Jesus for doing that was proof they never really knew His Father. He repeated that same statement twice, drumming it into the awareness of these men as they all walked toward Gethsemane.
Here Jesus echos what David said in Psalm 35. David recounts how he had often given the benefit of the doubt to those he had to judge as part of his royal duties. But he had always been totally honest, while too many people attached to his service worked cowardly, behind his back in opposing him. So it was with Jesus, sharing with compassion the Word of God and giving God’s people every opportunity to repent and return. For this, they hated Jesus. David’s experience was a prophecy about the Messiah.
Granted, the disciples at this point were hardly prepared to confront the world as Christ had. So He holds out one hope for them: Once Jesus returns to His Father and takes up His co-regency, He will send His own Spirit to come in and live in their souls. The Spirit would awaken all the things Jesus had taught them, giving it all substance and meaning. This bunch had been with Him from the beginning of His ministry, so they held more then they even knew. Once the Spirit breathed life into that legacy, they would find the power to spread that same message of Jesus.
They would “bear witness” (Greek martyreo), a term already long symbolic of dying to the self in Hebrew, as well as Greek, so that one did not fear losing this life for the sake of God’s glory.
