15:23
The attitude a man has towards Jesus is the same they will have towards the Father, and vice versa. The Jewish leaders would claim to love God, even while they were hating Jesus, seeking His death. What they said was not true, for in hating Jesus they hated the Father too.
15:24
Jesus reiterates what He has shown the Jews. They had seen amazing miracles happen, they had seen people healed. Yet when they saw these things there reactions was only to be upset that they were done on the Sabbath, to feel threatened. This is the effect of sin in our lives. Without the grace of God, without God taking away the veil that is over our minds, we cannot see the truth. The oft repeated notion that the fact that people do not believe is God’s fault is complete nonsense. So the fact that Jesus did the works of God among them increased their guilt.
Jesus says again that in hating Him they hated the Father. Today it actually seems more appropriate to put it the other way round. In the current debates about human sexuality “Christian” proponents of accepting homo-sexuality claim to be following Jesus, yet in rejecting the word of God they are in reality hating Jesus because they hate the Father’s commands.
15:25
Jesus then refers to Psalm 35:19, or Psalm 69:4, or Psalm 109:3. Jesus’ use of the term “Law” here shows that “Law” is often used to refer to the whole of the Old Testament. Jesus saw the things that happened to godly people in the OT as foreshadowing what would happen to Him, but to a much greater extent. Give what Jesus has said earlier in this chapter, we must also expect the world to hate us without reason. We should act reasonable and kindly, and sometimes this will be effective, but at other times regardless of what we do others will treat us badly and without cause.
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