The world is a vast system embracing every race, class, and false religion, having in common their hatred of God. The world by which the disciples were immediately surrounded was the world of corrupt Judaism. Today, the world with which believers are mainly in contact is the world of corrupt Christendom. Its outward form may change from age to age; at heart it is ever marked by alienation from God and hatred to Christ.

Why should these simple men be hated by the world? Were they not mainly a company of poor people who loved one another, who lived in an orderly way, being subject to the authorities, without interfering with their politics? Did they not go about proclaiming good news and doing good deeds? Why should such be hated?

The Lord gives two reasons for this hatred. First, they were a company of people that Christ had chosen out of the world: second, they were a company of people who confessed the name of Christ before the world (v. 21). The first cause would more particularly call forth the hatred of the religious world; the second the hatred of the world in general. But through all time, nothing has so enraged religious man as the sovereign grace that, passing by all man’s religious efforts, picks up and blesses the outcast and the wretched. The very mention of the grace that blessed a Gentile widow and a Gentile leper led the religious leaders of Nazareth to rise up in wrath and hatred against Christ (Lk. 4:24–30). The sovereign grace that blesses the younger son enrages the elder son (Lk. 15:25–32). Further the disciples are warned that this hatred will manifest itself in persecution: “If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you” (Jn. 15:20). This active expression of hatred is more directly connected with the confession of the name of Christ.