(18) If the world hate you.--He has spoken of their close union with Himself, and of their love to each other. He proceeds in the remainder of the chapter to speak of their relation to the world. There is a striking contrast between the "love" in the last verse, and the "hatred" in this. There was the more need for them to be close bound to each other, and to their Lord, on account of the hatred which awaited them in the world.

Ye know that it hated me before it hated you.--It is better to take the first word as an imperative, "Know that it hated . . ." The very hatred, then, is a bond of union with their Master, and this thought should supply strength to meet it, and joy even when suffering from it (John 15:11). (Comp. 1Peter 4:12-13.)

Verse 18. - You need net be surprised if the world hate you. "The world," κόσμος (five times used in strongly emphatic manner), is humanity apart from grace. This world will despise and hate your mutual love, will scorn your love to itself for my sake; will detest the higher and unworldly standard which you will set up. But here is some consolation. Know (γινώσκετε imperative, as μνημονεύετε in Ver. 20) that it has hated me before (it hated) you. "Me first, me most" (Lange). "The superlative contains the comparative" (Tholuck). "This hatred is a community of destiny with me" (Meyer). You know how it has hated me, and hunted me from Bethlehem to Egypt, from Nazareth to Capernaum, from Gergesa to Jerusalem. Be not surprised if it hate you.

15:18-25 How little do many persons think, that in opposing the doctrine of Christ as our Prophet, Priest, and King, they prove themselves ignorant of the one living and true God, whom they profess to worship! The name into which Christ's disciples were baptized, is that which they will live and die by. It is a comfort to the greatest sufferers, if they suffer for Christ's name's sake. The world's ignorance is the true cause of its hatred to the disciples of Jesus. The clearer and fuller the discoveries of the grace and truth of Christ, the greater is our sin if we do not love him and believe in him.If the world hate you,.... After our Lord had signified how much he loved his disciples and what great things he had done for them, he faithfully acquaints them with the world's hatred of them, and what they must expect to meet with from that quarter, and says many things to fortify their minds against it; his words do not imply any doubt about it, but he rather takes it for granted, as a thing out of question; "if", or "seeing the world hate you"; they had had some experience of it already, and might look for more, when their master was gone from them: wherefore, he, in order to engage their patience under it, says,

ye know that it hated me before it hated you; which words are an appeal of Christ to his apostles, for the usage he had met with from the wicked and unbelieving world of the Jews; how they had expressed their hatred, not only by words, calling him a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a sinner, a Samaritan, a madman, one that had a devil, yea, Beelzebub himself, but by deeds; taking up stones to stone him more than once, leading him to the brow of an hill, in order to cast him down headlong, consulting by various means to take away his life, as Herod did in his very infancy; which was done, before they showed so much hatred to his disciples; and perhaps reference may be had to the original enmity between the seed of the woman, and the seed of the serpent, mentioned Genesis 3:15; as well as to these instances. Moreover, the words , rendered "before you", may be translated "the first" or "chief of you", your Lord and head; and denotes the dignity, excellency, and superiority of Christ; wherefore it is suggested, that if he, who was so much before them in personal worth and greatness, was hated by the world, they should not think it hard, or any strange thing, that this should be their case.