If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. (John 15:24)
Why doesn’t Jesus just appear? Surely if people saw Him they would believe? Wouldn’t that settle everything once and for all? Actually, no. Yes, if Jesus appeared everyone would believe Him. But what’s the value in that? So what if people ‘believe’ in Jesus? Satan also believes in Jesus. God is not trying to make people believe in Him. God is seeking people who love Him. This is radically different. Christianity is about loving Jesus, not just accepting that He is true. When John uses the word ‘belief’ he means wholehearted devotion to Jesus not just intellectual assent. This verse also tells us that even if Jesus did appear, we would hate Him, not love Him. Socrates, that very wise philosopher who lived about 470 years before Jesus said, “If ever a perfect man walked this earth we would kill him.” How right he was! People saw Jesus and hated Him. We don’t have an intellectual problem with Jesus we have a moral problem with Jesus because, as the verse says, He did works that no one else has ever done. He was perfect love incarnate. He was filled with kindness and mercy and truth. He loved people like no one else has ever done. He loved the Father like no one else ever has. Now you would think that we would see all this and humbly adore Him. You would think we would surrender our lives to Him, after all, He is a perfect man. But no. Instead we became even more guilty of sin. Just like a pimple is so much worse in the light, or a scratch is worse on a Ferrari than on a rubbish truck, so against the backdrop of Jesus’ perfection our sins are exposed for what they really are. But its not just that we are exposed. We actually become antagonistic. This is why Cain killed his brother Abel. Abel didn’t do anything to Cain. But Cain hated him all the same. Why? Because Abel’s righteousness exposed Cain’s evil. When Cain killed Abel, he wasn’t just hating Abel. He was also hating Abel’s father, Adam. How can you kill someone’s child and say you don’t hate their parent who loves them? In a similar way, Jesus says those who hate Him hate His Father too. This is because the Son and the Father are identical in their perfections. To hate Jesus is to hate the Father and to love Jesus is to love the Father. PRAY and ask God that you may see and love His Son. Ask God that He will enable you to see what He sees in His Son. The joy of Jesus is that He not only exposes our sin, He died in order to take away the sin of those who love Him!