21. But remember that you shall suffer in a glorious cause; namely, on My account; for they will persecute you because you are My followers, and this because through culpable ignorance they will not recognise God as My Father, nor Me as the Son of God.
| 22. Si non venissem, et locutus fuissem eis, peccatum non haberent: nunc autem excusationem non habent de peccato suo. | 22. If I had not come, and spoken to them, they would not have sin: but now they have no excuse for their sin. |
| 23. Qui me odit et Patrem meum odit. | 23. He that hateth me, hateth my Father also. |
22, 23. That this ignorance is culpable, He now proves from the fact that He had [pg 275] Himself declared to them His relations with the Father. The sin (peccatum) is that of incredulity, and in remaining incredulous and hating Christ, they thereby showed that they hated the Father who sent Him.
| 24. Si opera non fecissem in eis quae nemo alius fecit, peccatum non haberent: nunc autem et viderunt, et oderunt et me, et Patrum meum. | 24. If I had not done among them the works that no other man hath done, they would not have sin: but now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father. |
24. Not only His words (verse 22), but also His unparalleled miracles deprived them of all excuse for their unbelief. See above on [iii. 2]. But now they have seen, or ought to have seen, the Father in Me (see above on [xiv. 9]); and they have seen Me, and they have hated Us both.
| 25. Sed ut adimpleatur sermo qui in lege eorum scriptus est: Quia odio habuerunt me gratis. | 25. But that the word may be fulfilled which is written in their law: They have hated me without cause. |
25. Yet, He continues, it is only what their own Scriptures (Ps. xxxiv. 19) foretold, that they would hate Him without cause. Thus this hatred of the world, so far from weakening the faith of the Apostles in Christ as the Messias, should confirm it, since the Messias was to be hated by the world. In this verse ἵνα has its usual telic force, and the sense is: but this has come to pass in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled. See above on [xii. 37-40]. The passage of the Psalm referred to is probably Messianic in its literal sense.
| 26. Cum autem venerit Paraclitus, quem ego mittam vobis a Patre, spiritum veritatis, qui a Patre procedit, ille testimonium perhibebit de me: | 26. But when the Paraclete cometh, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceedeth from the Father, he shall give testimony of me. |
| 27. Et vos testimonium perhibebitis, quia ab initio mecum estis. | 27. And you shall give testimony, because you are with me from the beginning. |
26, 27. The connection with the preceding is: though the world hate Christ, yet the Holy Ghost and the Apostles shall bear witness to Him. Here again, in verse 26, we have distinct mention of the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity. See xiv. [16], [26]. [pg 276] Though the Holy Ghost is not here said to proceed from the Son as well as from the Father (“ex Patre Filioque”), yet this is implied in His being sent by the Son (see above on [xiv. 26]), and can be clearly proved against the schismatical Greeks from other parts of Scripture, as from John xvi. [13], [14]. The Greek rendered you shall give testimony, is ambiguous, and may be either an imperative or an indicative. However, as Christ seems to be speaking of the witnesses who will maintain His cause against the world, and not to be prescribing the duty of the Apostles, the indicative is preferable.