They shall put you out of the synagogues; but the hour is coming that every one who kills you will think to render service to God;
Jesus is preparing His disciples for life after He leaves them. The shock in His warning is not the violence. It is the motive: the men who kill His followers will be sure they are serving God.
The verse names two blows. One writer separates them: one that a whole community carries out, and one that any single person could take up.
Men would take two ways to get rid of Christians and their testimony. One was public, when men put on a show of the utmost zeal for God's authority and holiness. The other was open to any single person, even to the point of death, to wipe out criminals not fit to live. It is impossible to imagine hatred more deadly, yet approved by all, than this. Anyone who wished might take it on himself to kill a follower of Christ — though official authority still stood behind him. He would do it not only without punishment, but claiming to do God a religious service by it.
To modern ears, being shut out of a synagogue sounds mild. For a Jew it was social death, and the commentary spells out what it swept away.
Being thrown out of the synagogue was the severest religious punishment. Death was the last act of judicial power. This is the treatment they must expect. To anyone not settled in the faith these consequences would seem terrible. To our nature it is no light thing to lose religious rites and friendships. It is no light thing to hear your name thrown out as evil, or to have people treat you as a moral leper, unfit to mix with your own nation or family.
One writer points back to the man born blind, whom the leaders threw out after Jesus healed him.
They would be put out of the synagogues (v. 2), just as the man who was cured of blindness had been (John 9:34). For a Jew this was a dreadful experience, because it meant rejection by his own people.
This persecution does not come from people who reject religion. It comes from religion itself.
The Lord's warning prepares them not only for persecution, but for religious persecution... This religious persecution would come from religious motives. "Whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God." So the greater the sincerity, the more ruthless the persecution. But this persecution would come from ignorance of the Father and the Son. And this is how it has been with every form of religious persecution. It has been truly said, "As it was with the Jews who persecuted Christians, so with the Christians who have persecuted Christians. Things have been done 'to the glory of God,' and 'in the name of Christ,' of which He who looks down from heaven would only say, 'They have not known the Father nor Me.'"
The verse breaks a popular idea: that a person acting from conviction must be roughly right.
Man walks in darkness, because he is darkness. His conscience is darkness, and false teaching blinds his mind as well. Whatever a man does from conscience he always does with intensity, even when his conscience is blinded and his action is wrong. A person may be very conscientious in resisting the truth. What people call conscientious action is often nothing in God's sight but the conduct of someone Satan has thoroughly blinded.
So the answer is not a stronger conscience but light from God.
People sometimes say that if you only act from conscience you cannot go far wrong. But in Paul we have a man whose very conscientiousness made him the chief of sinners. It is not conscience that saves, but the light of the knowledge of God as it has shone out in Christ.
Saul of Tarsus is the clearest case. He hunted believers to the death before he became the apostle Paul.
Acts 8:3; Acts 9:1-2; 1 Timothy 1:13 give us a commentary on verses 2 and 3 of our chapter. Saul of Tarsus persecuted this way to the death, and he did it ignorantly in his unbelief. At that time he certainly knew neither the Father nor the Son.
The Lord gave this warning to steady them, not to frighten them. The warning itself was an act of care.
In tender concern for our weakness, the Lord, through His servants, has warned us in advance of what we have to expect among His professing people. Two important things follow. First, only the light of the Scriptures lets us read the state of professing Christianity correctly. Second, if we do not know the teaching of the Word of God, we are open to disappointments and deceptions of every possible kind.
- Ignorance — the Lord names the root cause in the next breath. They act this way because they have not known the Father or the Son.
- Blindness — that ignorance darkens the conscience, until killing a believer feels like serving God. Sincerity makes the cruelty worse, not softer.
- Cost — the disciple pays twice: cut off from family, nation and religious life, and then cut down.
- Proof — Saul of Tarsus lived this verse out. He persecuted believers to the death in ignorant unbelief, knowing neither the Father nor the Son.
- Forewarning — the Lord told them first, in tender concern for their weakness, so the blow would not take them by surprise.
and these things they will do because they have not known the Father nor me.
The Lord has just warned His followers about what is coming: they will be thrown out of the synagogue, and some will be killed by people who think they are serving God. Here He gives the reason — the persecutors do not know the Father or the Son.
This ignorance was not caused by a lack of evidence.
Verse 3. "And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me." God had given them every proof of who Christ was, yet despite all that God could give, they rejected Him. "And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness…"
The same reason that explains the hatred also comforts those who suffer it. And it becomes a test of any religion.
He gives His own the comfort of knowing — in such hours, which might be full of bitter grief, and beforehand as well — that all the contempt and suffering they might endure from the world was for His sake. It came from the world's ignorance of the One who sent Him, ignorance of the Father. How deeply true that is! It would be impossible for a religion that claims God's name to persecute if it really knew the One who sent Christ.
This persecution is religious, not political. It costs the disciples their place in the community, and it comes from people who are sincere.
The Lord's warning prepares them not only for persecution, but for religious persecution. The disciples of Christ would be put out of the synagogue, and that meant losing all fellowship — in family life, in social life and in public life (John 9:22). This religious persecution would come from religious motives. "Whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God." So the greater the sincerity, the more ruthless the persecution. But this persecution would come from ignorance of the Father and the Son. And so it has been with every form of religious persecution. Someone has said, and said it truly, "As it was with the Jews who persecuted Christians, so with the Christians who have persecuted Christians. Things have been done 'to the glory of God' and 'in the name of Christ' about which He who looks down from heaven would only say, 'They have not known the Father nor Me.'"
One man's life shows exactly what the Lord described.
Acts 8:3; Acts 9:1-2; and 1 Timothy 1:13 give us a commentary on verses 2 and 3 of our chapter. Saul of Tarsus persecuted this way to the death, and he did it in ignorance, in his unbelief. At that time he knew neither the Father nor the Son.
The same case shows what the disciples could expect from such men, and where hope still lay.
But because they were ignorant of the Father and the Son, they would think they were serving God by killing them… They were to expect no relenting, for men who murder out of conscience never relent — it is the power of Satan. Yet they are not beyond conversion, as we know from Paul.
The Lord says this to steady His followers before the blow lands.
But believers should not become bitter or discouraged under such persecution. It came from ignorance — not just ignorance of certain principles, but ignorance of the Father and the Son as Persons (v. 3). The Lord warned them in advance so that, when these things happened, they would remember His perfect wisdom, and that He was truly in control of everything that took place. What calmness and rest this would give in the face of such trouble!
The verse names what the persecutors lacked. One writer asks whether believers today really hold it.
This is what is missing today: the knowledge of the Father and the Son. I do not mean that any true believer is without this knowledge. What I mean is this: I fear we do not have these divine Persons as our constant guests. We know forgiveness, and, like Martha, we may be busy with much service. But what do we know of the sweetness beyond words of welcoming the Father and the Son into the secret of our own souls?
- Cause. The violence of verse 2 has one root, and the Lord names it: they have not known the Father or the Son.
- Test. Turn the cause around and it becomes a test. A religion that really knew the One who sent Christ could not persecute.
- Sincerity. Not knowing does not soften the hand; it hardens it. The more sincere the persecutor, the more ruthless the persecution.
- Proof. Saul of Tarsus lived out these words. He acted in ignorance and unbelief, and he would not relent — yet he was not beyond conversion.
- Comfort. The cause is ignorance, not the Lord losing control. So His people can meet persecution with calm instead of bitterness. And they hold as their own treasure the very knowledge the world lacks.