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The sermon presents Jesus as perfectly lovely, selfless, merciful, morally pure, and doctrinally good, yet hated and crucified without legitimate cause. This rejection is described as humanity’s supreme sin and the clearest revelation of human depravity. Spurgeon presses hearers to examine whether their treatment of Christ and His people exposes hidden hostility. Those who believe in Christ will love Him, grieve their former offense, honor Him publicly, love His members, and expect suffering as faithful disciples.
Theological center: The sinless and lovely Christ was hated without cause, and His crucifixion exposes humanity’s profound rebellion while calling sinners to faith and love.
Applications: Love Christ through repentance · Love Christ’s people · Examine hidden hostility · Grieve sin against Christ
Primary texts: John 15:25 · Psalm 35:19 · Isaiah 53:3
“They hated me without a cause.” John 15:25 IT is usually understood that the quotation our Savior here refers to is to be found in the thirty-fifth Psalm, at the nineteenth verse, where David says, speaking of himself immediately and of the Savior prophetically, “Let not them who are mine enemies rejoice over me, neither let them wink with the eye that hate me without a cause.” Our Savior refers to that as being applicable to Himself and thus He really tells us, in effect, that many of the Psalms are Messianic or refer to the Messiah. And therefore Dr. Hawker did not err when he said he believed the Psalms referred to the Savior, though he may have carried the truth too far. But it will be a good plan, in reading the Psalms, if we continually look at them as alluding not so much to David, as to the man of whom David was the type, Jesus Christ, David’s Lord. No being was ever more lovely than the Savior. It would seem almost impossible not to have affection for Him. Certainly at first sight it would seem far more difficult to hate Him than to love Him. And yet, loveable as He was, yea, “altogether lovely” no being so early met with hatred and no creature ever endured such a continual persecution as He had to suffer. He is no sooner ushered into the world than the sword of Herod is ready to cut Him off, and the innocents of Bethlehem, by their dreadful massacre, gave a sad foretaste of the sufferings which Christ would endure and of the hatred that men would pour upon His devoted head. From His first moment to the cross, save the temporary lull while He was a child, it seemed as if all the world were in league against Him and all men sought to destroy Him. In different ways that hatred displayed itself. Sometimes in overt deeds, as when they took Him to the brow of the hill and would have cast Him down headlong. Or when they took up stones again to stone Him, because He said that Abraham desired to see His day, and saw it, and was glad. At other times that hatred showed itself in words of slander, such as these, “He is a drunken man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners.” Or in looks of contempt, as when they looked suspiciously at Him because He did eat with publicans and sinners, and sat down to table with unwashed hands. At other times that hatred dwelt entirely in their thoughts and they thought within themselves, “This man blasphemeth,” because He said, “Thy sins are forgiven thee.” But at almost every time there was a hatred towards Christ, and when they took Him and would have made Him king, and a shallow fleeting flood of popular ap…