By Spencer Clark
If you surveyed people on the street today whether they hate Jesus, I doubt you would find many that do. They might hate Christianity as a religion, based on some ideological basis or negative experience with some individual or group. But Jesus as an idea is quite appealing so long as he remains a wandering Jewish rabbi who taught people how to love one another.
The problem that people have with Jesus is when they must confront his teachings on absolute morality. Many will try to distance themselves from Jesus by alleging that “it only applies to Jewish people in that day” or “Jesus didn’t really mean that” or even “Jesus didn’t say that, his disciples did.” If we can take Jesus and make him into whatever we want him to be, he is much more palatable to this world than the Jesus of the Bible.
The real Jesus, the Jesus of the Bible, and not the reconstructed fluffy Jesus of the modern world, taught that there is such a thing as right and wrong. He taught that He himself is the only way to the Father (John 14:6). Jesus revealed sins and called people out for them (John 7:7) This is why people hate Jesus, not the fake idealized version of him, but the *real Jesus.*
As followers of Jesus, when we also speak the words of Christ and reveal the works of darkness, those who do not repent will hate us. Their real issue, ultimately, is with Him (John 7:7), but we shouldn’t be surprised when they hate us as well (1 John 3:13).
Indeed, if the world loves us as one of their own, are we truly walking in the light? That doesn’t mean we should go out of our way to make people hate us (Luke 6:27). We should walk respectably before outsiders (1 Thess. 4:12), speaking the truth in love (Eph. 4:15), but never for the sake of pleasing man above God (Acts 5:29). Now, if we fail to speak the truth in love, then perhaps we do deserve the hatred we receive! But if we follow Christ wholly, completely, and faithfully there will always be those who hate us on account of Him. But know that before they hated you, they hated Him first.