As Jesus prayed to his Father, just as both he and his disciples were about to leave the upper room, he mentioned that the world hated them, because they were not of the world. That is, they didn’t draw their worldview from the world, but from Jesus, who also was not of the world (John 17:14). We need to pause here and consider this for a moment. Judas was, at this very moment, setting things up for a successful arrest of Jesus, who claimed to be the Messiah. Judas’ worldview didn’t include messiahs who had a death wish, which he believed Jesus had. Messiah, ‘the’ Messiah, simply does not die (cp. John 12:34). How could a dead messiah save Israel. Judas, the zealot, a member of the dreaded Sacarii, simply could not receive Jesus’ worldview of salvation. So, Judas acted out his hatred for Jesus, or at least his hatred for the context of the Messiah Jesus embraced. In other words, Jesus was not “of” Judas’ world. Neither were the rest of Jesus’ disciples who didn’t stray from Jesus’ worldview, as Judas had (cp. John 17:12).
We need to ask, how this scenario developed. Everyone, including Judas began Jesus’ last few days on earth with great joy, believing they were presenting the long-awaited Messiah to Jerusalem (cp. Matthew 21:1-11; Mark 11:1-11). Yet, in less than a week, Judas had fixed it in his mind to betray the very man he had hailed as the Messiah. What actually happened that brought this about? Jesus tells us in his prayer to his Father. He said he had given his disciples the Father’s word (John 17:14). The word of God, vis-à-vis believing in the word of God and embracing it as true, sanctifies or sets believers apart from all other folks (John 17:17). The worldview of God is altogether different from the worldview of man. Man wants to put God at a distance, and, although he would like God’s approval, he doesn’t want God’s influence or his direct intervention into his (mankind’s) affairs (cp. Revelation 11:15, 18). Therefore, the world hates folks who would include God in their worldview or understanding of reality.
Notice that Jesus told his Father that he wasn’t praying that the Father should take the disciples out of the world. That would be praying for judgment (cp. Isaiah 57:1), and Jesus wasn’t asking for judgment upon the world. While the world isn’t worthy of folks who embrace the Lord’s worldview and seek to serve him in that understanding (cp. Hebrews 11:38), the Lord, nevertheless, wishes to keep his disciples as lights to shine in this dark world (Philippians 2:15; cp. Luke 12:35-40), in which there is no room provided for God (cp. Romans 1:28). Therefore, believers aren’t to be taken out of the world, for that would leave the world without a buffer between them and judgment (Isaiah 51:1). Nevertheless, Jesus prayed that his disciples would be kept from the world’s evil, vis-à-vis from embracing its worldview, because Jesus’ disciples’ worldview is not derived from the world’s understanding, but from the word of God (John 17:15-17).
Therefore, just as the Father had sent Jesus into the world (John 5:23, 30, 36-37), so Jesus was sending his disciples into the world (Matthew 10:16; 28:19; Luke 10:3 John 15:20; 16:2), which means they, like Jesus, were to offer an ignorant world a view of or an image of the God, which they didn’t have, nor did they want to have it (John 1:10-11, 18; cp. 2Corinthians 3:18). Jesus set himself apart in order that those who truly follow him would also be set apart from the world’s evil, vis-à-vis the world’s wisdom, the world’s practice of keeping God out of its affairs (John 17:18-19).
Smoodock's Blog 