Hated of all men for my name’s sake. — Here, as before, the words sketch out the history of the persecution with a precision which marks and attests the divine foreknowledge. From the days of Stephen to that of the last martyr under Diocletian it was always as a Christian and for the name of Christ that men thus suffered. Would they but renounce that, all would have gone smoothly with them. As Tertullian said of the sufferers of his day, “We are tortured when we confess our guilt, we are set free if we deny it, for the battle is about a Name” (Apol. c. 2). (Comp. 1 Peter 4:16.)
He that endureth to the end — i.e., endures, as the context shows, in the confession of the name of Christ as long as the trial lasts, or to the end of his own life. Such a one should receive “salvation” in its highest sense, the full participation in the blessedness of the kingdom of the Christ.