“He who hates me, hates my Father as well. If I had not done among them the works like no other has done, they had not had sin, but now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father.”
There must be no doubt about this, Jesus says. He who hates the One Who is a true revealer of the Father also hates the Father. Jesus has fully revealed the Father (John 14:7-9). Therefore to hate Him is to hate the Father as He really is. And He has revealed the Father in a life lived, in teaching given, in works of compassion and healing, in raising the dead, in a way that no other has ever done. Thus they are without excuse. It is only by deliberately closing their eyes to the truth that they can refuse to hear Him, and in doing so they make themselves more sinful, and more resentful, because underneath something warns them they are wrong. And this must result in either repentance or hatred. This will always be man's reaction to God's truth. (But we must be sure it is God's truth that they hate, and not our arrogance or our lack of consideration).
We note again how closely Jesus links Himself with the Father. To have known Him is to know the Father (John 14:7). To have seen Him is to have seen the Father (John 14:9). Those who are loved by the Father are equally loved by Him (John 14:21). If a man loves Jesus, the Father will love him, and both Jesus and the Father will come to dwell in them (John 14:23). And now men hate both Him and His Father. There can be no question that this continual linking of Himself with the Father puts Jesus ‘on the divine side of reality'. No one but an equal could so have associated Himself with the Father.