What Does John 15:23 Mean?
The one who hates me hates my Father also.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
He that hateth me hateth my Father also.THE KEY
The same Greek verb names hatred toward both Jesus and the Father, making the two rejections one act.
THE MEANING
Hatred toward Jesus reaches the Father; the verse treats the two rejections as one movement through relationship. The Son cannot be separated from the Father in the very act of rejecting him.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
You can reject Jesus while still holding an independent relationship with his Father.
THE ROOT
μισῶν
misōn
GROWS FROM
μισ- (from μισέω, miséō)
To hate or regard with hostility.
“hateth” in this verse is misōn. The first form, μισῶν, means “the one hating”; the second, μισεῖ, means “hates.” The shared stem ties the hater of the Son directly to hatred of the Father.
ALSO GROWS
misōn: Hating; the one who hates.
μισῶν
This participle identifies the person whose rejection is in view.
misei: Hates.
μισεῖ
The same stem carries that rejection from the Son to the Father.
πατέρα
patéra
GROWS FROM
πατήρ
patḗr
Father or parent; also an ancestor.
The Greek word names a relationship. A related word, πατριά, means family or lineage; here, the Father is not presented as separate from the Son in the reader’s response.
ALSO GROWS
patriá: Family, lineage, or kindred.
πατριά
This family word shares the πατερ- stem and echoes the relational bond named in the verse.
patrikós: Paternal; belonging to a father.
πατρικός
This related form shows the stem extending into what is of or belongs to a father.
THE PATTERN
A response directed toward the Son is treated as a response toward the Father because their relation cannot be split.
And the LORD said to Samuel, Hear and respond to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not spurned you, but they have spurned me, that I should not reign over them.That all may give weight to the Son, even as they give it to the Father. Whoever does not give it to the Son does not give it to the Father who sent him.Everyone who denies the Son does not have the Father either. The one who speaks the same of the Son has the Father also.THE THREAD
If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you.John 15:18 uses the same Greek root, μισέω (miséō, “to hate”), for hatred directed at Jesus and his followers. Here the same root appears across the Son and the Father, showing how rejection travels through relationship.
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