John 1:10

John 1:10-11 . He was in the world — From the beginning, frequently appearing, and making known to his servants, the patriarchs and prophets, the divine will, in dreams and visions, and various other ways: and the world was made by him — As has just been shown; and the world, nevertheless, knew him not — Knew not its Maker and Preserver. He came — As the true, the often-predicted, and long-expected Messiah; unto his own — Εις τα ιδια , to his own things, namely, his own land; termed, Immanuel’s land; his own city, called the holy city; his own temple, mentioned as such by Malachi 3:1 : The Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly, or unexpectedly, come to his temple: but, although he answered all the characters given of the Messiah in the Old Testament, οι ιδιοι , his own people, whom he had separated from all the people upon earth, watched over, protected, delivered, and singularly favoured, in a variety of most extraordinary ways, for many ages; received him not — Because he did not countenance and gratify their carnal spirit and worldly views, by coming in that state of wealth, power, and grandeur in which they expected him to come.

He came as the prophet like unto Moses, as Moses foretold he should come, ( Deuteronomy 18:18 , &c.,) and by his holy life, his mighty miracles, extreme sufferings, and glorious resurrection from the dead, proved to a demonstration his divine mission; yet they received him not, because his doctrine contradicted their prejudices, censured their vices, and laid a restraint upon their lusts. He came as the High-priest of their profession, and a Mediator between God and man; but, depending on their being Abraham’s seed, on the ceremony of circumcision, on the Aaronical priesthood and the expiations of their law, and, in general, on their own righteousness, they received him not in these characters. He came as a Redeemer and Saviour; but not feeling, nor even seeing, their want of the redemption and salvation which are through him, and having no desire of any such spiritual blessings, they received him not, in any such relations. He came as the King set upon God’s holy hill of Zion, Psalm 2:6 ; the righteous branch raised unto David, the king that was to reign and prosper, and to execute justice and judgment in the earth, Jeremiah 23:5-6 ; Zion’s king, that was to come to her, just and having salvation, lowly and riding upon an ass, Zechariah 9:9 : but, as his kingdom was not of this world, not earthly, but heavenly, not carnal, but spiritual, and they did not desire one of another world, they would not receive him; declaring openly, We will not have this man to reign over us.

John 1:10 . ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ … οὐκ ἔγνω . John 1:10-11 briefly summarise what happened when the Logos, the Light, came into the world. John has said: “The Light was coming into the world”; take now a further step, ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ ἦν , and let us see what happened. Primarily rejection. The simplicity of the statement, the thrice repeated κόσμος , and the connecting of the clauses by a mere καί , deepens the pathos. The Logos is the subject, as is shown by both the second and the third clause. Westcott thinks that the action of the Light which has been comprehensively viewed in John 1:9 is in John 1:10-11 divided into two parts. “The first part ( John 1:10 ) gathers up the facts and issues of the manifestation of the Light as immanent. The second part ( John 1:11 ) contains an account of the special personal manifestation of the Light to a chosen race.” That is possible; only the obvious advance from the ἐρχόμενον of John 1:9 to the ἦν of John 1:10 is thus obscured. Certainly Westcott goes too far when he says: “It is impossible to refer these words simply to the historical presence of the Word in Jesus as witnessed to by the Baptist”.

He was in the world Not merely at His advent, but before His incarnation no less than after it. See on John 1:4, John 1:5. Was made (ἐγένετο) Came into being. See on John 1:3. By Him. Or through Him (διά) See on John 1:3. Knew (ἔγνω) Recognized. Though He was in the world and was its Creator, yet the world did not recognize him. This is the relation of ideas in these three clauses, but John expresses this relation after the Hebrew manner, by simply putting the three side by side, and connecting them by καὶ, and. This construction is characteristic of John. Compare John 8:20, where the point of the passage is, that though Jesus was teaching publicly, where He might easily have been seized, yet no man attempted his seizure. This is expressed by two parallel clauses with the simple copulative. "These words spake Jesus," etc., "and no man laid hands on Him." Him (αὐτὸν) The preceding him (αὐτοῦ) is, in itself, ambiguous as to gender. So far as its form is concerned, it might be neuter, in which case it would refer to the light, "the Word regarded as a luminous principle," as it, in John 1:5. But αὐτὸν is masculine, Him, so that the Word now appears as a person. This determines the gender of the preceding αὐτοῦ.

On the enlightened and unenlightened nature, compare the allegory in Plato's "Republic," at the beginning of Book 7, where he pictures men confined from childhood in an underground den, chained so that they can only see before them, and with no light save from a fire behind them. They mistake shadows for substance, and echoes for voices. When they are liberated and compelled to look at the light, either of the fire or of the sun, their unaccustomed eyes are pained, and they imagine that the shadows which they formerly saw are truer than the real objects which are now shown them. Finally, they will be able to see the sun, and will recognize him as the giver of the seasons and years, and the guardian of all that is in the visible world. "When the eye of the soul is turned round, the whole soul must be turned round from the world of becoming into that of being, and of the brightest and best of being, or, in other words, of the good." Notice also the appropriateness of the two verbs joined with the neuter and the masculine pronouns. In John 1:5, with it, the Word, as a principle of light, κατέλαβεν, apprehended. Here, with Him, the Word, as a person, ἔγνω, recognized.

10-13. He was in the world, &c.—The language here is nearly as wonderful as the thought. Observe its compact simplicity, its sonorousness—"the world" resounding in each of its three members—and the enigmatic form in which it is couched, startling the reader and setting his ingenuity a-working to solve the stupendous enigma of Christ ignored in His own world. "The world," in the first two clauses, plainly means the created world, into which He came, says Joh 1:9; "in it He was," says this verse. By His Incarnation, He became an inhabitant of it, and bound up with it. Yet it "was made by Him" (Joh 1:3-5). Here, then, it is merely alluded to, in contrast partly with His being in it, but still more with the reception He met with from it. "The world that knew Him not" (1Jo 3:1) is of course the intelligent world of mankind. (See on [1756]Joh 1:11,12). Taking the first two clauses as one statement, we try to apprehend it by thinking of the infant Christ conceived in the womb and born in the arms of His own creature, and of the Man Christ Jesus breathing His own air, treading His own ground, supported by substances to which He Himself gave being, and the Creator of the very men whom He came to save.

But the most vivid commentary on this entire verse will be got by tracing (in His matchless history) Him of whom it speaks walking amidst all the elements of nature, the diseases of men and death itself, the secrets of the human heart, and "the rulers of the darkness of this world" in all their number, subtlety, and malignity, not only with absolute ease, as their conscious Lord, but, as we might say, with full consciousness on their part of the presence of their Maker, whose will to one and all of them was law. And this is He of whom it is added, "the world knew Him not!"

He was in the world; he was in the place called the world, and amongst the men of the world; for so the term world is often taken, John 16:28 2 Peter 3:6 . Christ, before he came in the flesh, was in it; filling both the heavens and the earth, and sustaining it by the word of his power, and manifesting his will to it, more immediately to Moses and to the prophets, and more mediately by Moses and by the prophets. And the world was made by him; and the heavens and the earth, all things visible and invisible, (as was said before), were made by him. And the world knew him not; and the men of the world took no notice of him, did not acknowledge him, believe in him, nor were subject to him; so the word knew often signifies, (according to the Hebrew idiom), John 10:14,15,27 ; not a bare comprehension of an object in the understanding, but suitable affections: so Matthew 7:23 1Jo 3:1 . This is not to be understood of all individual persons in the world; for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and David, and many particular persons, did in this sense know him; but the generality of the world did not. The heathens did not, (who are sometimes called the world, distinctively from the Jews, 1Jo 2:2 1 Corinthians 1:21 ), and most of the Jews did not, though some did.

10 . and the world ] Note three points; (1) the close connexion obtained by repetition, as in John 1:4-5 ; (2) the tragic tone, as in John 1:5 ; (3) the climax. ‘He was in the world’ (therefore the world should have known Him); ‘and the world was His own creature’ (therefore still more it should have known Him); ‘and (yet) the world knew Him not.’ ‘And’ = ‘and yet’ is very frequent in S. John; but it is best not to put in the ‘yet;’ the simple ‘and’ is more forcible. Comp. John 1:5; John 1:11 . Note that ‘the world’ has not the same meaning in John 1:9-10 . Throughout N.T. it is most important to distinguish the various meanings of ‘the world.’ It means (1) ‘the universe;’ Romans 1:20 : (2) ‘the earth;’ John 1:9 ; Matthew 4:8 : (3) ‘the inhabitants of the earth;’ John 1:29 , John 4:42 : (4) ‘those outside the Church,’ alienated from God; John 12:31 , John 14:17 , and frequently. In this verse the meaning slips from (2) to (4). knew him not ] Did not acquire knowledge of its Creator; did not recognise and acknowledge Him. Comp. Acts 19:15 .

John 1:10 . Ἐν τῷ κόσμῷ ἦν , He was in the world ) The evangelist adds this, lest any one should so understand the expression, coming into the world , as if the Light had not been previously in the world at all. Three times in this verse world is repeated; three times it is said of the human race, as in the previous verse, but not to the exclusion of the other creatures, at least in the first place.— δἰ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο , was made by Him ) αὐτοῦ , masculine, as presently after αὐτόν . It is referred to the sense,[16] though Φῶς is neuter. Artemonius, p. 439, 450, etc., maintains that there is meant here the dissolution of all things, which was now about to have taken place, at the time when Christ suffered, had it not been turned aside [removed] by His own sacrifice, and for that purpose he quotes the passage, Hebrews 9:26 , “Now once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.” But in that passage Ἡ ΣΥΝΤΈΛΕΙΑ ΤῶΝ ΑἸΏΝΩΝ does not mean the putting off of the end of the world on [subject to] a condition, but categorically denotes the last times of the world, as opposed to the many ages that have elapsed since the foundation of the world. If such an interpretation [as Artemonius’] holds good, Israel too might be said to be made by Moses ; inasmuch as he averted its dissolution. With the same purpose in view, Artemonius, p. 455, urges the order of time in the clauses of this verse, but without reason.

There is rather in it a gradation, wherein the world is urged to the acknowledgment of the Light by that [first] reason He was in the world , but more so by this [second reason] and the world was made by Him ; or in other words, began to be .— καὶ , and ) and yet.— ὁ κόσμος , the world ) The name world in the sacred writings implies THE IMPIOUS SILLINESS [futilitatem, emptiness] OF THE HUMAN RACE. Camer. note in John 17. [16] By the figure πρὸς τὸ σημαινόμενον .—E. and T.