He was in the world, and the world had [its] being through him, and the world knew him not.
John has already called the Word the Maker of everything and the true Light. Now that Maker stands inside His own work, and the world does not recognise Him. Which "world" is meant? How could it miss Him? And what does that failure say about us?
The word behind "world" here is not simply the planet. One writer traces the term John chose and where it lands:
The Apostle John often mentions the world in his writings. He always uses a word we have taken into English when we speak of the "cosmos." It means the universe as an ordered whole, or sometimes, in a more restricted sense, just our world as an ordered whole. That is the sense of the world in this verse. As Creator He had made the universe as an ordered whole, and a wonderful moment arrived when He was found in that cosmos in a special way. He was there by entering this smaller restricted cosmos. Sad to say, it had become perverted and alienated by sin — so perverted that it did not even know Him.
Another writer sets the two senses of that word side by side.
John at the beginning of his Gospel makes the distinction between the world in a material sense and in a moral sense... He came into the world that He Himself had made, but the world that man had made did not know Him. In the material world, He found a moral world, a world of spiritual darkness.
Why does the verse mention who made the world? It shows the world had every reason to know Him.
"He was in the world, and the world was made through him." The world therefore surely ought to have known its Maker. But no — "the world did not know him." From the very first, man, being a sinner, was wholly lost. Here the unlimited scene is in view; not Israel, but the world.
Creation itself did not fail Him. Man did.
The world did not know its Creator when He came into it. The elements owned Him, for the winds and the waves obeyed His command, and the fish of the sea knew His voice. It was man, made in the image and likeness of God, who did not recognise Him and did not obey Him.
The thoughtless crowd was not the problem here. The world's leaders and best minds were.
In Jesus God was perfectly declared. He was presented before the eyes of men by works of power, mercy, and grace. But "He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, yet the world did not know Him." ... Not only that, but judging Him to be a criminal, they put Him to a shameful death on a cross. And it was the princes, or leaders, of the world who did it. It was the head, the brains, of the world; not the thoughtless crowd. "The world did not know God through wisdom."
Verse 10 and verse 11 do not say the same thing twice. One word changes, and the guilt changes with it.
What infinite and loving condescension! He, the eternal Word, the true Light, was in the world — the very world that receives its being from Him! How dense its ignorance that the world did not know Him, its Creator! But He had one place on earth which He was pleased to regard as His own. There He came. And His own people did not receive Him — notice, it does not say they did not know Him! It was rejection, not ignorance.
Rejection is not a late turn in this Gospel. It stands at the opening:
This Gospel starts, then, with the fact that He is a rejected Saviour, while the first chapter gives us His personal glories, and these I might say are innumerable.
The world's blindness did not end with Him. It still cannot read the people who follow Him.
"Beloved, the world does not know us, because it did not know Him." The motives that move the true believer, and the objects that stir him, lie far beyond the world's range of vision. And we may be sure of this: the more the world can enter into and appreciate a Christian's motives, the more that Christian must be unfaithful to his Lord.
- Made through Him — the world owed its existence to Him, so it of all places should have known its Maker.
- Known by creation — winds and waves obeyed His command and fish knew His voice; only man, made in God's image, failed to know Him.
- Unknown by wisdom — the world's leaders and thinkers failed, not just its crowds. The cross showed what human wisdom is worth.
- Not received by His own — the world's sin was ignorance. The next verse names something worse: a refusal by those who had every reason to know Him.
- Unknown still — the world that did not know Him does not know His people either. Being understood by it is no compliment.
He came to his own, and his own received him not;
He came to the one nation God had prepared for Him, and they turned Him away. Two questions follow: what were "His own," and why does John report this refusal on his very first page?
The one English word "own" covers two different forms here — one for a place, one for people.
But He had one place on earth which He was pleased to regard as His own possession (ta idia). There He came. And His own people (hoi idioi) — it does not say they did not know Him, but that they did not receive Him! It was rejection, not ignorance.
Refusal did not leave Him homeless.
The first word "own" in John 1:11 could be rendered "own home" — and John 19:27 does translate it that way. Refused His rightful place among His own people, He still had a home. To it He would invite the two disciples who asked, "Master, where are You staying?" His home was always in the bosom of the Father's love.
Israel had every reason to know Him when He came. Their own words show what they did instead.
On this earth, the people of Israel, the seed according to the flesh, were of all mankind in the best position to receive the Lord. The world around them did not know Him... That people had the law, the promises, the covenants, the oracles of God. According to the promise, the Lord was to come among them — and among them He came... But when the Messiah appeared, the Jews did not receive Him, even though His coming fitted the predictions of their own prophets perfectly. It is true, they said, and rightly, "This is the heir"; but because they hated Him, they added, "Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours."
Not receiving someone sounds mild. What Israel gave Him was worse than that.
And, worse still, His own — that favoured nation to whom God had spoken in the law and by the prophets, who boasted that they were God's people — did not receive Him when He came to them. They loved the darkness and not the light, because their deeds were evil. The Creator was a rejected stranger in His own world, and not rejected only, but hated.
It started at His birth and never eased.
When He was born a baby in David's city, there was no room for Him in the travellers' inn. Later there was no place for Him in Jerusalem or in its temple. Even among His own people the Lord of all had nowhere to lay His head. What a comment on human religiousness! And what an explanation: you may train human nature all you like — even train it by the law of God — and fallen humanity still has no heart for that life which was always with the Father, and which appeared in the person of Jesus.
Why put this refusal on the first page? The answer lies in how John's Gospel differs from the other three.
The first three — Matthew, Mark, and Luke — present Christ to man to be received, with proofs of power enough to remove all the effects of sin. But behind it all you find the difficulty: man is in the flesh, and the mind of the flesh is hostile to God. John's testimony starts here — men did not receive Him, and so He came in that grace which rose above all the rejection... so God comes out in grace... and so His Gospel all through is election and grace.
Israel's refusal did not stop God's purpose. It opened the door to a wider circle.
He came to His own, and they rejected Him. So condemnation closed their final responsibility. Still, grace in purpose would have a new set of people called "His own," taken out of the world. They are not limited to the chosen earthly nation, but include all who receive the Son, or in other words all who "believe on His name."
- Own things, own people. The first "own" points to what belonged to Him — a home, a place, rights; the second to the people connected with them.
- Not ignorance — rejection. The world did not know Him. Israel would not have Him. Knowing more made the refusal worse, not better.
- Not indifference — hatred. No room at His birth, no place in Jerusalem, a cross at the end. Religious training produced no heart for Him.
- Rejection first, then grace. John opens with the refusal. Everything after it comes as pure grace, given over man's "no."
- A second "His own." What one nation refused opened a new family. It takes in all who receive the Son and believe on His name.