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.
but as many as received him, to them gave he [the] right to be children of God, to those that believe on his name;
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
who have been born, not of blood, nor of flesh's will, nor of man's will, but of God.
John has just said that some people received Christ, and that He gave them the right to become God's children. This verse answers the next question — how does anyone enter that family? — and it starts by ruling out every route people would try on their own.
The verse makes one positive claim and guards it with three denials. Each denial matches a part of ordinary human birth.
This verse makes four statements. One is positive and three are negative. The positive one is "who were born … of God." The three negative ones are "not of blood," "nor of the will of the flesh," and "nor of the will of man." These three are the parts that make up our human birth into this world. "Blood" refers to the nature of that birth, "flesh" to the agent, and "man" to the source... Chapter 1 stresses what the new birth is not. Chapter 3 stresses what it is and how God brings it about.
The first denial rules out ancestry — the family line you are born into, religious or social.
The Jew boasted of having Abraham's blood in his veins, just as today a man may boast of being born of aristocratic or even royal blood. Those humble souls, who as exceptions to the rule received Christ when He came, were born of God... Their birth was of God, a divine act. And the One whom they received in faith gave them the right to take openly the place that was already theirs by that birth.
"Flesh" here means fallen human nature. That nature cannot give this birth, because it is set against God.
The flesh is the moral principle of fallen humanity. It loves to reason, but hates to obey. It cannot be subject to the law of God. Those who are in it cannot please God. Its mind, which it glories in, is enmity against God. It is the seed-bed of human theories and speculations... The believer is not born of that, nor of the will of man; it is a ruined race. This is a solemn and important word, and it meets us right at the start of this Gospel.
The third denial closes the last door: what one person may decide, arrange or perform for another.
Third — "nor of the will of man." This settles the matter definitely — "man" has nothing to do with it. He may reform you, educate, civilise, make you religious, but he cannot touch this question. This belongs to God alone.
Commentators press this against the idea that a ceremony can make a child of God:
Not by baptism but by faith. Not infants who do not understand what the ceremony means, but sinners led to put their trust in Christ. This birth does not come by a priest putting a few drops of water on the face of an unconscious infant. It is "of God," by God's own sovereign act.
The positive half of the verse describes something given, not something improved.
But this new life given of God is not merely a moral change — a ceasing to do evil and learning to do well. It is a real new kind of life in the believer, though it may be impossible to define. That is no wonder, for natural life is impossible to define too. Through it we are the children of God in reality, not just in name — really born of Him.
Everyone born this way shares one source, and that makes them one people:
They form a new race. This does not come by natural birth — of blood. It does not come by their own efforts — the will of the flesh. It does not come by the will of others — the will of man. It comes from a new life they receive from God.
Verse 12 speaks of believing; this verse speaks of birth. Commentators differ on how the two fit together. Some argue the birth must come first:
Suppose I, while still unconverted, could produce the new birth by my own faith. Then it would be of "the will of the flesh" and "the will of man" — and we are plainly told that it is not. It is "of God," "of His own will," "by the word of God," and there we must leave it.
Others hold that the question itself pulls apart what Scripture keeps together.
Does new birth come before faith, or after it? Such questions try to separate what God has joined together and will not have divided... It is enough to say that new birth is a sovereign act of God, that He is first in it, and that it comes by the Word through faith.
- Blood — ancestry is ruled out. No family line, national or religious, passes this birth down.
- Flesh — self-effort is ruled out. The nature doing the willing is the very nature that is at enmity with God.
- Man — outsiders are ruled out. Another person can educate you or perform a rite on you, but cannot touch this.
- God — the one remaining source. Not the old life repaired, but a real new life, making us His children in fact and not just in name.
- Result — a new race, gathered by God's act rather than by descent, decision or ceremony. Commentators differ on how faith and this birth fit together. All agree that God is first in it.
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we have contemplated his glory, a glory as of an only-begotten with a father), full of grace and truth;
John's Gospel opens by describing One who was in the beginning, who was with God, and who was God. Now it says this Person became something He had not been before, and readers have asked ever since what "flesh" means here and whose glory the witnesses saw.
The verse marks a turning point in the chapter. Everything before it describes the Word's own nature; here something happens.
In verse 14 a new part begins. Before, it was what He was; now, what He became. The Word became flesh and lived among us. It was a real thing, not like God appearing to Abraham for a visit. He pitched His tent among us.
One writer looks closely at the word "became":
When Scripture says that the Word became flesh, it teaches us this was a new beginning. It was a condition that did not exist before. Now it is true of the One who was and is the Word.
The word chosen is the lowest word available for human nature.
"Flesh" describes humanity by its lowest part. The depth of this stooping down is the glory of what is revealed, and the words "the Word became flesh" convey that glory perfectly.
Because the word is so low, some have treated His humanity as a costume. Commentators reject that.
His humanity was not just an outward form. It was not something put on like a coat for a purpose, then thrown off once that purpose was done. It was real. He became an actual man, and this He will never cease to be.
And what He became took nothing away from what He already was:
His becoming man took nothing at all away from His eternal deity, or from His eternal place within God Himself. It only gave His humanity His own perfection without limit.
One writer compares this to the tabernacle, the tent where God's glory stayed among Israel.
In that tent, the glory of God had lived — in the darkness, not in the light, shut away where no one could reach it. Now here was another tent, the flesh of Christ, and in it lived the full glory of God, open to all. People could come near that divine glory and look at it, because it was shown in grace and truth.
This is why the coming is not classed with the appearances God made to people in earlier times:
He tabernacled among us, full of grace and truth. It was not a visit or an appearance of God, as in Old Testament experiences.
"We beheld" is not a claim about eyesight.
"We beheld," here, would tell any spiritual mind that this was spiritual sight, not just physical sight. So it does not mean one event in the lives of those who saw Him. It means a lasting impression on the mind. That is why one translation renders it as "we have contemplated His glory."
Commentators differ over the next phrase. One older version reads "the glory as of the only begotten of the Father," while another gives "a glory as of an only-begotten with a father." "Only-begotten" means the one and only Son. One writer reads it this way:
There was glory in this unique Person, "Only-begotten with Father." That glory existed before, and no one had ever seen it until He became flesh. When His devoted disciples did see it, it came to them as unlimited grace and truth, and it bound them to Him for ever.
The glory did not come as a demand.
It is God come as a man into the world of sinners. He comes veiled in humiliation. He comes into the world of sinners in grace. Instead of saying, "You must behave properly," He comes Himself — not to judge, but to save... Grace comes abounding over all the sin, and truth comes too — not telling us what we ought to be, but what we are.
- Became. The verse turns from what the Word always was to what He became. It was a real beginning, never true of Him before.
- Flesh. He took humanity at its lowest and frailest point. The depth of that stooping is itself the glory God reveals.
- Tabernacled. The old tent shut God's glory up in darkness. The flesh of Christ carried that same glory out where people could come near and look.
- Beheld. The witnesses did not catch a glimpse. They kept looking at glory that belongs to the One with the Father, and it came to them as grace and truth.
- Full. He came to save people, not to tell them what they ought to be. Grace overflowed the sin, and truth told them what they are.