John 1:10

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, 1 Thessalonians 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), 1 Thessalonians 10:14,15,27; not a bare comprehension of an object in the understanding, but suitable affections: so Matthew 7:23 1 John 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, 1 John 2:2 1 Corinthians 1:21), and most of the Jews did not, though some did.