John 1:10

[See also the "General Considerations on the Prologue" in the comments of John 1:18.]

Ver. 10. “ He was in the world and the world had been made by Him, and the world knew Him not. ”

A contrast is evidently intended between the first words of this verse and the last words of John 1:9. This contrast is the occasion of the asyndeton. “The Logos came into the world” (John 1:9); “and yet he had long been there” (John 1:10 a); “and also the world was His work” (John 1:10 b). The first two propositions set forth that which is incredible, apparently impossible, in the result which is stated in the third (John 1:10 c): “and the world did not know him.” Weiss regards the being in the world (John 1:10 a) as the consequence of coming into the world indicated in John 1:9. But the asyndeton between the two John 1:9-10 does not suit this logical relation (see Keil); and, in this case, to what fact does the expression: “He was in the world” refer? It must necessarily be to a fact posterior to the birth of Jesus. This is held, indeed, by de Wette, Meyer, Astie, Weiss, and others; they apply the first proposition (John 1:10 a) to the presence of Jesus in Israel at the moment when John the Baptist was carrying on his ministry, and the third (John 1:10 c) to the ignorance in which the Jews still were at that moment of the fact so important of the presence of the Messiah; so, in the same sense, where John himself says to them (John 1:26): “There is present in the midst of you one whom you do not know. ”

I do not believe it possible to suggest a more inadmissible interpretation. In the first place, that ignorance in which the people then were with regard to the presence of the Messiah had nothing reprehensible in it, since this presence had not yet been disclosed to them by the forerunner; it could not therefore be the ground of the tone of reproach which attaches to this solemn phrase: “And the world knew him not!” Then, the imperfect would have been necessary: “And the world was not knowing him,” and not the aorist, which denotes an accomplished and definite fact. Moreover, it would be necessary to give to the word world an infinitely narrower meaning than in the preceding clause, where it was said: “and the world (the universe) had been made by him.” Finally, how are we to justify the juxtaposition of two facts so heterogeneous as that of the creation of the world by the Word (John 1:10 b) and that of His presence, then momentarily unknown, in Israel! There is no harmony between the three clauses of this verse except by referring the first and the third to facts which are no less cosmic and universal than that of the creation of the world, mentioned in the second. This is the reason why we do not hesitate to refer the first to the presence and action of the Logos in humanity before His coming in the flesh, and the third to the criminal want of understanding in humanity, which, in its entirety, failed to recognize in Christ the Logos, its creator and illuminator, who had appeared in its midst. This return backward to that which the Logos is for the universe (comp. John 1:3), and especially for man (comp. John 1:4), is intended to make conspicuous the unnatural character of the rejection of which He was the object here on earth. The world was His work, bearing the stamp of His intelligence, as the master-piece bears the stamp of the genius of the artist who has conceived and executed it; He was filling it with His invisible presence, and especially with the moral light with which He was enlightening the human soul...and behold, when He appears, this world created and enlightened by Him did not recognize Him! One might be tempted to apply the words: “ did not know him,” to the fact indicated in Romans 1:21-23; Acts 14:16; Acts 17:30; 1 Corinthians 1:21, the voluntary ignorance of the heathen world with respect to God as revealed in nature and conscience. In that case we should be obliged to translate: “ had not known him,” and to see in this sin of the heathen world the prelude to that of the Jewish world, indicated in the following verse. But the non-recognition and rejection of the Logos as such cannot be made a reproach to the world before His personal incarnation in Jesus Christ. The matter in question, then, is the rejection of the Logos in His earthly appearance. This general and cosmic rejection was already regarded by Jesus as a consummated fact in the time of His ministry (John 3:19; John 15:18); how much more must it have seemed so at the moment when John was writing! The Church formed among mankind only an imperceptible minority, and this proportion between the true believers and the unbelievers has remained the same in all times and in all places.

The masculine pronoun αὐτόν, him, refers to the neuter term τὸ φῶς, the light, which proves that αὐτοῦ also must be taken as masculine. This grammatical anomaly arises from the fact that the apostle has now in view the light in so far as it had personally appeared in Jesus. This is, likewise, the reason why he substitutes the word ἔγνω knew, for κατέλαβε laid hold of (John 1:5), although the idea is fundamentally the same. One lays hold of a principle, one recognizes a person.

The failure to recognize the Logos as He appeared in Jesus is stated at first, in the third proposition of John 1:10, in an abstract and summary way as a general fact. Then, the fact is described in John 1:11 under the form of its most striking historical and concrete realization.