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HomeBible CommentaryJohnChapter 1John 1:10

John 1:10-11 meaning

John states two dramatic ironies:  1. The Creator came into the world He had made, but was not recognized by the world.  2. The Messiah came to His own people, but was not received by them.

There is no apparent parallel Gospel account of John 1:10-11.

John 1:10-11 elevates the incredible irony that although Jesus created the world, when He came into the world it did not recognize Him.

John 1:1-5 revealed eternal truths about the Logos (God) and the Light (Messiah).

John 1:6-9 summarized the historical significance of John the Baptist and his preparation for the coming of the Messiah.

Now, John 1:10-11 highlights the immense irony of the world’s response when its Creator and its Messiah came into the world. John 1:10 highlights the irony primarily from a creation and worldwide aspect:

He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him (v 10).

Throughout John 1:10-11, the personal pronouns He and Him refer to Jesus—the Logos who made the world (John 1:1-3) and the Light who shines in the darkness (John 1:4-5, 9).

The Logos, the Creator came into the world. He was literally in the world—the same world that He had made.

One would expect that if the Creator came to the world which He had made, that world would then naturally recognize Him for who He is. One would assume that the world would, perhaps even should, know its own Creator.

The true Light for all men (the worldwide-Messiah) came into the world, shining in the darkness, dispelling evil and deception to save and enlighten all people. However, the world did not recognize its own Creator.

One would also expect that if the world’s Messiah came to rescue people in desperate danger, that they would recognize Him as their Savior. One would anticipate that Light shining in a dark world would be highly visible and recognized as Light.

Ironically, this was not the case when the Logos and Light of men came into the world He made and now came to save. He was in the world that was made through Him. So, it ought to have recognized and received Him.

But, sadly, when the Logos was in the world He made, the world did not know Him for who He truly was. The world did not know Him as its Creator (Logos).

When the Light of Men was in the world which He came to illuminate and save, the world refused to understand Him. The world did not know Him as their Savior (the Light of men). The world hated Him because their deeds were evil (John 3:19).

The world did not recognize the Light because it preferred the darkness. The world did not recognize its Savior because it did not desire deliverance. It did not see because it did not want to see.

Not recognizing its own Maker and Messiah is a terrible and tragic irony for a dark and dying world that is separated from its life and purpose because of its own sin (John 3:19). But this was precisely what happened when Jesus, the Logos and the Light, was in the world.

John wrote his gospel to a mixed audience of both Gentiles as well as Jews. He also wrote it to unbelievers, so that they would believe, as well as to believers so that they would know how to experience the great benefit of living by faith, which John called having “life in His name” (John 20:31).

It is possible that John’s Greek readers would have picked up on these tragic and ironic notes within John’s statement that the world did not know the One who had made it when He was in the world.

The Greeks were keen on both tragedy and irony. Greek playwrights such as Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides had perfected tragic plays. Their tragedies were absolutely loaded with situational irony. In these plays a brilliant, talented, and often noble tragic figure brings about his own doom because he is blind to circumstances that everyone one else on stage (and in the audience) can clearly see.

One of the most famous examples of situational irony in Greek tragedy is “Oedipus the King” by Sophocles. In this play, the tragic title character relentlessly pursues the truth to discover the king’s murderer, despite the warnings of those who love him to stop his quest, only to learn to his horror that he himself is not only the murderer but also the son of the slain king.

Greeks who read John’s gospel account about how the world did not know its Creator and how they crucified Him, may have identified the world or even themselves to have been like Oedipus who murdered his father in ignorance. Or they may have related John’s account to a different tragic figure from one of the many other Greek tragedies.

This tragic irony is even greater when we consider that the specific people to whom God came were His own. John 1:11 highlights the irony from a Jewish perspective:

He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him (v 11).

His own people were descendants of Abraham—the nation of Israel. Jesus was descended from Abraham, being a member of the tribe of Judah and a descendant of King David (Matthew 1:1).

God made a covenant with the old and childless Abraham that He would make a mighty nation of his descendants (Genesis 12:2, 15:5-6, 17:4-6). God promised Abraham that the LORD would bless the world through Abraham’s offspring (Genesis 12:3, 22:18). This covenant passed from Abraham to his son Isaac (Genesis 26:3-4, 26:24), and Isaac’s son, Jacob (Genesis 28:13-15, 35:11-12), who was later renamed Israel by God (Genesis 32:28, 35:10).

Abraham’s descendants through Jacob began to be known as “the Jews” during the conquest of Alexander the Great (circa 332 B.C.), when the Greek world became familiar with Israel. This was because at that time the remnant of God’s people were citizens of the Kingdom of Judah. So a “Jew” was someone from “Judah.”

John refers to the descendants of Abraham and their religious leaders as “the Jews” throughout his gospel account (John 1:19, 2:18, 5:16, 6:41, 7:1, 8:48).

God had long promised to send Israel a Messiah, who would redeem Israel from her oppression, put an end to her suffering and shame, and usher in a golden age of flourishing and “shalom” (the Hebrew word for peace and harmony).

Here is a list of only some of the many prophecies depicting the Messiah’s redemption and restoration of Israel: Deuteronomy 18:15-19, Psalm 2:6-8, 18:50, 45:6-7, 78:8-11, 89:3-4, 132:17, Isaiah 9:6-9, 11:1-5, 25:8-9, 26:12-15, 32:1-2, 61:1-3, Jeremiah 23:5-6, Ezekiel 37:24-28, Daniel 7:13-14, Hosea 2:19-20, Amos 9:13-15, Micah 4:3-4, Zechariah 9:9-10, 14:9.

Also, Daniel 9:24-27 sets forth a timeline or “clock” for completion of the prophecy for the Messiah to “bring in everlasting righteousness.”

Throughout their history, God’s own people clung to the hope expressed in these and other divine promises that the LORD’s Messiah would come and make them all true. Especially during the Roman occupation of Israel 63 B.C. until the demolition of the Temple (68 A.D), the Jews were eagerly awaiting and actively seeking the coming of the LORD’s promised Messiah. Part of the reason for their anticipation is that the “clock” of Daniel 9:24-27 was nearing the end, when the Messiah was promised to arrive.

As the Light, Jesus was the promised Messiah the Jews were waiting for:

“Arise, shine; for your light has come,
And the glory of the LORD has risen upon you.
For behold, darkness will cover the earth
And deep darkness the peoples;
But the LORD will rise upon you
And His glory will appear upon you.
Nations will come to your light,
And kings to the brightness of your rising.”
(Isaiah 60:1-3)

Jesus came to fulfill the Law and all Messianic prophecies (Matthew 5:17). (Note: Jesus will fulfill some of them upon His second coming.)

  • He came to redeem His own people from their oppression, shame, and suffering.
    (Psalm 72:11-14, Isaiah 62:1-5, John 1:29, 8:34-36)
  • He came to deliver His own to the promised prosperity and “shalom.”
    (Isaiah 65:17-23, John 10:10b).
  • He came to offer His own the kingdom and restore Israel to glory.
    (Psalm 2:6-8, 45:6-7, Isaiah 9:6-7, Matthew 4:17, John 1:49, 12:13-15)
  • He came to abolish death.
    (Isaiah 25:8, 26:19, John 11:25)

But even as the scriptures foretold that the Messiah would come to defeat Israel’s enemies and bring about her exaltation, they also predicted that Israel would not recognize Him when He appeared. Daniel 9:26 predicted that at the end of “sixty-two weeks” of years “the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing.” This prophecy was fulfilled when Jesus was rejected by His people as their deliverer.

The life of Joseph (who prefigured the Messiah’s suffering and salvation) foreshadowed this when his brothers did not recognize him when they came to Egypt (Genesis 42:6-8). Similarly, Moses was also rejected as Israel’s deliverer the first time he appeared to them (Exodus 2:14).

In his second “Servant Song” (Isaiah 49:1-26), Isaiah prophesied that the LORD concealed His Servant (the Messiah) in the shadow of the LORD’s hand and hid Him like a special arrow in the LORD’s quiver (Isaiah 49:2).

In his fourth Servant Song (Isaiah 52:13 - 53:12), Isaiah predicted that many of His people would be “astonished” at the LORD’s Servant (Isaiah 52:14a). “Astonished” could mean greatly surprised at something unexpected. Later in this song, Isaiah said the Messiah “has no stately form that we should be attracted to Him” (Isaiah 53:2b).

These scriptures accurately predicted that when the Messiah came to His own, His own would not know Him.

Jesus was not received by His own hometown when He presented Himself as the Messiah in the synagogue of Nazareth (Luke 4:16-30). After declaring “Today this scripture [Isaiah’s prophecies] has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21), His own neighbors questioned: “Is this not Joseph’s son?” (Luke 4:22). Jesus remarked: “No prophet is welcome in his hometown” (Luke 4:23), before they tried to kill Him (Luke 4:29).

For a time, even Jesus’s brothers did not believe in Him as God and/or the Messiah (John 7:5). This too was predicted. As Psalm 69 describes the Messiah’s painful obscurity and suffering, it also predicted that the Messiah would be estranged from [His] brothers and an alien to [His] mother’s sons” (Psalm 69:8).

The religious leaders did not receive Jesus as being from God. Instead, they accused Him of being the illegitimate son, born from a sinful relationship (John 8:41b) and doing the work and power of the devil (Matthew 12:24).

But Jesus did not come in a way that His own people expected the Messiah to come. He did not come to lord it over others and be served, but to serve them (Matthew 20:28). He did not come as a highly touted religious leader endorsed by the chief priests and elders. He came as a refugee and the adopted son of a carpenter (Matthew 2:13-14, 13:55).

The Psalms foretold that not only would the Messiah be unknown by His own, but that He would be rejected by them:

“The stone which the builders rejected
Has become the chief corner stone.”
(Psalm 118:22)

Other prophetic scriptures went further and predicted how the Messiah would be:

  • Executed and Murdered
    (Psalm 22:15, Isaiah 53:8b-9a)

Jesus would suffer all these things at the hands of His own in fulfillment to the scriptures.

The tragic ironies of John 1:10-11 emphasizes the immense weight of humanity’s rejection of the Logos and the Light. Jesus was rejected by both Jew and Gentile, Roman and Judean. Thankfully, through that rejection, salvation came to the entire world (Romans 11:11-12).

God entered the world He made, yet the world neither recognized nor received Him. Even His own people, Israel, to whom He had entrusted His covenant promises and given the Law, failed to accept Him as their Messiah, despite the abundant scriptural prophecies that pointed to His coming. This rejection, though deeply painful and unjust, was foreseen in the Hebrew Scriptures. This illustrates both the depth of human blindness and the degree of darkness, as well as the wonderful and profound mystery of God’s redemptive plan.

Yet, Israel and the world’s rejection of Jesus was not the end of the story.

It was a necessary step in the fulfillment of God’s greater purposes. The Messiah’s suffering, foretold by the prophets, became the foundation for the salvation of the world.

Through the pain of rejection, Jesus established a new covenant and extended the invitation of His kingdom beyond the confines of Israel, offering redemption, light, and life to all who would receive Him as the next verses in John’s prologue indicate (John 1:12-13).

This dual tragedy and triumph reminds us of the extraordinary grace of the world’s Messiah and Maker, who endured rejection to bring salvation to both His own people and the world.

Israel Rejected the ‘Memra’ of the Lord.

What John said of the Logos’s rejection by His own was also true of “the ‘Memra’ of the Lord” by Israel.

“Memra” is the Aramaic term for “Word”. It is used in the Jewish Targums—the Aramaic translations and commentaries of the Hebrew Scriptures—to describe the “Word of the Lord.” During and after Judah’s exile to Babylon, Aramaic became the common language of the Jews. Because of this, the Targums became a prevalent tool for teaching the Hebrew Scriptures to the many Jews who were not fluent in Hebrew.

The Targums seem to give personality and agency to the Memra/Word of the Lord and at times even appear to make the Memra/Word co-equal with God.

The Targums say Israel despised and did not receive the Memra of the Lord, just as John writes that even though the Divine Word/Logos came to His own, that those who were His own did not receive Him:

“How long will this people despise My Memra? And how long will they not believe in Me, despite all the signs which I have performed among them?”
(Targum Neofiti. Numbers 14:11)

“But in this thing you did not believe in the Memra of the LORD your God.”
(Targum Onkelos. Deuteronomy 1:32)

To learn more about these things, see The Bible Says article, “How Do Ancient Jewish Teachings and Greek Philosophy Converge in John’s Gospel?”