<p>1:10 <em>He was in the world, and though the world had originated on account of him, the world recognised him not</em>- &quot;The world&quot; in :9 is the world of the believers. The world &quot;originated on account of him&quot; = AV &quot;the world was made by him&quot;. The parallel is clear with &quot;All things were made by him&quot; (:3), and as noted on :3, the &quot;all things&quot; refer to the &quot;all things&quot; of the new creation. The phrase is used that way by Paul several times. &quot;He was in the world&quot; could likewise be understood as referring to the &quot;world&quot; of the new creation; for if the reference is to the literal world, then the statement seems too obvious to need making. The parallel in the prologue of 1 Jn. 1 would be John's reference to how the early believers had seen, touched and handled the word, the Lord Jesus. He had been amongst them. But then &quot;the world recognised him not&quot; appears to shift the reference of &quot;the world&quot; away from the world of believers, the new creation, to the Jewish world- defined in :11 as &quot;His own&quot;, i.e. the Jewish people generally, or perhaps those of Nazareth in particular, who did not accept Him. At first blush, this may seem unacceptable to have two different meanings for &quot;the world&quot; within one verse. But I suggest the contrast is purposeful; the point being that there are two worlds in view, that of the believers or the new creation; and the Jewish world, who rejected the Lord. They were literally worlds apart; there was no overlap between them. And that is a theme of John's message.</p><p>John appeals for men to be baptized with the twice repeated personal comment: &ldquo;...and I knew him not&rdquo;, in the very context of our reading that the Jewish world &ldquo;knew him not&rdquo; (Jn. 1:10, 31,33). He realises that he had withstood the knowledge of the Son of God, just as others had. See on Jn. 3:29.</p><p>Understanding &quot;the world&quot; as a world of persons rather than the physical world of material &quot;things&quot; is reflected in the way that John uses the term <em>kosmos</em>. So many interpreters have assumed that <em>kosmos </em>refers to the physical, literal world; whereas deeper reflection surely indicates that it refers rather to the world of <em>persons</em>. Thus &quot;the world was made on account of Him Christ, and the world did not know him&quot; (Jn. 1:10; 1 Jn. 3:1-3) doesn't mean that Jesus created the literal planet; but rather that the world of persons was made on account of Jesus, but that world didn't know or accept / recognize Him. It is this &quot;world&quot; into which 'every believing man comes' (Jn. 1:18); and it is the &quot;sin of the world&quot; (Jn. 1:29) which Christ bore- not the sin of the literal planet, but the sin of the world of persons who want their sins to be carried by Him. God sent His son into the world to save it, and loved this world through giving Christ for it (Jn. 3:16)- clearly referring to the world of persons rather than the physical planet. The Lord in Lk. 11:49-51 speaks of the creation of humanity as &quot;the foundation of the world&quot;- for He says that Abel was slain at &quot;the foundation of the world&quot;- i.e. of the world of persons. In the same way as these passages in John have been misread as referring to a literal, physical, concrete world, so we too tend to see this world more as a world of things than a world of persons. For seeing the world as a world of persons demands a huge amount from us, and the kind of sensitivity to humanity which leads ultimately to the death of the cross. The new creation was brought into being by the cross. The Jewish world&rsquo;s rejection of the Lord was crystallised in the crucifixion.</p>