Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of John 1:11
He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
11. unto his own ] In the Greek the first ‘own’ is neuter, the second is masculine, and this difference should be preserved: He came unto His own inheritance; and His own people received Him not (see on Joh 6:37). In the parable of the Wicked Husbandmen (Mat 21:33-41) the vineyard is ‘His own inheritance,’ the husbandmen are ‘His own people,’ the Jews. Or, for ‘His own inheritance ’ we might say ‘His own home,’ as in Joh 19:27, where the Greek is the same. The tragic tone is very strong here as in Joh 1:5 ; Joh 1:10.
received ] A stronger word than ‘knew.’ The exact meaning of the Greek word is ‘to accept what is offered.’ Mankind in general did not recognise the Messiah; the Jews, to whom He was specially sent, did not welcome Him. See on Joh 19:16.
Once more there is a climax; ‘He was’ ( Joh 1:9); ‘He was in the world’ ( Joh 1:10); ‘He came unto His own inheritance’ ( Joh 1:11).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
He came unto his own – His own land or country. It was called his land because it was the place of his birth, and also because it was the chosen land where God delighted to dwell and to manifest his favor. See Isa 5:1-7. Over that land the laws of God had been extended, and that land had been regarded as especially his, Psa 147:19-20.
His own – His own people. There is a distinction here in the original words which is not preserved in the translation. It may be thus expressed: He came to his own land, and his own people received him not. They were his people, because God had chosen them to be his above all other nations; had given to them his laws; and had signally protected and favored them, Deu 7:6; Deu 14:2.
Received him not – Did not acknowledge him to be the Messiah. They rejected him and put him to death, agreeably to the prophecy, Isa 53:3-4. From this we learn,
- That it is reasonable to expect that those who have been especially favored should welcome the message of God. God had a right to expect, after all that had been done for the Jews, that they would receive the message of eternal life. So he has a right to expect that we should embrace him and be saved.
- Yet, it is not the abundance of mercies that incline men to seek God. The Jews had been signally favored, but they rejected him. So, many in Christian lands live and die rejecting the Lord Jesus.
- People are alike in every age. All would reject the Saviour if left to themselves. All people are by nature wicked. There is no more certain and universal proof of this than the universal rejection of the Lord Jesus.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 11. He came unto his own] – to those of his own family, city, country:-and his own people, -his own citizens, brethren, subjects.
The Septuagint, Josephus, and Arrian, use these words, and , in the different senses given them above.
Received him not.] Would not acknowledge him as the Messiah, nor believe in him for salvation.
How very similar to this are the words of Creeshna, (an incarnation of the Supreme Being, according to the theology of the ancient Hindoos!) Addressing one of his disciples, he says: “The foolish, being unacquainted with my supreme and divine nature, as Lord of all things, despise me in this human form; trusting to the evil, diabolic, and deceitful principle within them. They are of vain hope, of vain endeavours, of vain wisdom, and void of reason; whilst men of great minds, trusting to their divine natures, discover that I am before all things, and incorruptible, and serve me with their hearts undiverted by other beings.” See Bhagvat Geeta, p. 79.
To receive Christ is to acknowledge him as the promised Messiah; to believe in him as the victim that bears away the sin of the world; to obey his Gospel, and to become a partaker of his holiness, without which no man, on the Gospel plan, can ever see God.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
He came unto his own; Christ came into the world, which being made by him, was in the most proper sense his own; or, to the Israelites, which were as his own house, land, and possession, Psa 85:1; Joh 16:32. The Greek word is in the plural number, and used in the places before mentioned, as also Act 21:6; sometimes signifying mens proper country, sometimes their proper house. But it is a further question, what coming is here spoken of: though it be generally (or by many at least) interpreted of Christs coming by his incarnation, yet that seemeth not to be the sense; partly, because that coming is spoken of, Act 21:14; and partly, because in that sense the Jews did receive him; nor was it in their power to hinder his manifestation in the flesh. The coming therefore here mentioned seemeth to be intended of his coming by his prophets, John the Baptist, and his own personal preaching of the gospel.
And his own received him not; whom in this way of coming they did not receive, believing neither the testimony given by his prophets, nor by the Baptist, nor by himself, Joh 5:43.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
11. his own“His own”(property or possession), for the word is in the neutergender. It means His own land, city, temple, Messianic rights andpossessions.
and his own“Hisown (people)”; for now the word is masculine. It meansthe Jews, as the “peculiar people.” Both they andtheir land, with all that this included, were “HISOWN,” not so much as part of “the world which wasmade by Him,” but as “THEHEIR” of the inheritance (Lu20:14; see also on Mt 22:1).
received him notnationally,as God’s chosen witnesses.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
He came unto his own,…. Not all the world, who are his own by right of creation; for these, his own, are opposed to the world, and distinguished from them; and his coming to them designs some particular favour, which is not vouchsafed to all: nor yet are the elect of God intended; though they are Christ’s own, in a very special sense; they are his by his own choice, by his Father’s gift, by his own purchase, and through the conquest of his grace, and are the objects of his special love; and for their sake he came in the flesh, and to them he comes in a spiritual way, and to them will he appear a second time at the last day unto salvation: but they cannot be meant, because when he comes to them they receive him; whereas these did not, as the next clause affirms: but by his own are meant the whole body of the Jewish nation; so called, because they were chosen by the Lord above all people; had distinguishing favours bestowed upon them, as the adoption, the covenants, the promises, the giving of the law, and the service of God; and had the Shekinah, and the symbol of the divine presence in a remarkable manner among them; and the promise of the Messiah was in a particular manner made to them; and indeed, he was to be born of them, so that they were his kindred, his people, and his own nation: and this his coming to them is to be understood not of his incarnation; though when he came in the flesh, as he came of them, so he came to them, particularly being sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and was rejected by them as the Messiah; yet his incarnation is afterwards spoken of in Joh 1:14 as a new and distinct thing from this; and to understand it of some coming of his before his incarnation, best suits with the context, and the design of the evangelist. Now Christ, the word, came to the Jews before his incarnation, not only in types, personal and real, and in promises and prophecies, and in the word and ordinances, but in person; as to Moses in the bush, and gave orders to deliver the children of Israel out of Egypt: he came and redeemed them himself with a mighty hand, and a outstretched arm; in his love and pity he led them through the Red Sea as on dry ground; and through the wilderness in a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night; and he appeared to them at Mount Sinai, who gave unto them the lively oracles of God:
and his own received him not; they did not believe in him, nor obey his voice; they rebelled against him, and tempted him often, particularly at Massah and Meribah; they provoked trim to anger, and vexed, and grieved his holy Spirit, as they afterwards slighted and despised his Gospel by the prophets. Of this nonreception of the word by the Jews, and their punishment for it, the Targumist on Ho 9:17 thus speaks:
“my God will remove them far away, because,
, “they receive not his word”; and they shall wander among the people.”
And so they treated this same “Logos”, or word of God, when he was made flesh, and dwelt among them. Somewhat remarkable is the following discourse of some Jews among themselves e:
“when the word of God comes, who is his messenger, we shall honour him. Says R. Saul, did not the prophets come, and we slew them, and shed their blood? (compare this with
Mt 23:30.) how therefore now, , “shall we receive his word?” or wherefore shall we believe? Says R. Samuel, the Levite, to him, because he will heal them, and deliver them from their destructions; and because of these signs we shall believe him, and honour him.”
But they did not.
e Ben Arama in Gen. xlvii. 4. apud Galatin. de Arcan. Cathol. Ver. l. 3. c. 5,
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Unto his own ( ). Neuter plural, “unto his own things,” the very idiom used in 19:27 when the Beloved Disciple took the mother of Jesus “to his own home.” The world was “the own home” of the Logos who had made it. See also John 16:32; Acts 21:6.
They that were his own ( ). In the narrower sense, “his intimates,” “his own family,” “his own friends” as in 13:1. Jesus later said that a prophet is not without honour save in his own country (Mark 6:4; John 4:44), and the town of Nazareth where he lived rejected him (Luke 4:28; Matt 13:58). Probably here means the Jewish people, the chosen people to whom Christ was sent first (Mt 15:24), but in a wider sense the whole world is included in . Conder’s The Hebrew Tragedy emphasizes the pathos of the situation that the house of Israel refused to welcome the Messiah when he did come, like a larger and sadder Enoch Arden experience.
Received him not ( ). Second aorist active indicative of , old verb to take to one’s side, common verb to welcome, the very verb used by Jesus in 14:3 of the welcome to his Father’s house. Cf. in verse 5. Israel slew the Heir (Heb 1:2) when he came, like the wicked husbandmen (Lu 20:14).
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
REJECTED & RECEIVED, v. 11-13
1) “He came unto his own,” (eis ta idia elthen) “Unto his own things he came,” of His own will, choice, or accord; He came to His own creation which He made and daily sustained by His mercy, grace, and love, La 3:22, 23; Act 17:27-28. He came in priority to His own nation, the Jews, and their institutions, Mat 15:24; Act 3:25-26; Act 13:46.
2) “And his own received him not.” (kai hoi idioi auton ou parelabon) “And his own people did not receive him,” gave Him no welcome reception, or take Him to themselves, for who He was. Neither the Jew nor the Gentiles, as a whole accepted Him, though all belonged to Him in two ways: 1) By creation, Eze 18:4-5; Ezekiel 2) By His daily mercy and provision in sustaining them, Act 17:28. He was rejected:
1) By His own nation, the Jews, Joh 3:32.
2) By His home town, Nazareth, by His brethren, Luk 4:29.
3) By the Jews He was crucified, killed, or murdered, 1Th 2:14-15.
REJECTION OF CHRIST
When Ulysses returned with fond anticipations to his home in Ithaca, his family did not recognize him. Even the wife of his bosom denied her husband, so changed was he by an absence of twenty years, and the hardships of a long protracted war. It was ‘thus true of the vexed and astonished Greek, as of a nobler King, that he came unto his own, and his own received him not. In this painful position of affairs he called for a bow which he had left at home, when, embarking for the siege of Troy, he bade farewell to the orange groves and vine-clad hills of Ithaca. With characteristic sagacity, he saw how a bow so stout and tough that none but himself could draw it might be made to bear witness on his behalf. He seized it. To their surprise and joy, like a green wand looped from a willow tree, it yields to his arms; it bends, till the bowstring touches his ear. The wife, now sure that he is her long lost and long lamented husband, throws herself into his fond embraces, and his household confess him the true Ulysses. If I may compare small things with great, our Lord gave such proof of His Divinity when He, too, stood a stranger in His own home, despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. He bent the stubborn laws of nature to His will, and proved Himself Creator by His mastery over creation.
– Dr. Guthrie
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
11. He came into his own. Here is displayed the absolutely desperate wickedness and malice of men; here is displayed their execrable impiety, that when the Son of God was manifested in flesh to the Jews, whom God had separated to himself from the other nations to be His own heritage, he was not acknowledged or received. This passage also has received various explanations. For some think that the Evangelist speaks of the whole world indiscriminately; and certainly there is no part of the world which the Son of God may not lawfully claim as his own property. According to them, the meaning is: “When Christ came down into the world, he did not enter into another person’s territories, for the whole human race was his own inheritance.” But I approve more highly of the opinion of those who refer it to the Jews alone; for there is an implied comparison, by which the Evangelist represents the heinous ingratitude of men. The Son of God had solicited an abode for himself in one nation; when he appeared there, he was rejected; and this shows clearly the awfully wicked blindness of men. In making this statement, the sole object of the Evangelist must have been to remove the offense which many would be apt to take in consequence of the unbelief of the Jews. For when he was despised and rejected by that nation to which he had been especially promised, who would reckon him to be the Redeemer of the whole world? We see what extraordinary pains the Apostle Paul takes in handling this subject.
Here both the Verb and the Noun are highly emphatic. He came. The Evangelist says that the Son of God came to that place where he formerly was; and by this expression he must mean a new and extraordinary kind of presence, by which the Son of God was manifested, so that men might have a nearer view of him. Into his own. By this phrase the Evangelist compares the Jews with other nations; because by an extraordinary privilege they had been adopted into the family of God. Christ therefore was first offered to them as his own household, and as belonging to his empire by a peculiar right. To the same purpose is that complaint of God by Isaiah:
The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib, but Israel knoweth me not, (Isa 1:3😉
for though he has dominion over the whole world, yet he represents himself to be, in peculiar manner, the Lord of Israel, whom he had collected, as it were, into a sacred fold.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(11) He came, as distinct from the was of the previous verse, passes on to the historic advent; but as that was but the more distinct act of which there had been foreshadowings in every appearance and revelation of God, these Advents of the Old Testament are not excluded.
His own is neuter, and the same word which is used in Joh. 19:27, where it is rendered his own home. (Comp. Joh. 16:32, margin, and Act. 21:6.) What then was the home? It is distinguished from the world of Joh. 1:10, and it cannot but be that the home of Jewish thought was the land, the city, the temple bound up with every Messianic hope. Traces of this abound in the Jewish Scriptures. Comp. especially Mal. 3:1, The Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple. (See also Luk. 2:49, Note.)
His own in the second clause is masculinethe dwellers in His own home, who were His own people, the special objects of His love and care. (See Exo. 19:5; Deu. 7:6; Psa. 135:4; Isa. 41:9, and Notes on Eph. 2:19 and Tit. 2:14.) We turn from the coldness of a strange world to the warmth and welcome of a loving home. The world knew Him not, and He came to His own, and they despised Him!
Received him not is stronger than knew him not of Joh. 1:10. It is the rejection of those for whom no plea of ignorance can be urged, of those who see, and therefore their sin remaineth (Joh. 9:41).
There has been an increasing depth in the tone of sadness which cannot now grow deeper. As the revelation has become clearer, as the moral power and responsibility of acceptance has been stronger, the rejection has passed into wilful refusal. The darkness comprehended not; the world knew not; His own received not.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
11. To his own This word own is in the plural neuter, and signifies own things, possessions, or properties. The second own is in the plural masculine, and signifies his own living beings; that is, men. As the landlord comes to his own estates, but his own tenants receive him not, so the Logos came to his own world of things, and his own world of creatures, men, did not receive him. This does not refer to his rejecters as Jews or as his countrymen, but to men, as his own responsible subjects.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘He came to his own, and those who were his own did not receive him.’
He came to His own ‘home’ (ta idia – translated ‘home’ correctly in Act 21:6), and His own people received Him not. Here now it is made clear that Jesus is being spoken of. This was not just some abstract philosophical idea, but a human being who came as God’s Word, not only to the world, but to ‘His own people’, and was rejected by both them, and the world at large. The remainder of the Gospel will expand on this rejection.
It was ever a wonder to John that the very people who had looked for His coming, and whose fathers had waited longingly and yearningly through the centuries for that time, were not willing to receive Him when He came. But of course what they had yearned after was not what Jesus had come to be. What they had yearned for was superiority and plenty, and for abundance of good things and complete security. They yearned to rule the nations. But He had come to reach the hearts of men, not to pander to their desires. He wanted them to yearn for truth. He wanted them to rule themselves under the Kingly Rule of God.
The verses are full of irony. He made the world, but it did not know Him. He had a chosen people whom He had prepared to act as a home for Him, but they too failed to respond and receive God’s Word. None would make the response He was seeking. When Christians who are fully committed to Christ sometimes feel strangers in their own surroundings they can comfort themselves with the thought that they follow in His steps. Yet there were those who did respond, and we now learn that to them was given the great privilege of becoming ‘children of God’.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Joh 1:11. He came unto his own, “He came to the Jewish nation, who were under the most distinguished obligations to him, and to whom he had been expressly promised as their Messiah: yet his own people did not receive him, as they ought, but, on the contrary, treated him in the most contemptuous and ungrateful manner.” Thus we have endeavoured to express the difference between the phrase , and the other , in the original, which is so difficult, that few versions have attempted it: yet, as Grotius has well observed, the energy of the text cannot be understood without attending to it. That the Jewish nation was in some peculiar sense under the care and guardianship of Christ, before his incarnation, this passage strongly intimates, as well as a variety of texts in the Old Testament, where we have not failed to remark this particular.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Joh 1:11 . More particular statement of the contrast. Observe the gradual ascent to still greater definiteness: , Joh 1:9 ; , Joh 1:10 ; . Joh 1:11 .
] to His own possession , is, with Erasmus, Luther, Beza, Calvin, Bengel, Lampe, and many expositors, also Lcke, Tholuck, Bleek, Olshausen, De Wette, B. Crusius, Maier, Frommann, Kstlin, Hilgenfeld, Luthardt, Ewald, Hengstenberg, Godet, and most interpreters, to be explained of the Jewish people as specially belonging to the Messiah ( Sir 24:7 ff.), as they are called in Exo 19:5 , Deu 7:6 , Psa 135:4 , Isa 31:9 , Jehovah’s possession; from Israel salvation was to spread over all the world (Joh 4:22 ; Mat 8:12 ; Rom 1:16 ). This interpretation is required by the onward progress of the discourse, which by the use of excludes any reference to the world . (Corn. a Lapide, Kuinoel, Schott, Reuss, Keim), as was proposed along with this by Chrysostom, Ammonius, Theophylact, Euth. Zig., and conjoined with it by Augustine and many others. “He was in the world; ” and now follows His historical advent , “He came to His own possession .” Therefore the sympathy of God’s people, who were His own people, should have led them to reach out the hand to Him.
] the Jews . ] they received Him not, i.e . not as Him to whom they peculiarly belonged. Comp. Mat 1:20 ; Mat 24:40-41 ; Herod, i. 154, vii. 106; Plato, Soph . p. 218 B. Observe that the special guilt of Israel appears still greater ( , they despised Him) than the general guilt of mankind ( ). Comp. the of Mat 23:37 ; Rom 10:21 . In the negative form of expression (Joh 1:10-11 ) we trace a deeply elegiac and mournful strain.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
11 He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
Ver. 11. He came unto his own ] His peculiar picked people; as “touching the election, beloved for the Father’s sake,” Rom 11:28 ; (ownness makes love), though the more he loved the less he was beloved. This may be the best man’s case,2Co 12:152Co 12:15 . Learn we to deserve well of the most undeserving. God shines upon the unthankful also,Luk 6:35Luk 6:35 . Christ came to the “stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears,”Act 7:51Act 7:51 . His comfort was (and may be ours), “Though Israel be not gathered, yet I shall be glorious,” &c., Isa 49:5 .
And his own received him not ] Nay, they peremptorily and pertinaciously “denied the holy One and the just; and desired a murderer to be given unto them,” Act 3:14 . For the which their inexpiable guilt, they are, as it were, cast out of the world by a common consent of nations, being a dejected and despised people. Howbeit, we long and look daily for their conversion, their resurrection, as St Paul calleth it,Rom 11:15Rom 11:15 . And Augustine argueth out of the words, Abba, Father, that there shall one day be a consent of Jews and Gentiles in the worship of the one true God. There are those who say out ofDan 12:11Dan 12:11 , that this will occur A.D. 1650. Fiat, fiat. Do it, do it.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
11. ] here cannot well mean the world , or mankind in general: it would be difficult to point out any Scripture usage to justify such a meaning. But abundance of passages bear out the meaning which makes His own inheritance or possession, i.e. Juda; and , the Jews: compare especially the parable Mat 21:33 ff., and Sir 24:7 ff. And thus forms a nearer step in the approach to the declaration in Joh 1:14 . He came to His own.
On . see reff., and above on Joh 1:5 .
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Joh 1:11 . , “He came to His own”. In the world of men was an inner circle which John calls , His own home. (For the meaning of cf. Joh 19:27 , Joh 16:32 , Act 21:6 , 3Ma 6:27-37 , Est 5:10 , Polybius, Hist. , ii. 57, 5.) Perhaps in this place “His own property” might give the sense as accurately. Israel is certainly signified; the people and all their institutions existed only for Him. (See Exo 19:5 , Deu 7:6 , “The Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people, a peculium , unto Himself”; also Mat 21:33 .) , those of His own home (His intimates, cf. Joh 13:1 ), those who belonged to Him, “gave Him no reception”. The word is used of welcoming to a home, as in Joh 14:3 , . Even those whose whole history had been a training to know and receive Him rejected Him. It is not said of “His own” that they did not “know” Him, but that they did not receive Him. And in the parable of the Wicked Husbandmen our Lord represents them as killing the heir not in ignorance but because they knew him.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
He came. Denoting the definite historical fact. unto. Greek. eis. App-104.
His own. Neut. plural: i.e. His own things, or posses sions. Supply ktemata (possessions), as in Mat 19:22. Compare Mat 21:33-41. What these “possessions” were must be supplied from Mat 1:1, viz, the land of Abraham, and the throne of David.
His own. Masculine plural: i.e. His own People (Israel).
received = received (to themselves).
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
11.] here cannot well mean the world, or mankind in general: it would be difficult to point out any Scripture usage to justify such a meaning. But abundance of passages bear out the meaning which makes His own inheritance or possession, i.e. Juda; and , the Jews: compare especially the parable Mat 21:33 ff., and Sir 24:7 ff. And thus forms a nearer step in the approach to the declaration in Joh 1:14. He came to His own.
On . see reff.,-and above on Joh 1:5.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Joh 1:11. , His own) From the world, the whole, the discourse goes down to the part. Formerly there belonged to Messiah, as peculiarly His own, , whatsoever belonged to Israel-its land, city, and temple: , His own people, the Israelites; Mat 8:12, The children of the kingdom. The time, moreover, of His coming into the world and to His own is one and the same, namely after the coming of John; Joh 1:6-7.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Joh 1:11
Joh 1:11
He came unto his own, and they that were his own received him not.-We have long thought his own referred to those prepared by John for him. They embraced a large portion of the Jewish nation, but only those who voluntarily took upon themselves the obligations by being baptized. This was a radical change in the order of Gods dealings with the Jews. Hitherto those he recognized as his servants were born after the flesh. All that were born of the fleshly family of Jacob were his servants. Now the voluntary principle was introduced by John. None were his save those who through faith in Johns teaching voluntarily took on themselves the obligations imposed in baptism. This principle introduced into the provisional and introductory stages of the kingdom was to be the distinguishing principle of Gods government henceforth. Hence, these to whom Christ came were his own, prepared for him by John, and they were born not of blood or the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God, inasmuch as they were begotten by the word of God preached through John.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
He came
i.e. He came unto his own things, and his own people received him not.
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
came: Mat 15:24, Act 3:25, Act 3:26, Act 13:26, Act 13:26, Act 13:46, Rom 9:1, Rom 9:5, Rom 15:8, Gal 4:4
and: Joh 3:32, Isa 53:2, Isa 53:3, Luk 19:14, Luk 20:13-15, Act 7:51, Act 7:52
Reciprocal: Psa 69:8 – become Isa 49:4 – I have laboured Isa 50:2 – when I came Isa 65:12 – because Jer 3:19 – put thee Mat 13:23 – good Mat 13:54 – when Mat 17:12 – and they Luk 14:18 – all Luk 17:25 – rejected Joh 1:26 – whom Joh 3:11 – ye Joh 5:38 – for Joh 5:40 – ye will not Joh 7:5 – General Joh 12:37 – General Joh 19:27 – his Act 4:27 – the people Act 21:6 – they
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
1
Came unto his own. Luk 1:17 says of John that he was to precede Christ, “To make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” These people were Jews, and had been all of their lives, but had to be reformed before they could become a part of the “people prepared for the Lord.” That is why chapter 3:25 makes a distinction between the Jews as such, and the disciples of John. Own received him not. The same “own” is meant in both instances in this verse. The meaning is, that the disciples of John as a group did not receive Jesus. According to Mat 3:5-6; Mar 1:5, great multitudes from the regions named were baptized by John. However, according to Act 1:15, only about 120 disciples, which would include the ones made by both John and Christ, were accounted for on that day of Pentecost. This explains the words received him not, stated in verse 11.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Joh 1:11. He came unto his own home, and his own accepted him not. Is this verse practically a repetition of Joh 1:10, in language more solemn and emphatic? Or do we here pass from the thought of the world in general to that of the Jewish people. The question is one of some difficulty. As Joh 1:12 is certainly quite general in its meaning, it may seem hazardous to introduce a limitation here. But the weight of argument seems on the whole to be on the other side. There is a manifest advance of thought as we pass from the last verse to this. Instead of He was in, we find He came unto; for the world, we have
His own home; for knew (perceived or recognised), we have accepted. Every change seems to point to a more intimate relationship, a clearer manifestation, and a rejection that is still more without excuse. The Word, who was in the world (comp. Pro 8:31), had His home with the chosen people (Exo 19:5; Psa 76:2), to which had been given the revelation of the truth of God (Rom 9:4). It is still mainly of the Pre-incarnate Word that John speaks. In the whole history of Israel had been illustrated unfaithfulness to the truth (comp. Luk 11:49-50; Act 7:51-53); and the tender pathos of this verse recalls the words in which Jesus speaks of the rejection of Himself (Mat 23:37).
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
[See also the “General Considerations on the Prologue” in the comments of Joh 1:18.]
Ver. 11. He came to His own and they that were His own received Him not.
A relation of gradation might be established between this verse and the preceding, if this verse were applied to the rejection of the natural revelation by the heathen: And there was something still worse! But the asyndeton is unfavorable to this sense, which we have already refuted. It leads us rather to find here a more emphatic reaffirmation of the fact indicated in Joh 1:10 : The world did not know Him. Yes; that rejection took place, and where it seemed the most impossiblein the dwelling-place which the Logos had prepared for Himself here below! The words His home, His own, by setting forth the enormity of the Jewish crime, characterize it as the climax of the sin of humanity. The word , came, refers to the public ministry of Jesus in Israel. , literally: His home (comp. Joh 19:27). Before coming to the earth, the Logos prepared for Himself there a dwelling-place which peculiarly belonged to Him, and which should have served Him as a door of entrance to the rest of the world. Comp. Exo 19:5, where Jehovah says to the Jews: You shall be my property among all peoples, and Psa 135:4 : The Lord hath chosen Jacob for Himself. Malachi had said of Jehovah, in describing the Messianic advent as His last appearance: And the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to His temple; behold, he cometh (Joh 3:1).
But this door was closed to Him, and even by those who should have opened it to Him: , His own, His servants, the dwellers in His house, which He had Himself established. In the same way as His home designates Canaan together with the entire theocratic institution, , His own, designates all the members of the Israelitish nation. Paul also calls them , members of the household, domestici, familiares, in contrast with and , strangers and sojourners. Never, it seems, had the Jews better deserved that title of honor from Jehovah, His people, than at the moment when Jesus appeared. Their monotheistic zeal and their aversion to idolatry had reached at that epoch the culminating point. The nation in general seemed to form a Messianic community altogether disposed to receive Him who should come, as a bride welcomes her bridegroom. The word , receive to oneself (Joh 14:3), well expresses the nature of the eager welcome which the Messiah had a right to expect. That welcome should have been a solemn and official reception on the part of the whole nation hailing its Messiah and rendering homage to its God. If the home prepared had opened itself in this way, it would have become the centre for the conquest of the world. Instead of this, an unheard of event occurred. Agamemnon returning to his palace and falling by the stroke of his faithless spousethis was the tragic event par excellence of pagan history. What was that crime in comparison with the theocratic tragedy! The God invoked by the chosen nation appears in His temple, and He is crucified by His own worshipers. Notice the finely shaded difference between the two compound verbs, , to apprehend, Joh 1:5, which corresponds with the light as a principle, and , to welcome, which characterizes the reception given to the master of the house. Respecting the , and, the same observation as in Joh 1:5; Joh 1:10. The writer has reached the point of contemplating with calmness the poignant contrast which the two facts indicated in the two propositions of this verse present.
Two explanations opposed to that which we have just been developing have been offered. Some interpreters,Lange, for example, refer the coming of the Word indicated in this verse, to the manifestations of Jehovah and the prophetic revelations in the Old Testament. Others, as Reuss, while applying the words He came, just as we do, to the historical appearing of Jesus Christ, think that the , His own, are not the Jews, but men in general, as creatures of the pre-existent Word (Hist. de la theolchret t. II., p. 476). Reuss even describes the application of the words , , to the Jews, as a strange error of the ordinary exegesis. He is, however, less positive in his last work; he merely says: An interpretation may be maintained according to which there is no question here of the Jews. So far as the first view is concerned, it is excluded by the word , He came, which can only designate, like the same word in Joh 1:7, an historical fact, the coming of Christ in the flesh. We shall see, moreover, that the following verses cannot be applied to the time of the Old Covenant, as must be the case according to the sense which Lange gives to Joh 1:11. Reuss’ interpretation seems to him to be required, first, by a difficulty which he finds in the , all those who, of Joh 1:12, if by His own, of Joh 1:11, the Jews are to be understoodwe shall examine this objection in its proper placeand then, by the general fact that, according to our Gospel, there are no special relations between the Word and the Jews as such. We believe that we can prove, on the contrary, that the fourth Gospel, no less than the first, establishes from the beginning to the end an organic relation between the theocracy and the coming of Christ in the flesh. The following are some of the principal passages which do not allow us to question this: Joh 2:16, The house of my Father; Joh 4:22, Salvation is from the Jews;5:39, The scriptures bear witness of me;5:45-47; Joh 8:35; Joh 8:56; Joh 10:2-3; Joh 12:41; Joh 19:36-37. All these sayings are incompatible with the thought of Reuss and prove that the expressions His abode, His own, are perfectly applicable to the land of Israel and the ancient people of God.
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
Verse 11
Unto his own; unto the world, which was his own.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
1:11 He came {r} unto his own, and his own received him not.
(r) The Word showed himself again when he came in the flesh.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
More seriously, when Jesus visited His own creation (Gr. idia, neuter), the creatures whom He had created (Gr. idioi, masculine) did not receive Him but rejected Him. The specific people whom Jesus visited in the Incarnation were the Jews. They were His own in a double sense. He had not only created them but also bought them for Himself out from the nations. Jesus had created the earth as a house, but when He visited it He found it inhabited by people who refused to acknowledge Him for who He was. In the Incarnation Jesus did not come as an alien; He came to His own "house."