Joh 1:11 He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. Joh 1:12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name:
According to Thayer the word paralambanō means
1) to take to one’s self, to take with one’s self, to join to one’s self.
So let us read verse 11 again in a personal way….
‘Jesus came to me and I did not take Him to myself, I did not take Jesus with myself, I did not join Jesus to myself.’ There is a surface meaning and a deeper meaning in most things. We receive Jesus simply by believing in His name as verse 12 says. Through believing in Jesus we become children of God. We are born again by the Spirit of God and begin a new life in God.
But there is a deeper meaning of receiving Jesus.
To take Jesus to one’s self as Thayer says of paralambano means I will take Jesus to BE my new self. In fact that is exactly what has happened.
To receive Jesus is to receive a new spirit…a new self.
1Co 6:17 But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit
We that are joined to Jesus are one spirit with Him…that is, we are ONE. So much so that all that Jesus is we are and all that we are He is. (1John 4:17)
Jesus has received us and taken us to Himself, taken us as Himself, taken us and joined Himself to us.
We are to acknowledge in faith that this is so.
To receive Him is to take Him as our new self.
