This is a surface fact. Our Lord goes on to show what lies below it.

II. His second thought here is--the world's ignorance in the face of
Christ's light is worse than ignorance; it is sin.

Mark how He speaks: 'If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had
not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin.' And then
again: 'If I had not done amongst them the works which none other men
did, they had not had sin.' So then He puts before us two forms of
His manifestation of the divine nature, by His words and His works.
Of these two He puts His words foremost, as being a deeper and more
precious and brilliant revelation of what God is than are His
miracles. The latter are subordinate, they come as a second source of
illumination. Men who will not see the beauty and listen to the truth
that lie in His word may perchance be led by His deed. But the word
towers in its nature high above the work, and the miracle to the word
is but like the picture in the child's book to the text, fit for
feeble eyes and infantile judgments, but containing far less of the
revelation of God than the sacred words which He speaks. First the
words, next the miracles.

But notice, too, how decisively, and yet simply and humbly and
sorrowfully, our Lord here makes a claim which, on the lips of any
but Himself, would have been mere madness of presumption. Think of
any of us saying that our words made all the difference between
innocent ignorance and criminality! Think of any of us saying that to
listen to us, and not be persuaded, was the sin of sins! Think of any
of us pointing to our actions and saying, In these God is so manifest
that not to see Him augurs wickedness, and is condemnation! And yet
Jesus Christ says all this. And, what is more wonderful, nobody