...the Lamb of God...

“29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is He of whom I said, “After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.” 31 I myself did not know Him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that He might be revealed to Israel’”  John 1:29-31. 

This is a beautiful text of John with the words of the Baptizer giving spontaneous praise to Jesus with a beautiful expression of love and devotion — The Lamb Of God!   At the very least this title is reminiscent of the Passover Supper where the blood of the lamb was painted on the lintels of the doors of the Israelites on the night when they escaped from Egypt.   “12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. 13 The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt” Exodus 12:12-13.   The blood of the lamb protected the Israelites from death and destruction just as Jesus’ blood on the cross protects us from eternal death and destruction.   The Apostle Paul also saw Jesus as the Lamb of God whose blood saved us all:  “Our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed”  1 Corinthians 5:7.   There is life, there is hope, there is deliverance only in Jesus Christ, and John and Paul both say the same thing.

John was also the son of the priest, Ezechiel, who was very familiar with the daily temple sacrifice of the lamb every morning and every night to atone for the sins of Israel.   John could very much have had in the back of his mind this daily sacrifice of the lamb in the temple for the sins of Israel, saying that Jesus is the only true atoning sacrifice for the sins of humanity.  Our only hope of forgiveness for our sins comes through the blood of Jesus, the sacrificial Lamb of God.

Two great prophets, Jeremiah and Isaiah, also spoke powerfully about the sacrificial lamb.  “But I was like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter”  Jeremiah 11:19.   “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth”  Isaiah 53:7.   John would have remembered these Scriptures and could also be saying that the prophets spoke of Jesus as the Lamb of God too, predicting centuries earlier Jesus’ sacrifice and spilled blood on the cross.

It is also possible that the Jews heard in John’s acknowledgement of Jesus as The Lamb of God  the great struggles between the Old Testament and the New Testament — the struggles of the great Maccabees.   The Lamb stood for the conquering Champion of God, a description given to Judas Maccabaeus, a description given to Samuel, David, and Solomon.  The Old Testament books of 1st and 2nd Maccabees report this intertestamental period known as the "400 Silent Years" because it was a span where no new prophets were raised and God revealed nothing new to His people.

For the Jew, then, the lamb was no sign of gentle helplessness, but a sign of strength, of a conquering majesty and power.   Perhaps John wished to say that Jesus was the conquering Champion of God who bravely spilled His blood for the salvation of creation!

But it is in Revelation, also authored by John, where the Lamb of God appears nearly 30 times!  The Lamb of God sums up the love of God, the sacrificial suffering and death of Jesus, and the triumph of Jesus Christ.

John the Baptizer is clearly saying that his job was to point out the Lamb of God.   John knew that he himself was not the lamb of God — only Jesus was!

Dear friends, we are challenged by this sober title of Jesus, the Lamb of God.  Pease take some prayerful time and consider such a great sacrifice as this, the love of God that is displayed by doing all for others.   Consider in some quiet time today that Jesus did this all for you!

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.