Episode 13 - Look! The Lamb of God
John 1:29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, 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 before me, because he was before me.’
This segment is a continuation of John the Baptist’s testimony of the one who’s sandals he is unworthy to untie. Not only does he make it clear that this person is Jesus, he says something about him that is intriguing.
We’ve already read that John the Baptist has claimed to be a prophetic figure spoken of in Isaiah who’s mission is to prepare the way for the Lord. He’s been doing that. He’s been teaching people about someone that they do not yet know about. It’s in this segment that Jesus appears on the scene and John says. “This is the one I have been speaking about!”
What does the Baptizer have to say about Jesus? He directs people’s attention toward Jesus and says that he is “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” What does this mean? Why does John call him the Lamb of God?
To keep this brief, I’m going to give you my opinion of what it means instead of a number of scholarly citations. In order to do this, let’s examine the concept of sin. I will define “sin” as disobedience against the will and character of God. This is evident from the first account of human disobedience to God’s expressed will in the book of Genesis. We see God revealing a command to Adam to not eat from one specific tree. The consequence of disobeying that command would be certain death. (Genesis 2:15-17) Genesis 3:1-8 gives us an account of the first humans disobeying that specific command and verse 8 records how they attempted to make coverings for themselves to cover their shame. But, reading on through that chapter, we find that their effort is inadequate because God made “garments from skin . . .and clothed them.” (Gen. 3:21)
Bible scholars love to argue about this passage and its meaning and the caution to NOT read too much into Scripture is well-taken. .But, the million-dollar question is “Where did these skins come from?” It would seem they came from animals since this man and woman are the only humans living at this time. Is this God initiating and demonstrating an “animal blood sacrifice” as a means to cover the shame for their sin? If not, how is it that their son Able thought to bring God an animal sacrifice and be accepted, while his brother brought a harvest from the field which was not accepted by God? Somewhere along the way, these first people had the notion to sacrifice an animal to God in order to come before God and be accepted. It’s only after the people sin, that the idea of an animal sacrifice comes into the picture of mankind’s relationship and worship to God.
Later in Genesis, God has called a man named Abram to obey a command and Abram obeys. God later renames Abram to Abraham and makes him an unconditional promise for land and innumerable descendants. The problem for a long time is that Abraham and his wife don’t have any children until long after they normally would be able to have them. Then God, demonstrating His power, gives them one “miracle” son. When that son is older, God instructs Abraham to sacrifice that son. (See Genesis 22) As Abraham is taking his son to the place that God has designated for this sacrifice, his son asks the question, “Where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” (Gen. 22:7) Abraham’s reply is, “God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” (Gen. 22:8a) As the story unfolds, we see that Abraham is committed to obey God despite the logical question of how he would have all the descendants God promised if this one son were dead before having any children of his own? An answer is given to us by the author of Hebrews who says in Hebrews 11:19 that Abraham “reasoned that God could even raise him from the dead.” If you read the whole story, you’ll discover that God stopped Abraham at the last moment and did provide a substitute for Abraham’s son.
The important thing that we learn from this is that while God did “provide for himself” the sacrifice and spared Isaac, this event foreshadows that God would “not spare His own Son” as Paul tells us in Romans 8:32. God’s Son is the true and perfect sacrifice that satisfies God’s just requirement for mankind to be right with Him. The Christian faith understands this to be prophesied in Isaiah 53 speaking of God’s suffering servant. In Isaiah 53:5 it reads, “He was wounded because of our rebellious deeds, crushed because of our sins; he endured punishment that made us well.” In verse 6 “. . . but the Lord caused the sin of all of us to attack him.” Then, in verse 7, “He was treated harshly and afflicted, but he did not even open his mouth. Like a lamb led to the slaughtering block, like a sheep silent before her shearers, he did not even open his mouth.”
What I hope we can all see here is how Scripture collectively and consistently describes our human condition as following in the footsteps of the first humans who rebelled against God’s command and will. Death is the deserved consequence. There is a pattern of blood sacrifice possibly from even the first sin and becomes more evident in the sacrificial system given with the Law at Mount Sinai. The animal sacrifices are not perfect in satisfying the requirement because they have to be done again and again. This leads us to this “Servant” of God who suffers and dies on account of the people’s sin prophesied in Isaiah. And this brings us to this passage and testimony of John the Baptist pointing to Jesus and saying “Look! This is the one I’ve been talking about. He is God’s provision for people’s sin. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” John the Baptist is saying that Jesus is God’s perfect sacrifice that He is providing for Himself. He is not an animal. He is not an imperfect representative of something better to come. He is the fulfillment of God’s perfect solution to make sinful people right before Him so that we can be in His presence and worship Him.
At the end of the day, people may disagree with specific details about my treatment of some of these Old Testament passages. However, looking at the most obvious meaning of John the Baptist’s statement and that is he is telling others that Jesus is God’s Lamb and the significance of that he is able to take away the sin of the world. Do you believe that Jesus is God’s solution for addressing your sin problem?