God's Son, Our Lamb

Big Idea

Tension: Who does John say that Jesus is?

Resolution: The Son of God, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of hte world and the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit

Exegetical Idea: John says Jesus is the Son of God, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.

Theological Idea: Jesus is the Son fo God, the lamb who takes away the sin of all the people of God and the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.

Big Idea: Who is Jesus? God’s Son, our Lamb.

Outline

Introduction: Who is Jesus?

Tom Holland

Who is John?

Not the X, the Prophet, or Elijah (vs. 19-21)

Who are you? We need to give an answer (22)

The one crying out in the wilderness, “make straight the way of the Lord”. We can see from this quotation, that John sees himself as the voice crying to prepare the people to see God’s glory.

Well then, why do you baptize? Afrter all you’re not hte Christ, Elijah, or hte prophet

John says, well my baptism is with water, but that baptism with water is really just to point forward to the one who’s coming after me. He’s the one who will “Baptize with the Spirit”

And that one that one was both before me, and is before me. He was preexistent before time, and he is preemininet within time.

It’s worth stating again and again, that John sees his entire life as dedicated to the mission of another. John preaches to prepare people to see the glory of God. John baptizes to prepare people to baptize for the Holy Spirit. John is just a guy who has been captured by the beauty of the glory of God, and he wants all people everywhere to see it.

So if that’s who John is, who is Jesus in this passage? Who does John think Jesus is?

Who is Jesus?

This passage is assuming we know the whole story of Jesus’ baptism. So just in ccase we’re not faimiliar with it, we can find that story a little bit mroe clearly in Matthew 13:13-17...

Jesus comes and gets baptized by John.

“My beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.”

This event of Jesus’ baptism leads John to see that Jesus is the Son of God.

So in this passage, we know Jesus a bit by his relationship to the Father. He is called the “Son of God” by John in 1:34.

Because he is the “Son of God” the Father “sends” teh Spirit down to rest on him in vs. 32. The Spirit comes and remains on him.

Here, it is worth dwelling a bit on the fact that in the baptism of Jesus, we get a bit of the glimpse of the Trinity. That here, the Triune God gives us a glimpse of what has been going on from eternity past to eternity future, that teh Father has been sending the Son to the Spirit and lavishing on him all praise and affection, and the Son has been yielding and giving himself to teh Father for all time. That they have before all time given us into a glimpse of what htey have been enjoying before all time.

Who is Jesus? Jesus is God’s Son.

But notice how John is very clear, it is Jesus of Nazareth. ...

Question: Now why does Jesus get baptized? After all, we get baptized for a number of reasons. We do it to receive the promises of God. We do it to bear witness to Jesus’ transforming effects in our lives. But why did Jesus get baptized?

Well, each of the four gospels has a different angle on this. Now I should say, the gospels don’t contradict one another. And I think we can say that Jesus could have multiple reasons for getting baptized. ANd the one that John highlights here is the fact that this is a fulfillment of the Old Testament. (Is 11:2 ) Isaiah prophesied that the Spirit would come down and rest upon the Messiah.

Isaiah 11:2 ESV

And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

And John says, “I didn’t know this myself, I didn’t connect the dots, it was the Father who told me, “Yeah, this is the one who’s going to baptize with the Holy Spirit.” He’s the one who you’ve been waiting for, who you’ve been preparing the way for.

What does it mean to baptize with the Holy Spirit? Well, I think here, again, John is drawing on all kinds of Old Testament passages. But one, in particular, that I think is really important for him is this passage from Ezekiel 36-37. Now, you might remember from a few weeks ago when we talked about the Valley of Dry Bones in Ezekiel 37, how in the Old testament, God was promising that he would porovide ressurection and a new birth for the people of God. And we see in Ezekiel 36:25-27 that God promises to send the Spirit.

Ezekiel 36:25–27 ESV

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

I believe that it’s in reference to this later that John will say in John 4:10

John 4:10 ESV

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

So John knows that when the Messiah comes, he’s going to bring in the Holy Spirit. His baptism is a baptism that looks forward to the Spirit’s coming.

It is worth saying that if John’s Baptism was a baptism that is looking forward to the Spirit’s coming, our baptism is a baptism that looks back. Just like in John’s baptism, we receive the promise of the Holy Spirit at our baptism. When we join Jesus in his baptism, just as the Spirit came and rested and remained on us, so in our baptism, we receive the promise that God will put his Spirit on us.

But for John, that’s as much a problem as it is a promise. Because as long as we have sin, we will never be able to receive this promise. Which means we’re going to need an atonement, something to clear away our sins, something to take the penalty of our sins, if we’re going to become God’s people.

And John simply believes, if Jesus is the one who’s going to send out his Holy Spirit, then he must make a way. He must atone for our sins. Which is why John says in vs. 29, “There goes the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

Now when John would have said, “lamb” to a first century Jew, immediately a whole host of images and stories would have come to his head.

One was Genesis 22… (Isaac)

One was Exodus 12:1-28 (Passover)

One was the elaborate rituals of what was called Yom Kippur, the day of atonement in Leviticus… (scapegoat and sin sacrifice)

One was Is 53:4-7

Isaiah 53:4–7 ESV

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.

These sacrifices were important, because they brought people before God and removed all their sins. These sacrifices are also important because they broughht people together into one family.

John could not have said “Lamb of God” without a first century Jew knowing all this. They knew their Old Testament. THey knew their Bible. They knew who the Messiah was going to be. He was going to be the Lamb who God provided, the better Isaac. He was going to be the Passover Lamb whose blood allows us to escape from judgment. He was going to be the true scapegoat who carries our sin outside the city. He was going to be the true atonement lamb who bears the sins of his people. He was going to be the suffering servant, who did not open up his mouth. In essence, he was going to take away the sin of the world.

When John says, “I’m a voice saying in the wilderness, prepare the way for teh Lord to reveal his glory,” this is what he’s talking about. That God is going to show his glory in crushing his Son as our Passover Lamb, our Scapegoat, our sacrifice, our Savior. WHo is Jesus? He is God’s Son, and our Lamb.

We might summarize it in John’s own words later: “For God so loved the wrold, that he sent his only begotten Son, so that who ever believes in him, will not perish but have eternal life.

Applications

Ask yourself, “Is he my lamb?” Is his blood put over your door? Has he borne your sin into the wilderness to bother you no more? Have you placed the burden and the weight of shame and guilt on his head, nailed it into his palms, and

Of course, if he’s going to take your sins away, that means you first have to admit what you’ve done wrong. You have to confess your sins to him. If you’re going to give your brokenness, your pain, your shame to him, you first have to admit that you have those problems exist. Not just that you hurt, but that you have done wrong.

And if he is going to be your lamb, that means you ahve to believe in him. You have to receive him. You have to surrender to him. You have to grab hold of him and not let go. You have to say, “Jesus I want all of you, so take all of me. I want all your glory, so take all my guilt. i want all your holiness, so take my shame.”

Tell yourself, “He is my lamb.” Now if you’ve taken that step, if you’ve put your faith in him, you need to remind yourself of all this that is true. You need to preach the gospel to yourself. When you feel waves of shame over smoething youv’e done in the past, when you feel the burden of guilt bearing down on you, you need to say, “He is my lamb.” When Satan stands to accuse you, you say, “He is the lamb of God who has taken my sins away, taken them as far away from me as the east is from the west.”

The only hope for genuine life-change is to receive the Spirit. Why? Because the Spirit is the one who makes me born again. The Spirit is the one who writes the law on my heart. The Spirit is the one who gives me a love for the one who loved me enough to come and die for me. Listen, I have no problem with reading a time-management or leadership book. But the one who can change your heart, who can make you new is the Spirit.

How does he do that? he does that by pointing me to Christ. He does that by showing me through the preaching of the Word, the Scriptures, the gathering of God’s people, again and again, Jesus’ love for sinners. And as I see that, I’m changed.

We need to be humbled. Again and again, we need to come before the savior and be humbled by this. I do think most of us wake up in the morning and think that the world revolves around us. I think that is why we so often live such disappointed lives. That’s why I think often we’re prone to self-pity, because the world’s not doing for us what we think it should, it’s not giving to us what we think it should. So we wallow in feeling sorry for ourselves. I think that’s often why we’re prone to conflicts with our spouse, because they’re not treating us like the king we think we ought to be. That’s often the source of disappointment at work, because why can’t everyone else think we’re as awesome as we do?

But when we live to make much of Jesus, when we say, “less of me, more of him,” everything changes. Suddenly, we don’t have to be the center. We can enjoy others’ successes. We can truly do things that are loving for others. We can tell others about Jesus.

We need to let this transform our relationships in two ways.

First, if he’s our lamb, then he’s others’ too. We often tend to act as judge, jury, and executioner in our relationships. We often delight in justifying ourselves by putting others down. But, the reality is, if Jesus is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the wrold, that means he doesn’t only take away my sin. He also takes away the sin of my brothers and sisters, he also takes away the sin of my spouse and my kids, of my mother and father, of my fellow church members. Instead of looking at others with a smug self-righteousness in which they never measure up to our standards, we should treat them with a graciousness and a kindness which only one forgiven person can show another.

Second, if he changes us by the Spirit, that’s what he does for others. Or sometimes, we treat others like they’re a project. WHen we look at them, we can only see the ways in which they’re screwed up. But the reality is, I can’t change others. I can barely get my dog to learn a trick, let alone others. Only the Lord can do that. I can’t change my spouse to be the person I want her to be. Only the Spirit can do that.

The Lamb who is standing as those he had been slain - Christ will reign in victory. And he does this as the lamb who was crucified and risen.