The Lamb of God
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Last week we were held in awe of the majesty of the Deity of Christ as the Apostle John proclaimed Jesus as the Word and the Word becoming flesh to dwell among us. The beauty of the reality that Christ came to live among us should leave us in absolute wonder.
Tonight, we continue that wonder. We continue tonight in the first chapter of John’s Gospel verses 19-34. And the title of tonight’s message is “Behold the Lamb of God.” The Scripture says,
19 And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” 20 He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.” 21 And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” And he answered, “No.” 22 So they said to him, “Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” 23 He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.”
24 (Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.) 25 They asked him, “Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?” 26 John answered them, “I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know, 27 even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.” 28 These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
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.’ 31 I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel.” 32 And John bore witness: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. 33 I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.”
The opening of this section explains that this is the testimony of John the Baptist. As we saw in the first part of chapter one, John’s purpose is to proclaim Christ, the Messiah, to prepare a people to receive him.
It is interesting that the Greek word here for testimony is the word martyria which is where we get our word martyr. It means to be a witness. And that is why we call those killed for their faith martyrs, they were killed for being a witness.
So John is bearing witness to what he knows, to the reason why he has been sent. As we discussed last time, John had a purpose from before he was even born. We do not know much of John the Baptist. We see the recording of his conception and birth as we discussed last week in Luke’s Gospel. And in that first chapter of Luke’s Gospel it says:
80 And the child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel.
So John the Baptist was living in the wilderness. We do not know what he did while in the wilderness but we know that he was prepared for this specific purpose and then, when ready, he made his public appearance to start his ministry in Israel. He was told by God when this was supposed to happen.
Luke 3:
1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
God speaks to John and tells him that it is time to fulfill his mission. So John goes to the Jordan region to proclaim repentance for the forgiveness of sin.
Now the region of the Jordan is central throughout Scripture. We have the Israelites crossing the Jordan on their way to the promised land, Elijah is taken to Heaven at the Jordan, Naaman’s leprosy was healed by dipping in the Jordan, and Jesus Christ is baptized in the Jordan.
So John is preaching repentance at this river and the Jews send priests and scribes to talk with him. They wanted to find out what he was up to and who he was.
Now I want to note that when we see the term Jews in the Gospel of John, more times than not it is referring to the Jewish Religious Leaders, namely, the Pharisees.
I think it is important for us to spend a few minutes talking about the Pharisees and who they were because they are going to be a dominate force as we go through the Gospel of John butting heads with Christ and the disciples frequently.
There is much that is unknown regarding the Pharisees but we do know a few things about them from the Scriptures themselves and from the ancient historian, Josephus, who himself lived according to the rules of the Pharisees.
Josephus tells us that the Pharisees were not the only religious sect in Judaism. There were also the Sadducees and the Essenes but the Pharisees had popular support and that made them rulers in the political realm as well as the religious thought.
The Pharisees were strict in their interpretation and adherence to the Law of the Old Testament. And, as we will see in the book of John, they tried to force everyone into that same adherence. They were so strict in their rules that they even would question Jesus. When we get to chapter nine, the healing of the Blind man, we see them say that Jesus cannot be from God.
15 So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight. And he said to them, “He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.”
16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” And there was a division among them.
John 9:
They were more worried about keeping rules and regulations, often beyond what the Law called for or twisting what it actually said, then caring about being close to God.
The Pharisees are referenced in 265 verses in the New Testament. Out of those, 69 are here in the Gospel of John.
So it was this group of people who has sent the Priests and Scribes to John to ask a simple question.
19 And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?”
John was plain saying that he was not the Messiah. And that is our first point tonight, John is not the Messiah.
Verse 20 says this:
20 He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.”
Now this seems a little odd that he would immediately say that he was not the Christ. But remember, earlier in the chapter we see him proclaiming the Messiah. Look in verse 15:
15 (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’ ”)
So John understood what they were asking him. “Do you consider yourself to be the Messiah?” Of course, if they had been paying attention they would have already known that he did not consider himself to be the Christ, but was proclaiming the arrival of Christ.
But not to be deterred, they asked him more pointed questions.
21 And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” And he answered, “No.”
The Jews then, and still today, know that Elijah never physically died. He was caught up into Heaven.
11 And as they still went on and talked, behold, chariots of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.
So Elijah is talking to his disciple Elisha and he is caught up into Heaven. And in Malachi, we see why the Jews thought that John the Baptist might be Elijah coming back to life.
1 “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.
5 “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.
Malachi is one of the minor prophets. This particular book was the last written before the Lord ceased sending prophets to write Scripture. And these are two of the last things Malachi wrote to Israel.
Now this causes some confusion because the Jews were looking for Elijah to physically return since he had never died. They were looking for the physical Elijah to be preparing the way for the Messiah but John answered that he was not Elijah.
This is also confusing for some today because Christ said in
13 For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John, 14 and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come.
14 and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come.
So Jesus has said that John was Elijah who has come, and John said that he is not. Is this a contradiction in Scripture? Which one of them was wrong?
Well, we need to note that it is important when we come across things that seem contradictory in Scripture we must look to find out if there is a way to harmonize the contradiction. This is important because Scripture does not and cannot contradict itself. Otherwise it would not be the inerrant Word of God. In other words, you either believe the Bible is God’s Word or you don’t. And God does not lie, it is not in His nature.
I want to point out which we discussed last week in the first part of . remember is when an angel of the Lord appeared to Zechariah in the Temple and foretold the birth of John the Baptist and we see this from that angel in verse 17 of Luke 1:
17 and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”
Now we see this in and we now understand what Christ was saying. John fulfilled that prophecy and if we look back in we see the exact phrasing that we see in :
6 And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”
So there is no contradiction here. Was John Elijah? Yes and no. He was not the physical Elijah that the Jews were expecting to see, but he was the one in the spirit and power of Elijah preparing the way for the Messiah.
After denying that he was Elijah they asked if he was the prophet. Now there is a lot of speculation about what this could be talking about. Moses said in that a prophet would be raised up to speak the word of God. However, in the first century they did not know who this prophet would be. Some though Elijah, some thought Moses or another one of the prophets would be resurrected. Nobody knew. But John knew it was not him.
But the Jews had to have an answer. They had been sent and they were not going to go back empty-handed. So they asked again, Who are you?
22 So they said to him, “Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”
And this brings us to our second point tonight, the first was the John was not the Messiah. The second point tonight is that John is the fulfillment of prophecy.
23 He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.”
This is a direct fulfillment of a prophecy found in Isaiah chapter 40:
3 A voice cries:
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord;
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
John was the fulfillment of this prophecy. He is the one declaring the way of the Lord. He had lived in the wilderness most of his life and now he comes to prepare the way for the Christ.
This is one of the few instances where a story or quotation is covered in all four Gospels. It is here as well as in , , and . This is a big deal and it was an answer that the Jews were probably not expecting.
John accomplished two things here by quoting this verse in Isaiah. The first is that he has now revealed who he is and what his purpose was. He was the fulfillment of the prophecy in Isaiah. But he also declared to make straight the path of the Lord. It will be the very next day, as we will see momentarily, that John would identify Jesus of Nazareth, his first cousin, as the Christ, the Messiah, the Lord.
But the Jews were not done interrogating John. They brought a challenge against him as we see in verses 24-28.
24 (Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.) 25 They asked him, “Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?” 26 John answered them, “I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know, 27 even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.” 28 These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
They are questioning John’s authority here. Who are you to Baptize? What gives you the right if you are not the Messiah? Remember, John was preaching repentance and then baptism as a sign of that repentance and forgiveness. So they wanted to know what authority he had.
John had already said that he was not Christ, he was not Elijah, and he was not a prophet. These would have been the only figures that the Pharisees would have recognized to have authority to do such acts. But John’s answer is perfect. John’s answer brings us to our third point tonight.
The third point tonight is that one greater is coming. One greater is coming.
“I baptize with water” is what John the Baptist said. But then he said something interesting. He said that there is one among you that you do not know.
It is pointed out by one commentator the tragedy of this. Here are the servants of the Pharisees interrogating John because they want to weed out false Messiahs, and, in doing so, they miss the true Messiah. Jesus was among them and they did not know who He was. They were blinded. They did not want or wish to believe. Ultimately it was a power struggle. They had absolute control over the Jews and they wanted to keep that power. This is the same reason Herod tried to have Jesus killed as a baby. They wanted a king with authority, not someone like Jesus. As we discussed in the prologue of John, they rejected Him because He did not come in the way that they thought the king should arrive.
Again, John shows us that he recognizes the high office of Christ as we see in verse 27.
27 even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.”
John knew who Christ was. And John understood that the holiness of Christ made him unworthy. That is something today that we, myself included, sometimes fail to recognize. We fail to recognize the complete and total holiness of God and all that entails.
When we think of the holiness of God we need to think of passages like
5 Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”
Or passages like where the High Priest goes into the Holy of Holies and had to wear soundmakers so they know that he wasn’t struck dead by the holiness of God.
Exodus 29:40-
40 “For Aaron’s sons you shall make coats and sashes and caps. You shall make them for glory and beauty. 41 And you shall put them on Aaron your brother, and on his sons with him, and shall anoint them and ordain them and consecrate them, that they may serve me as priests. 42 You shall make for them linen undergarments to cover their naked flesh. They shall reach from the hips to the thighs; 43 and they shall be on Aaron and on his sons when they go into the tent of meeting or when they come near the altar to minister in the Holy Place, lest they bear guilt and die. This shall be a statute forever for him and for his offspring after him.
40 And with the first lamb a tenth measure of fine flour mingled with a fourth of a hin of beaten oil, and a fourth of a hin of wine for a drink offering. 41 The other lamb you shall offer at twilight, and shall offer with it a grain offering and its drink offering, as in the morning, for a pleasing aroma, a food offering to the Lord. 42 It shall be a regular burnt offering throughout your generations at the entrance of the tent of meeting before the Lord, where I will meet with you, to speak to you there. 43 There I will meet with the people of Israel, and it shall be sanctified by my glory.
Or that there were only certain times in the Old Testament when the high priest could come into the Holy place or he would die.
Leviticus 16:1-
1 The Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they drew near before the Lord and died, 2 and the Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron your brother not to come at any time into the Holy Place inside the veil, before the mercy seat that is on the ark, so that he may not die. For I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat.
The holiness of God is so great that for all eternity to come Revelation tells us that God’s holiness will be proclaimed throughout eternity.
Revelation 4:8
8 And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say,
“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,
who was and is and is to come!”
9 And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, 10 the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying,
11 “Worthy are you, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created.”
We do not even begin to understand the holiness of Christ. I doubt John the Baptist fully understood it either but this he knew, he was not even worthy to until the strap of Christ’s sandal. He was not even worthy to touch the dirty and filthy shoes of Christ. This would have been the task of the lowest slave in that culture. John said he was not even worthy enough to do that. He was lower than an unspeakable compared to the majesty of Christ.
Christ is above all things, above all people, above all ideas. As Paul wrote in :
36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
And this is setting the stage. John is setting the stage for what will happen the next day which brings us to our fourth point tonight. Our fourth and final point tonight is that the Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world. The Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world.
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.’ 31 I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel.” 32 And John bore witness: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. 33 I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.”
Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. This was a huge statement. In this statement, John proclaims exactly who Jesus was. He identifies Jesus as the Messiah that had been promised centuries before. He was presenting and proclaiming Christ as the king who would come.
Now, out of all of the Gospels, John is the only one that calls Christ the Lamb of God. And John only calls Christ the Lamb of God in the words of John the Baptist and it is only in this first chapter of the Gospel. Nowhere else do we see the phrase “Lamb of God.” In fact, the only other place in Scripture we see Christ even referred to as the “Lamb” is in Revelation. It is interesting to note that Revelation was also written by the Apostle John. Paul does describe Christ as our “Passover lamb” once as well.
There are many other titles that Christ will receive as we go through the Gospel of John but “Lamb of God” is significant.
I mentioned just a second ago the Passover Lamb. This is referencing the lambs that would be killed an eaten during the first Passover and subsequent Passovers that commemorate the 10th plague in Egypt.
We see this in .
Exodus 12:3-
3 Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. 4 And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. 5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats,
I’ll skip on down to verse 7:
Exodus 12:7-
7 “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. 8 They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it.
And skipping on down to verse 13:
Exo12:
13 The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.
This is foreshadow. The blood on the door, the wood of the door, is the symbol of the blood on the wood of the cross. Just as God had mercy on Israel in Egypt because of the blood of the pure and spotless lambs, He will have mercy on His children that receive him by the blood of the perfect Lamb of God who is without blemish and spot.
A more specific foreshadow of Christ as the Lamb of God is seen in Genesis chapter 22. Now we don’t have time to go over the whole story of what happened because we do not have time but it is one that is familiar to us.
God was testing His servant Abraham and He calls out to him and says in verse two:
2 He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”
So Abraham sets out on mount Moriah and takes everything needed for the offering except for the animal necessary to burn.
And Isaac is confused as they reach the top of the mountain and his father Abraham is preparing the alter for the burnt offering. Abraham is grabbing for the fire and the knife and Isaac can’t resist asking any longer.
Gen 22.
7 And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?”
Where is the lamb father? What are we going to do? We do not have a burnt offering to give! Abraham responds in verse 8:
8 Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together.
You know the story, Abraham gets ready to sacrifice his son Isaac. And the Lord stops him and provides a ram to burn instead.
God did not provide the lamb that day, he provided a ram which was also considered to be clean. He would provide the Lamb centuries later in that same region. You see in we learn that Mount Moriah would become the Temple Mount centuries later. And it was just outside in that same region that Christ, the lamb that God would provide, would be crucified.
So sacrificial lambs are a cornerstone of God’s redemptive plan that the Jews would have been intimately familiar with.
As I said, John is the only Gospel that has this phrase but this goes back to the fact that John is deeply focused on the person of Christ and giving the deep theology of who Christ is and why He came and what He accomplished.
Now when it says sins of the world, this is something we are going to be discussing a lot about in John. The word “World” means multiple things depending on how it is used. For example, it can mean the actual creation of the world, the earth. It can also mean the world system, the system of evil, sin. It can mean the people of the world. It can mean people groups. So as we go through the book of John we will need to pay close attention to how the word is being used because it has severe ramifications theologically if you mix up how it is being used.
For example, this verse states that the sin of the whole world is taken away. Does that mean the sin of every individual person? Of course not. That would lead to what is known as universalism meaning that all go to heaven regardless of what they say, do, or believe. But we know the sad reality is that not all will be saved and some do spend eternity in the torments of Hell. In this verse the meaning of the word “world” is humanity in general. God isn’t a respecter of persons.
The Jews would have been taken aback by this statement. They were under the assumption that they would be the only people to whom salvation was offered. But John said the world. All peoples, not every individual.
The Baptist continues explaining his position on Christ.
John 1:30
30 This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me.’
As we stated last week, John knew his place in relation to Christ. Jesus came after John, but was also before John because He is God. The interesting fact is found in the next verse where John states he did not know who Christ was even though he would have grown up with Jesus as first cousins before he moved to the wilderness.
But in these last verses we see one of the most beautiful scenes in all of Scripture.
31 I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel.” 32 And John bore witness: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. 33 I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.”
John 1:
John did not know him, he came to baptize with water so that the Christ might be revealed to Israel as was prophesied. But the Lord descended upon Christ to show John who the Messiah was and he bore witness of that ever since. John knew, because God told him, that Jesus was the perfect Lamb and Son of God.
John was the messenger that proclaimed the Messiah. The Messiah was here. The greatest miracle that has ever happened. The Lamb of God that would take the sin of the world was now in the world and ready to begin His ministry.
So how should this impact us? What are we to do with this?
I think the application is clear. We should react to Jesus in the same way John reacted to Jesus. We are not worthy to even until the strap of Christ’s sandal. Christ is so high above us, he is so wonderful, so holy, and so glorious, that we should prostrate ourselves before him in awe and wonder knowing that He is the sacrificial lamb of God that gives us life.