The Lamb of God

John 1:29-34

The Lamb of God

This idea of the Lamb of God is a strand that runs throughout the history of redemption. It can be traced all the way back to Genesis 22, when God called Abraham to go to Mount Moriah and offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice. Abraham, in obedience to God, was prepared to do just that, but at the last possible moment, God provided a lamb as a sacrifice.  it was a substitutionary sacrifice, and that is the idea that underlies the atonement of Christ. Jesus acts as our substitute, and God pours out His wrath on account of our sin onto Him instead of us. God, then, provides a Lamb of His own and accepts the life of that substitute. We are going to talk about that in tonight’s message Lamb of God.

²⁹ The next day John 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 ^[a]is preferred before me, for He was before me.’ ³¹ I did not know Him; but that He should be revealed to Israel, therefore I came baptizing with water.”

John the Baptist is on the scene. He is the baptizing people, in a baptism of repentance. This has drawn a huge crowd including the religious and political leaders of their day. John warned them all to repent so that they might flee the judgment that is to come.

They ask him who he is? What authority is he speaking this? On what authority is he baptizing. He tells them I am no one. I am nothing more than a voice crying in the wilderness. I am not the Christ. When the Christ comes I’m not even worthy to lose his sandals. To untie the strap of a sandal (before foot washing) was duty of the lowest slave in the house. It’s not about me says John, it’s about the Christ and He is here and you don’t even know it!

They did not like this! Who likes being told they are wrong about something? Especially something you think you are the expert in? In my earlier years in the bank we had a network problem with one of our branch locations in NC. It had been going on for about 2 days and was affecting the branches ability to help customers. Being the person who first got the call I was in a meeting with all the different tech experts & managers.

In the meeting, everyone was blaming everyone else. It’s not my fault. It’s not my job. We should do this expensive thing, no we should do the expensive thing that’s my idea, etc. etc. In general, with any kind of problem solving, you want to look at the simplest solution first. It works more often than it doesn’t. So, I suggested an easy simple solution that no one had tried yet. It could be done in roughly an hour with very little cost associated with it.

I was shot down immediately. When I protested I was told “You are not properly qualified to assess such a situation.  Now in all fairness, I was 23 at the time and everyone else in that room out ranked me in terms of title, experience and education. I kept my mouth shut for the rest of the meeting. 6 Months and 10,000+ dollars later. They finally fixed that network problem! It was the $200 part I suggested they check in that meeting.

This is what is going on! The religious and political leadership has the title, the education and the experience. Yet, John has a relationship with God! That makes all the difference.

After telling them he’s here the next day he says LOOK AT HIM! I hit on this last week but we are a look at me society if there ever was one! We are much more concerned with being famous than being kind. We want our opinions known, validated, and conformed too by literally everyone else in our sphere of influence. We have zero interest in understanding others, particularly those we don’t agree with. This is a far cry from the Biblical command to Love our Neighbor and our Enemy.

Then he tells us exactly why we should look at Jesus and why it is so hard to look at Jesus.

 

“Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” What that means is that for the whole world there is only one who can take away sin. For the whole world, there’s only one who can take away sin, and that’s this One who will die as the sacrificial lamb God . John the reminds us of what he said the day before, “This is He on behalf of whom I said, after me comes a man who’s higher rank than I, for He existed before me.” Once again the emphasis is not himself but His Savior! , 

John MacArthur says of this verse John the Baptist is saying “Get your attention off me. He came after me in terms of beginning His ministry, but He existed before me. He was born after I was born, and yet He existed before me. Get your eyes on this eternal One. Get your eyes on this exalted One who is of higher rank than I am, the One you don’t know.” – John MacArthur

Takes Away is one word in the Hebrew. Airo. to take upon one's self and carry; to bear away what has been raised, carry off. I don’t know how many of saw the cinematic masterpiece that was Adam Sandler’s Big Daddy, but short version of the premise. Adam Sandler, overgrown man child, accidently adopts a elementary student. On the second day the boy wakes him up crying as the boy accidently peed in the bed. Sandler’s character goes no problem! Then puts newspaper all over the wet sheets. Later that morning while the boy is trying to fix some cereal he spills milk all over the floor! Once again Sandlers character covers it up with newspaper. While temporarily covering the problem in the long run it’s just making things worse and harder to deal with later.

That’s a lot of us, trying to temporarily cover up our sin instead of taking it to the one, and the only one who can bear it, who will take it away!

³² And John bore witness, saying, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him. ³³ I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ ³⁴ And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.”

John says hey guys. I know you don’t recognize him as Christ yet. I didn’t recognize him as Christ at first either and he’s my cousin! We grew up together! My mom told me the stories of both my and his miraculous birth but I just didn’t get it. Now I do! God opened my eyes, God will open your eyes as well if you let him.

This actually mirrors an aspect of my testimony and lot of yours as well. I grew up going to church pretty consistently until I was about 9-10 years old. I had two godly grandmothers that took me to church with them whenever I visited. I owned a Bible. I lived down the road from a pastor at one point. I could tell you the basic of the Easter & Christmas stories. It wasn’t that I didn’t know about Jesus, it was the fact that I didn’t know Jesus!

This is what John is warning everyone about. You know about the Messiah but you don’t know the Messiah! This is Him! This is the Son of God! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.