The Lamb of God

When John saw Jesus, he announced His coming and His appearance, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Most of us have read John the Baptist's declaration that Jesus is the Lamb of God. Despite how familiar we are with it, do you know that that title for Jesus is only mentioned in two books of the Bible? Both of those books were written by the Apostle John, his Gospel, and the Book of Revelation. Hi, I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and welcome to the Sunday edition of Renewing Your Mind.

R.C. Sproul will be doing a deep dive today into this title for Jesus and will show that it wasn't the invention of John and that the imagery of the Lamb has a long biblical history. But before we hear from Dr. Sproul, remember that you can take a deep dive into the entirety of this Gospel when you request R.C. Sproul's commentary on John with a donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org.

Well, here's Dr. Sproul on the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Our Scripture this morning is still from John chapter 1, beginning at verse 29 and reading through verse 42. John 1, 29 to 42. The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

This is he of whom I said, After me comes a man who is preferred before me, for he was before me, and I did not know him, but that he should be revealed to Israel. Therefore, I came baptizing with water. And John bore witness, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and he remained upon him.

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. And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God. And again the next day John stood with two of his disciples, and looking at Jesus as he walked, he said, Behold the Lamb of God. And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. And Jesus turned, and seeing them following, said to them, What do you seek? And they said to him, Rabbi, which is to say when translated, Teacher, where are you staying? And he said to them, Come and see. And they came and saw where he was staying, and remained with him that day.

Now it was about the tenth hour. And one of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. And he first found his own brother Simon and said to him, We have found the Messiah, which is translated the Christ, and he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus looked at him, he said, You are Simon, the son of Jonah, but you shall be called Cephas, which is translated a stone.

He who has ears to hear the Word of God, let him hear. In England, it's always a momentous occasion when one of the citizens achieves knighthood and has the opportunity to come before the monarch to be given the title, Sir. And in England, as monarchies go, people are very jealous of the titles that they receive, from King and Queen to Queen Mom, to Prince and Princess to Duke and Duchess to Earl and Lady and so on.

And people covet the bestowal of ranking titles. I've said in the past, the most titled person in all of human history is Jesus of Nazareth. I am reminded of an event at an academic convocation in a theological seminary where the guest speaker was a distinguished New Testament scholar, and these convocation events are usually the subject of weighty, academic, technical paper presentations. But on this occasion, the New Testament scholar did something that had never been done before in the institution. He simply got to the podium and began a recitation that lasted a half an hour, where without comment, he just began to give a litany of the titles of Christ that are found in the New Testament. The Christ, the Son of God, the Son of Man, Lord, the Consolation of Israel, the Lion of Judah, the Son of God, Alpha and Omega for thirty minutes, just reciting titles that are found in Scripture that it has pleased God the Father to ascribe to His Son. Twice we hear in the text we've just read in the first chapter of John that when John saw Jesus, he announced His coming and His appearance by what we commonly call the Agnus Dei, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Now I'm going to say something I believe is interesting about this. In church history, in our art, in our music, and the depictions of the symbolism that we see of Christ throughout Christendom, this title, Lamb of God, features prominently. It's certainly not a new thing for you to hear that Jesus was called the Lamb of God. But it might strike you as a bit strange to understand that there are only two books in all of the Bible wherein Christ is called the Lamb of God. And both of those books were written by the same man, the Apostle John. We hear it here in the first chapter of John where Christ is described as the Lamb of God on the lips of John the Baptist, and then of course in John's vision at the Isle of Patmos in the book of Revelation where in chapter 6 He is told to await the coming of the Lion of Judah, but when He turns and beholds not the Lion but a Lamb as it was slain.

And the songs of the angels incorporated that event by saying what? Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive honor, glory, power, dominion, and so on. And yet this is one of the most rare titles that we find for Jesus in the Bible.

Before I comment on it further, I want you to see something that I also think is intriguing in the first chapter. We recall that at the very beginning of the chapter Jesus is introduced as the Word of God, the eternal Word, who was with the Father in the beginning, who was with God, and who was God, and so on. But now in the ministry of John the Baptist, John introduces Jesus by not using the term Word but by using the title Lamb of God.

If you look down at verse 34, we read this. John says, I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God. If you turn the page, or at least I have to turn the page, to verse 36, again the Lamb of God, and in verse 38 the disciples of John, when they came to Jesus, they said to Him, Rabbi, which was another title by which He was known. Verse 41, St. Andrew is the first to announce the messianic identity of Jesus as he finds Peter and says to him, we have found the Messiah, or the Christ. If you go down to verse 49, in the meeting with Nathaniel, he says to Jesus, Rabbi, you are the Son of God.

You are the King of Israel. And in Jesus' own testimony at the very end of the chapter, Jesus says, I say to you hereafter, you shall see the heavens open and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. So in this very, very short literary span, we hear Jesus called the Word, the Lamb of God, the Son of God, Rabbi, Messiah, King of Israel, and Son of Man. But all of these titles, following the prologue, are introduced to us by John with that title, Lamb of God.

I wish I had time to go into all of the academic controversies that surround this particular aspect of John's gospel. One of the things that people are bothered with is they say, wait a minute, nowhere in the Old Testament do we find the Lamb used as one who is involved in the expiation of sin. In the sin offerings of the Old Testament, bulls and goats were used in the sacrifice.

The scapegoat was driven out into the wilderness, but lambs were not used. So where does this idea come from that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away sin? And so the critics of the New Testament will come to this text and they will say, well obviously this is something that John makes up in his own mind and puts into the mouth of John the Baptist because there is no Old Testament precedent for it. Others say, well wait a minute, we do have lamb metaphors found in the Old Testament, most notably in Isaiah 53. We are in Isaiah chapter 53 where God gives the prophet Isaiah the vision of the suffering servant, the servant of the Lord who will come and who will die for his people's sin, where it will please the Lord to bruise him and transfer to him our sins. And we read in that text that as a lamb is led to the slaughter, so the servant of God opens not his mouth.

As the lamb before his shearers is dumb, so he opens not his mouth. So there in the imagery, in the metaphor of Isaiah 53, you do have the suffering servant being compared to a lamb. But he is still not called the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And so again the critics say, well this must have been something that John invents. I say, wait a minute, does that mean Isaiah invented his metaphor too? Does that mean that Moses invented the function of the lamb on the day of Passover?

Does it ever occur to these people that John the Baptist was himself a prophet and has as much power to give a fresh revelation from the mind of God as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, anybody else? And so I'd like to suggest to you that the origin of the concept of Christ as the Lamb of God is not in the vivid imagination of the Apostle John or in the lucky guess of John the Baptist, but it is God's designation for His Son. And we see throughout history the strand of redemption that runs through, going all the way back to Genesis, to chapter 22 of Genesis when God calls Abraham to go to that distant place, to Mount Moriah, and there on that mountain to offer as a sacrifice his only son Isaac.

And we know that story. We have visited that story more than once in this church, how that at the last possible moment after Abraham had tied Isaac to the altar and was preparing to plunge the knife into his heart, God stopped him saying, Abraham, Abraham, lay not thy hand upon thy son. And there was a ruckus off to the side, and Abraham turned and his gaze saw a ram that was caught in the thicket by its horns. And God provided a lamb as a substitute for the sacrifice of Abraham's son. Now even there in Genesis 22, the ram that is caught and is offered as a substitute, there's nothing there in the text that says that this is an expiatory sacrifice.

Nevertheless, it is substitutionary. And this is the whole idea of the atonement of Christ is that Christ stands as our substitute, where instead of God pouring out His wrath upon our son, He provides a ram of His own, and He will accept the life of the substitute, the Lamb of God, which certainly is prefigured as well in the Passover when the angel of death comes upon the Egyptians, the angel who will come to bring death to the firstborn male of every Egyptian household, including the crown prince of the Pharaoh. And God instructs His people Israel to slay a lamb without blemish and to take of its blood and to place it on the doorposts outside. And there is a sign for the avenging angel as he comes to take the lives of the firstborn sons when he sees a house that is marked by the blood of the Lamb. He passes over it because the Lamb of God redeemed His people from the wrath of God. That's really foolish to say that the Lamb imagery is some novelty here in the gospel according to Saint John, because again we see it in the celebration of heaven, in the future hope of the church when the Lamb receives the glory and honor of all of the hosts of heaven. And when He appears on the plane of history, when He comes to begin His public ministry, when He comes to the Jordan to be baptized in water for the sake of His people, at that same time He is anointed by the pouring out from heaven of the Holy Ghost because He is the one who will bring Pentecost by which He will baptize all of His people in the same Holy Spirit. And John sees Him. And he sees, this is the one that I baptized. This is the one that I saw the Holy Spirit come down upon and remain upon Him. So now he says to his disciples, behold, look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Now, one last thing. We've seen all these titles in the first chapter. Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus is the Son of Man. Jesus is the Messiah. I don't believe for one minute that Nathaniel or Andrew or Simon Peter or even John the Baptist had by any stretch a comprehensive understanding of the meaning of these titles. This John the Baptist who says, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, just not very much later, he's thrown into prison, and he sends a messenger to Jesus saying what? Are you the one who was to come?

Or should we look for somebody else? Which indicates that John did not fully understand even at the baptism the identity of Jesus because he had his own expectations. He figured the Lamb of God would come and drive the Romans out just like everybody else. And when Jesus is just going around preaching, John's confused, and John's languishing in prison, and Jesus says what? Go and tell John that the blind are seeing, the deaf are hearing, and the poor are having the gospel preached to them. What did Jesus mean by that? What was Jesus really saying to John?

Well, what he was saying was simple. He said, John, do you remember Isaiah 61? The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. He has anointed me to proclaim freedom to the captives, to give healing to the sick, and so on. He said, John, if you really study your Bible, you shouldn't be having to ask, are you the one who is to come? You don't have to look for another one.

You had it right the first time. I am the Lamb of God. But this is true of the disciples in Caesarea Philippi, the great confession when Peter says, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. What a wonderful confession of faith. Five minutes later when Jesus said, okay, that's wonderful. Bless our youth, Simon Bar-Jonah, and you'll be called Petros and all that. And He says, but now I have to go to Jerusalem to suffer and to die. Peter says, never.

No way. What's that tell you? One minute he's saying you're the Messiah. The next minute he's revealing he doesn't really understand all that is involved for Jesus to be the Messiah. And it's only when we can look at the whole picture with the benefit of the cross behind us and the resurrection and the ascension and the day of Pentecost that we begin to see the depths and the riches of all that God was communicating to the announcement of His messenger when He said, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Let's pray. Worthy is the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the earth to receive glory and honor, dominion and power. And so we lift up our voices to Thee, O Christ, to give You honor and glory. Amen.

That was R.C. Sproul on this Sunday edition of Renewing Your Mind. It's good to have you with us. If you're looking for more devotional and Bible study reading for 2025, consider requesting a free trial to Table Talk magazine. We'll send you three months absolutely risk free. There's no need to enter a credit card, and it's simple to request a subscription if you want to continue receiving this monthly magazine that's read by over a quarter of a million people every month.

Visit trytabletalk.com to learn more and to request your risk-free trial today. Another source of devotional and Bible study reading for you in the new year could be R.C. Sproul's verse-by-verse walk through John's Gospel. This volume is based on the sermon series you heard from today, and we'd love to send you a copy as our way of saying thank you for giving a year-end donation in support of Renewing Your Mind and the global outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Simply visit renewingyourmind.org or use the link in the podcast show notes to donate, and we'll get a copy in the mail for you. This offer does end at midnight, so be quick. Next time we move on to the dramatic account of Jesus cleansing the temple, so be sure to join us next Sunday here on Renewing Your Mind.