Word of Salvation – Vol. 30 No. 06 – February 1985
Look, The Lamb Of God
Sermon by Rev. J. J. Van Wageningen, B.D. on John 1:29
Scripture Readings: Exodus 12:1-14; John 1:19-34.
Psalms and Hymns: 37 (Opening); 222:1,6 (after proclamation of grace;
431:4 (after 10 commandments); 369:2,4 (after sermon);
371:3 (before benediction)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
John the Baptist is the herald, the fore-runner of the Messiah. God sent him to prepare the way of the Lord. He was the voice of one crying in the wilderness, in the spiritual wilderness of Israel, God’s people. He told them that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand, and that they had to repent. Those who repented, who confessed their sins, were baptised.
John baptised Jesus too, and on that occasion he saw the Spirit of God coming down like a dove and remaining on Jesus, and he heard a voice from heaven, saying: this is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Then John knew that Jesus was the one who would baptise with the Holy Spirit; that Jesus was the Son of God, the Messiah, whose arrival he had to announce.
After that Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan.
Later on some priests and Levites were sent from Jerusalem, to ask John: “Who are you?” We can imagine that the leaders in Jerusalem did not like John very much. A man like John caused a lot of unrest. John answered them: “I am not the Christ; my baptism is a baptism with water; but among you stands one whom you do not know, even He who comes after the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie. The Messiah, the Christ, is already present. He is among you, although you do not know Him yet.”
It was John’s special task to tell the people, who was the Christ and this happened the following day. The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said: “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”
John publicly declared that Jesus was the Messiah, the Christ, calling Him “the Lamb of God”.
This means:
1. He will suffer and die, a sacrifice for sin.
2. He will obtain redemption.
3. He must be received by faith
1. The next day John saw Jesus coming towards him. At seeing Him, he stretched out his hand, and pointing to Jesus, he cried out, from the depth of his heart: “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
The people around him looked up, and what did they see? A common man; just a fellow Jew.
“Look, the Lamb of God!” Is it not remarkable the way in which John announced Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ? Enlightened and driven by the Spirit he characterised His person, His work, in these few words, in this short sentence: “Look, the Lamb of God!”
He did not say: the Son of David; No, he called Him the Lamb of God, and by doing he showed the connection with the prophecy and the ceremonial worship of the Old Testament. When the Jews heard the word Lamb, then their thoughts were directed to Jerusalem, to the temple-court, where the priests offered male-lambs, one year old, without blemish; one in the morning and one in the evening, every day again (Numbers 28:4).
Look, there is the Messiah, the promised Redeemer,
And their attention was drawn especially to the Passover lamb that was killed every year by the head of each family.
From Exodus 12 we have read the story of the first Passover of the Israelites in Egypt. God’s anger would strike all the families in Egypt by killing the firstborn sons; it was the 10th, the last plague. The head of every family of Israel had to take a perfect lamb; on the 10th day of the first month he had to separate it from the flock and to keep it apart; on the 14th day he had to slaughter it. Then he had to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the door-frames. And the Lord promised: “When I see the blood I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt (Exodus 12:13).
The blood on the doorposts said something about the Israelites, viz. that they were sinful people; in themselves they were no better than the Egyptians. But the blood of the lamb kept them from destruction; the blood of the lamb was a sign of atonement, their sins were covered.
It was a terrible night in Egypt. God’s anger burned, the angel of judgment, the angel of death, went from house to house; only in the houses with the blood there was safety. There the Jewish families stood around the table and ate the roasted lamb’s meat and the unleavened bread, and thought of that reconciling blood.
Later in Canaan the Passover-feast was celebrated and the Passover-lamb slaughtered year after year, for centuries. Therefore the Jewish people were thoroughly familiar with it.
So John the Baptist did not speak a strange language when he said: “Look, the LAMB of God!” No, they were able to understand the meaning. But, and that made it so difficult, it was contrary to their ideas and expectations. The Jews expected a different Messiah, and they did not see anymore, a relation between the sacrifices in the temple, between the Passover-lamb and the coming Redeemer. They had forgotten the fact that the sacrifices were shadows pointing to a future reality.
But that reality had arrived now: “Look, the LAMB of God is there!”
The Lamb of GOD. We must emphasise this too: God Himself provided for this Lamb. For the Jewish Passover-celebration the Israelite had to take a lamb of his own flock; he had to slaughter an animal that belonged to himself. Jesus from Nazareth however is the Lamb of GOD! He belongs to God and comes from God. The apostle Peter writes in his first letter (1:20): “He was chosen before the creation of the world.” The Israelite had to choose his Passover lamb on the 10th of the month and to keep it apart until the 14th, the day of the killing. But Christ, our Lord, the true Passover lamb, was chosen before the creation of the world; chosen, appointed, not just some days or months or years before the actual sacrifice, but from eternity! How precious is this Lamb, how precious is His blood!
Lamb of GOD, chosen by God from eternity; Lamb of GOD, the fullness of time given by God to His people; “revealed in these last times for your sake, believers!” (1Peter 1:20).
God Himself provided this Lamb. There is no need to provide it your- self; you cannot. Only God is able to do so, and He did, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”
Look, the Lamb of God!
Abraham said already to Isaac: “God Himself will provide the lamb for the burnt-offering, my son.”
This Lamb is God’s greatest gift, His own Son. God gave Him to be the true Passover-Lamb. So when John the Baptist publicly declared: Jesus is the Messiah, he pictured Him straight away as the Redeemer who had to suffer; the Surety, who took the place of His people; the suffering Servant of the LORD, as Isaiah showed Him in his prophecies: “He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; He was led like a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth.”
Look, the LAMB of GOD! He was prepared to do the will of the Father with perfect obedience, with a perfect self-sacrifice. “When Christ came into the world, He said: ‘Sacrifices and offerings you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. Then I said, ‘Here I am, I have come to do your will, O God.'”‘
He was willing to humble Himself and to be obedient unto death, even death on a cross to satisfy the demands of God’s justice. The blood of this Lamb washes away our sins, delivers us from God’s anger; saves us from eternal destruction.
“Look, THE Lamb of God!”, John said, pointing to Jesus. “This Jesus is not just a lamb, one among many; no, He is THE Lamb, the ONLY Lamb, promised by God already in Paradise; the ONLY Lamb, of which all the prophets prophesied; the ONLY Lamb, to which all the sacrifices and ceremonies of the law pointed.”
All the Passover lambs, slaughtered in the course of centuries; all the sacrifices, burnt on the altar in the temple court; all the blood that was shed, it spoke a symbolic, figurative language: it called for the fulfilment, it called for the coming of that unique Lamb, that Lamb of God, that would fulfil and abolish all sacrifices of the law.
Look at John the Baptist, with outstretched hand; his finger points to a man, Jesus from Nazareth, the Messiah, the Son of God; and John, the last prophet of the Old Testament and the son of a priest, cries out with prophetic passion: “Look, the Lamb of God!” And in that finger pointing to Jesus, the whole prophecy of the Old Testament comes to its end, and that voice in the wilderness comprises all the voices of the prophets. Those who have ears to hear, hear at the same time all the prophets of the Old Testament in this one word of the herald: “Look, the Lamb of God!”
Thus John the Baptist announced the Messiah: “He is the One who will suffer and die, for the Passover-lamb must be slaughtered, otherwise it is not a Passover-lamb”.
2. In the 2nd place John the Baptist declared that Jesus was to obtain redemption.
“Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”
In this way the worldwide, universal, significance of Jesus’ messianic work is shown. Jesus does not merely save souls; no, He is the Redeemer of the whole universe!
John spoke about the world; the world as we see it: cursed, burdened with a terrible load of sin and guilt, which makes it a chaos; an awful mess.
And he spoke about sin; sin as a totality, as a destructive power, which has shattered the world to pieces. There is no unity, no harmony anymore. Together with man the whole world is fallen. The creation is subjected to frustration and is in bondage to decay; the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time (Rom.8)
But behold, the Christ, the Lamb of God!
He takes upon Himself that unbearable load of sin; He, a lamb without blemish or spot, He takes it away and redeems the whole universe.
His work is not limited to the Jewish people; his work is not limited to His church; no, His work of taking away sin is of significance for the whole creation; it extends to the whole universe!
“God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood, shed on the cross.” (Col.1:19,20).
By making peace through His blood, shed on the cross. Yes, in this way the Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world: by His blood shed on the cross, by His self-sacrifice.
So He really takes it away, for “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” (Hebrews 10:4) only the blood of Christ, only the Lamb of God really does so.
This includes also the redemption of the sinner, the redemption of God’s people. Christ died for His people. One day they will live as the new mankind in the purified and renewed creation. “Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” (Rev.21:27).
3. He must be received by faith.
This is our last point.
“Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
This word of John the Baptist is not just an announcement we may take for granted, doing nothing about it. No, it is an urgent call. “Receive this Lamb; believe in Jesus, who is the Christ.”
LOOK! But the people of Israel did not see the Lamb of God. They saw only a man, Jesus from Nazareth, the carpenter’s son; and tney saw the Roman oppressors in their country. Therefore they did not want a Lamb, that takes away sin. They looked forward to a Lion, which would chase away the enemy. Sin did not trouble them, but the Romans did.
In this respect the Jews were no exception. By nature nobody stretches out his hands towards the Lamb of God. For this Lamb is a living testimony of our human sin and guilt; a living testimony of divine righteousness and judgment. It reveals also the mystery of God’s eternal love and mercy, but man is blind to these realities. Man is after something else. We seek the redemption of this world in a completely different way: economic development, a renewal of the structures, revolution, material welfare; and the quality of life is sought in material and bodily well- being, the greatest possible satisfaction of desires and lusts. There is no depth in it. Life becomes shallow and man remains an unredeemed sinner on the road to death and judgment.
“Look, the Lamb of God!” This is the stumbling block and the power of the Gospel. Only the Spirit of God can keep you from falling; only the Spirit of God can keep you from falling; only the Spirit of God can make you experience the power of this Gospel. For only the Spirit renews your heart and opens your eyes. Then you see the sin of the world, the sin of your own life as the deepest cause of all misery. Then you see the Lamb of God!
Only through Him there is reconciliation to God, forgiveness, redemption, freedom, life, now and forever.
Do you see the Lamb of God?
Oh, see Him with the eye of faith; receive Him with a believing heart.
Only through Him there is reconciliation to God, forgiveness, redemption, freedom, life, now and forever.
Do you see the Lamb of God?
Oh, see Him with the eye of faith; receive Him with a believing heart.
Apart from Him there is nothing, there is nobody who can grant you true peace and joy, because there is nothing, there is r body who can cover your sins before the eyes of God.
Apart from Him there is no real peace, no lasting joy; only discord, darkness and ultimate despair.
Only the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ is a saving knowledge; apart from Him there is only unrest and misery.
Rest, true rest you find only with this Lamb.
Come therefore and dip your hands in His blood and put it, not on the posts of your house, but on the door of your heart and show yourself so to God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the blood of this Paschal Lamb, that has been sacrificed for us, makes judgment pass by and grants you forgiveness of your sins and life eternal.
“Paschal Lamb, by God appointed,
All our sins on Thee were laid.
By almighty love anointed,
Thou hast full atonement made.
All Thy people are forgiven,
Through the virtue of Thy blood;
Opened is the gate of heaven,
Peace is made ‘twixt man and God.” (Hymn 369:2)
Amen.