LOOK, THE LAMB OF GOD
John 1:29-41 - January 18, 2004
JOHN 1:29-41
29The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 30This is the one I meant when I said, `A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ 31I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel."
32Then John gave this testimony: "I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. 33I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, `The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ 34I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God."
35The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. 36When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, "Look, the Lamb of God!"
37When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. 38Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, "What do you want?"
They said, "Rabbi" (which means Teacher), "where are you staying?"
39"Come," he replied, "and you will see."
So they went and saw where he was staying, and spent that day with him. It was about the tenth hour.
40Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. 41The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, "We have found the Messiah" (that is, the Christ).
+ + + + + + + + + + + +
Dearest Fellow-Redeemed and Saints in the Lord:
Today, we are going to study the testimony of John the Baptist concerning the Lamb of God. You may recall for yourselves some of the things you know about John the Baptist. He was a little bit strange in comparing his lifestyle to others. John did not go into the cities but stayed in the areas surrounding the cities, stayed mostly by the Jordan River and became known as John the Baptist. He needed water to baptize. We are told that he wore a garment of camel hair and ate locusts and wild honey to sustain him. It was to this character that the crowds came out to see. Who was this John the Baptist? John preached a message of repentance, but yet still people came out to see who was this John the Baptist. His message of repentance attracted many people. This message attracted them, because they realized that he had hit a nerve. John had reminded them to look at themselves and see that they needed God’s forgiveness. Thus the message today is what he says twice in our text today: "Look, the Lamb of God!" The Lamb of God meant forgiveness of sins.
In the letter that Peter wrote are these words: "You were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers...with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect" (1 PETER 1:19b, 20). When John called Jesus the Lamb of God, this is what the people thought of right away. The Lamb of God was sacrificed for the sins of the world. The Lamb of God, as they recalled it from the Old Testament, was what the high priest sacrificed for their sins. Today, we are going to look how that Lamb of God is our Lamb of God, our perfect sacrifice. We consider what John says,
"Look, the Lamb of God." We look
I. at what Jesus does
II. and we learn to imitate Jesus’ love
I. Look at what Jesus does
Because John had been attracting great crowds, the church leaders sent a delegation to him to find out who he was. They came to John and they asked him, "Are you Elijah come back to life?" John told them, "No." They asked him, "Are you the Messiah who was promised?" John said, "No, I am only the way-preparer. There is one greater than I coming after me." John always pointed to the Lamb of God with his words.
After these things happened, our text says: 29The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! The leaders, the delegation and probably some of the people in the crowd did not know whom the Lamb of God looked like. So when John is walking among the crowd and he sees Jesus coming toward him, he says, "That is the Lamb of God whom I was preaching about. That is the Lamb of God who is going to take away the sins of the world. That is the Lamb of God for whose purpose I came baptizing." 30This is the one I meant when I said, `A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’" John reminded the crowd that this Jesus, even that He looked like an ordinary human being and even though they knew He was the son of Mary and Joseph, was more than that. This Jesus was God’s Son from eternity. John knew this Jesus was going to come and take away the sins of the world.
John knew it especially because this was also the reason he came baptizing. John says in our text, verse 31: 31I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel." He says he didn’t know for certain; but after Jesus’ baptism, he knew for certain. (We talked about Jesus’ baptism last week.) John adds: 33I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, `The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ .’" You may remember last week when Jesus was baptized, He came up out of the water and the heavens were opened. The Holy Spirit came down like a dove and rested on Him. That is the testimony that God had told John to look for. Then John would know for certain that his cousin Jesus was indeed the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. So John the Baptist, when the crowds come to him, pointed ahead to the Messiah who was to come.
John the Baptist, when the delegations from the church came to him, told the truth. John the Baptist, as he is walking among the people, is not going to change his story. He still testified to the truth. John says, 34I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God." He wanted everyone to know that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. That illustration of Lamb of God is a little bit lost on us. In the Old Testament many people brought lambs week after week and year after year to be sacrificed for their sins. You may have heard of the term "scapegoat." One day of the year, the great Day of Atonement, a goat would be brought and the high priest would lay his hands on that goat signifying the laying of the sins of all of the people upon that goat. Then the goat would be released to take away the sins of the children of Israel. When John the Baptist called Jesus the Lamb of God, the people listened. They knew right away that this person was important, because He would remove sins.
This Lamb of God is still important to us, because He takes away our sins. Jesus takes away our sins though we do not deserve it. He sacrificed Himself, so that we do not have to die eternally. Listen to this from Colossians: "When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins" (COLOSSIANS 2:13). This is a constant battle for us, isn’t it?
We struggle with the new man that is created in us. We struggle against our old sinful nature. Yet, time after time our sinful nature drags us down so that we sin. Time after time our God forgives us. It is not easy to always to look at all of the sins that we commit, all the sins that stand against us either by thought, word or deed. Yet, they are there. It is not easy sometimes, because in this world some of the sins have been explained away, haven’t they? Sin has been explained away as some kind of sickness or disease. Some sins have been swept under the rug by saying, "Everybody is doing it. They can’t be that bad." Some sins are explained away by saying, "Well, they don’t hurt anyone; so it can’t be sin." Today, the Lord reminds us that our sins cannot be counted; because there are so many. The Prophet Isaiah says: "All of us (He doesn’t exempt anyone) have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away" (ISAIAH 64:6). Even the good things we do aren’t that good, because they are tainted by sin. Every breath in life that we take is connected with sin, because sin is in this world. He says, "Our sins can sweep us away like the wind."
When we realize our condition because of sin, then we realize even more deeply how much the Lamb of God has done for us. With this one sacrifice of God’s Son has paid for all of our sins. No wonder John says, "Look, the Lamb of God. Look what He does." The Psalm writer tells us: "He(the LORD) will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities" (PSALM 103:9,10). We can thank God for that. We hear John say, "Look, the Lamb of God who takes away our sins." Our sinful nature when someone does something against us is to get even, to repay. But the Lord says even though we sin against Him, He does not repay according to our iniquities.
John points out what we have come to know and believe in our lives by faith. Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. See what Jesus does; and then as he continues, imitate His love.
II. Imitate Jesus’ love
Already before, John had been closely connected with Jesus because of Jesus’ baptism and because the Holy Spirit gave testimony that this was the Son of God. John had given up his life out of love for the Lamb of God. The crowd comes out to him. The delegation from the church questions him. Not once does he take credit for himself. He says, "No, the Lamb of God is someone else." We are told: 35The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. He was there in the crowd, and the disciples were following him. Again, he is not going to mislead them or misdirect them, but we are told: 36When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, "Look, the Lamb of God!" This is the same message that he had said the day before and the same testimony he had given the day before that and the day before that--the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world is that Man, Jesus.
What happens? We are told: 37When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. That is what John wanted. He wanted others to listen and to see that this Jesus was far more important than he, that this Jesus was the true Lamb of God. So the disciples followed Jesus. 38Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, "What do you want?" In the original the meaning is really much stronger. Jesus says, "What are you seeking? What are you looking for?" You can picture John saying as Jesus is walking, "There is the Lamb of God;" and the two disciples leaving and following Jesus. They know he is the Lamb of God. Yet, when they get close to Jesus and Jesus says, "Now, what do you want? Who are you looking for? What are you seeking?" They kind of fudge a little, don’t they? They said, "Rabbi" (which means Teacher), "where are you staying?" They asked where He was staying. They could have asked, "Are you really the Lamb of God? Are you the Messiah? Are you the Christ?" But Jesus knows what is in their hearts.
When they asked, "Where are you staying," Jesus doesn’t turn them away. Instead He says, 39"Come," he replied, "and you will see." So they went and saw where he was staying, and spent that day with him. It was about the tenth hour. This was so important to them that they now knew and stood in the presence of the Lamb of God. Not only did they remember the day, they remembered the hour. It was about four-o-clock in the afternoon, the hour that they had met face to face with the Lamb of God. It was the time that they had given up following John and began following Jesus.
We are told who they are: 40Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. The simple word of God--Look, the Lamb of God, changed his heart, changed his life; so he followed Jesus. What did they discover? 41The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, "We have found the Messiah" (that is, the Christ). So they learned the love of God revealed in His Son Jesus. They found the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One, and the One who had been promised from Old Testament times. Jesus was the very same One promised to Adam and Eve, who would crush the serpent’s head.
We see the calling of the first disciples. (We are going to look at that more in depth next Sunday.) It shows us how God’s love for the world through His Son Christ changes men’s lives, not just their hearts. John the Baptist gave up everything to live outside of the city on a limited diet, preaching a message of repentance. Andrew and Simon Peter will do the same. They give up their life to follow Jesus, because they see in Him divine love for God’s creation. The purpose of Jesus is to be that Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world, to serve in humility until the very point of death, until death itself, to be hung upon the cross and then come back to life. This is not something that we would see as a very pleasant purpose in our life. As the disciples met together, very often they were at odds with each other; because they wanted to know who was greater among them. You have to remember from some of them, they had been very successful. Sometimes they wanted to know who was the boss of the twelve. The Lord simply reminded them in the Gospel of Mark when those discussions came up: "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (MARK 10:45). That was and is Jesus’ love for us that we might love Him and thus serve Him. Again in our world to mention that word "serve," would not seen to be a great job of honor or looked on with something as prestigious. But as Christians there is no better calling than to be in service of our Savior. God has called us out of darkness into His light that we might love Him, worship Him and praise Him.
As we do that, we begin to see that we can become like John or Simon or Andrew, not to just serve the Lord but to also serve one another in love. This serving other is all the more important in our society, especially as we look around us; and we see more and more that people are very self-concerned. In our day and age, people are concerned about taking care of themselves and not too concerned about their neighbor even next door and hardly ever concerned about their neighbor on the East Coast or the West Coast or in the next county or the next state. So it is all the more important for us as believers to realize that everyone is our neighbor. The Lord asks us to love them. James says: "If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, ’Love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing right" (JAMES 2:8). You will find that as you are more concerned about your neighbor, the Lord takes care of your concerns. He takes care of our worries as we seek first God’s kingdom and His righteousness.
We look at what Jesus does for us. We look at what Jesus does for the world and realize that He does this great act of love that we might love Him and others. Ephesians says: "Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God" (EPHESIANS 5:1,2). The Lord says in our Christian life of sanctification to do those things to show our love for God. God also tells us why to live a life imitating Jesus’ love. We do loving things because Jesus gave Himself up for us.
"Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world," says John. He said it one day; he said it the next day--"Look, the Lamb of God." With those simple words, people believe. With those simple words people began to look and see what Jesus did. With those simple words, the Lord reminds us to look and see what Jesus does, what He does for the world--that He takes away the sins of the world. We look at what Jesus does for us--that He takes away our sins also. Then we begin to appreciate that gift of salvation. We learn what a precious joy it is for us to imitate Jesus’ love.
Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. John writes later: "Jesus Christ, the Righteous One is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world" (1 JOHN 2:2). In our lifetime of believing we have grown to appreciate the fact that Christ has died for our sins. There are people all around us who don’t have that same appreciation. The Lord reminds us to look and see the Lamb of God who takes away our sins. Our Lord reminds us to look and see the Lamb of God and imitate his love by telling others that their sins are also forgiven -- Jesus loves them. Amen.
Pastor Timm O. Meyer
