The recent celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus has me thinking of the reason for it all. It is found in the words of John the Baptizer as Jesus began his ministry. He pointed to Jesus and declared, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:28).
What was John thinking? Possibly he was recalling the time when Abraham and Isaac traveled to Mount Moriah to make a sacrifice to God. The story has recently been re-told in a film, “His Only Son,” released by Angel Studios. The movie depicts Isaac’s question, “Where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” Abraham’s answer was, “God himself will provide the lamb for the offering, my son” (Genesis 22:7-8).
The film captured the ambivalence, the pathos, and the emotional anguish in the heart of Father Abraham. This was because God was testing his faith by asking him to do the unthinkable and sacrifice his own son. Against all human instinct and logic, Abraham was about to carry out this strange command of God. But then God intervened and did indeed provide a suitable sacrifice, a young ram caught in a thicket, to take the place of Isaac.
Abraham spoke more prophecy than he knew when he uttered the words, “God himself will provide the lamb.” Was John thinking of this story we he called Jesus the Lamb of God?
Or was John thinking of the Exodus of the Hebrew people from their captivity in Egypt? This was commemorated every springtime by the Jews in the Festival of Passover. Every Jewish family was to observe the feast with the sacrifice of a yearling lamb without physical defect. Every year the Jewish father would explain the story of the nation’s deliverance and protection when God judged Egypt for their oppression of his chosen people.
The Hebrews were to smear the blood of the lamb on the lintel and the doorposts of their dwellings. Through Moses the prophet God had told them, “When I see the blood I will pass over you.” No plague, no destruction, “will touch you when I strike Egypt” (Exodus 12:13). It was the blood of those sacrificial lambs that shielded the Israelites from death and judgment.
Undoubtedly, John was thinking of the prophet Isaiah’s words, referring to Messiah, “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” (Isaiah 53:7). No Jew living at that time would have doubted that these words, and all of Isaiah 53, referred to Messiah, upon whom the Lord would lay “the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6).
John the Baptizer said, “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” His words are as relevant today as they were when they were spoken. This is because He takes away sin. Sin is anything that stands between us and a holy God. Sin is failure to do and be what God requires. Sin is doing what God forbids. The Lamb, Jesus, is able to take our sins away, to remove them, to expunge them, to cancel them, to forgive them,
This is a really happy promise. It involves the gift of eternal life, a clear conscience and peace of mind. How is this possible? How can one man, Jesus of Nazareth, take away our sin? The answer lies in his worth or value. He was perfect in the sight of God, without sin. Quoting Isaiah 53, the apostle Peter said of Jesus, “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth” (1 Peter 2:22). Peter said that Jesus was “a lamb without blemish or defect” (1 Peter 1:19).
He could take away sins because as the Lamb of God he was sacrificed for sinners. That is the message of Good Friday and Easter. This sacrifice has infinite value because he himself has infinite value as the Son of God. Like John the Baptizer, I invite you to “look” trustingly to him, to Jesus.
I do not ask you to join, or to pay, or to perform, but only to believe in Him. Look only to Him, not to a preacher, or to a church, or to yourself. Look nowhere else, to no one else, and to nothing else. Only He can take away our sin and make us right with God.
Isaac Watts wrote the following words over 300 years ago:
“Not all the blood of beasts on Jewish altars slain/ could give the guilty conscience peace or wash away our stain./ But Christ, the heavenly Lamb, takes all our sins away,/ a sacrifice of nobler name, and richer blood than they.”
Pastor Randy Faulkner