What does it mean that Jesus is the Lamb of God?

John said in effect, "Here is the one effectual, never-to-be-repeated SACRIFICE of eternal value." In the Old Testament the lamb had been specially marked as the animal devoted to sacrificial use: hence the title here. Jesus is the Lamb of God's providing, and if He takes away by sacrifice the sin of the world — not merely your sin or mine, or Israel's sin, but the sin of the whole "cosmos" — then there has been effected a work of such magnitude that the settlement abides to eternity. The thing is to be DONE, and here is the Doer of it. We usually think of sin in its manifestations and myriad details, but here it is regarded as one gigantic and terrible problem, meeting its complete solution and removal. God will have a cosmos — the universe as an ordered whole — totally and eternally purged from sin; and here is the One who by His sacrifice accomplishes this. He is the Sacrifice of the Ages, and in this we see the basis of all that follows. Were He not this, there would be nothing to follow in the way of blessing and glory.

John 1:29. John commences his witness on this day by saying, "Behold the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world". This brings before us two parts of Christ's work: first, the dealing with sin sacrificially as the Lamb of God, by being made sin at the Cross; secondly, the taking away of the principle of sin from the world in a day to come.

The title Lamb is in view of the sacrifice of the Cross. "The Lamb of God" tells us of a sacrifice provided by God, in contrast with sacrifices brought by men in days of old. Being of God, the sacrifice is one that is entirely acceptable to God. The ultimate result of this great sacrifice will be the absolute removal of all trace of sin from the world. The words "takes away the sin of the world" tell us what the Lord Jesus will do in the future as the result of the work that He has done, as the Lamb of God, in the past.

John the Baptist came as His forerunner, and bore witness to Him. When he saw Jesus coming to him his heart was full! His stupendous work rose before his mind, and he said, “Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.” The question in the 22nd of Genesis raised first by Isaac was, “Where is the Lamb?”; the answer given being “God will provide Himself a Lamb.” Here He is! the One who had come to take up the work for God’s satisfaction, and for God’s glory. You say, yes! and that is the One who came to do the work for me! to put my sins away! That is perfectly true, but mark, it does not say “sins” here, it speaks of something deeper, not simply the putting away of sins, the fruit, but of sin the root. He is not spoken of as the Lamb who takes away the sins (in the plural) but as the One who for God’s satisfaction and glory deals with the root matter of “SIN.” He deals with lawlessness sacrificially, judicially and governmentally, and so removes it that God—the blessed God—might rest in Divine satisfaction and joy undisturbed for ever. That is why He is called God’s Lamb, and as Jesus approached, John said, There He is!—“Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world!”

There is, doubtless, a marked difference in the presentation of "the Lamb slain" in this book, and in his presentation by the same title in John 1:29, 36, the only other place in scripture in which as a title it occurs.*

In the expressions of John, "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world!" we see the person of the Lord Jesus, as God's Lamb, presented to the aye of faith, as the substantiation of all that had been prefigured in the way of atonement. He is here pointed out as the full and perfect provision of God for man's need as a sinner, and the only basis on which the mercy of a holy God can restore the guilt-stricken and polluted to his presence. This, there can be no doubt, was the immediate bearing of John's pointing to Jesus, as "the Lamb of God." But in the breadth of the terms, "that taketh away the sin of the world" it seems as if the Spirit would lead us on beyond the speciality of individual redemption, to the ultimate purpose of the manifestation of the Son of God - in the destruction of the works of the devil - to that point in the counsels of God, in which the blessed stream of redemption reaches its limit; and creation, brought back from subjection "to vanity," is again made capable of receiving and reflecting back the rays of its Creator's goodness and glory, rejoicing in "the glorious liberty of the sons of God."

"On the morrow he seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." There was no image more familiar to a Jew's mind than that of the lamb. It was the daily sacrifice of Israel, morning and evening. Besides, the paschal lamb was the pledge for the fundamental peace of the year; even as its first institution was coeval with the departure of the sons of Israel from the house of bondage. We can understand, therefore, what thoughts and feelings must have crowded on the heart of those who looked for a Saviour now, when Jesus was thus attested by His forerunner, "Behold the Lamb (ἀμνὸς) of God." In the Book of Revelation He is frequently viewed as the Lamb, but there with a pointedly different word (ὰρνίον), the holy earth-rejected Sufferer, in contrast with the ravening wild beasts, civil or religious instruments of Satan's power in the world (chapter 13). Here the idea seems to centre not so much in the slain One exalted on high as in the sacrifice: "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world."

John does not say "that will take," still less "that has taken"; nor does the notion seem at all tenable that He was then taking sin away.33 It is, as frequently in John and elsewhere, the abstract form of speech; and the meaning should be understood in its fullest extent, irrespective of the time of its accomplishment. There was the Person, and this His work. Thus the testimony looks onward to the effects of the death of Christ as a whole; but these were not to appear all at once. The first result was to be the gospel, the message of remission of sins to every believer. Instead of the sin of the world only being before God, the blood of the Lamb is set; and God could therefore meet the world in grace, not in judgment. Not only was love come in Christ's Person as during His life, but now the blood also shed whereby God could cleanse the foulest; and the gospel is to every creature God's proclamation of His readiness to receive all, and of His perfectly cleansing all who do receive Christ. In fact, only those that are His now, the Church, receive Him; but the testimony is sent forth to all the creation.

We must also enquire what is meant by taking away the sin of the world. Two errors in connection with this passage have to be noted in order to be avoided. The first consists in the simple addition of a letter, making it "sins" instead of sin, an error which has been widely propagated in well-known forms of prayer. Now trifling as the question of a letter may seem, if it were true that Christ as the Lamb of God taketh away the sins of the world, universal salvation apart from faith would be the necessary consequence — a doctrine which undermines the fundamental truths of Christianity. It must be, therefore, urgently insisted upon that it is the sin, not the sins, of the world which is here mentioned. Nor does it say, secondly, that He has taken away the sin of the world. He taketh it away; that is, as we shall see farther own, He has done the work which will secure this result, but its accomplishment will not be reached until the end of all things.

The question is often asked, What is the origin of this appellation? Of what especial lamb is Christ the antitype? There is very little doubt that there is a tacit reference to Genesis 22. When Abraham was on his way to mount Moriah to offer up Isaac, in obedience to the divine command, Isaac said, "Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt-offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt-offering." (vv. 7, 8.) And this is the point here. The Lamb of God is the Lamb of God's own providing, and now to deal once and for ever with the question of sin, and the sin of the world. In Abraham's case it was for a burnt-offering, for the question of sin was not yet raised; but every Jew would be familiar with the thought of sacrificing for sin. The Passover lamb, while not exactly a sacrificial victim, told them of the need of blood to screen them from the judgment of a holy God, while the daily sacrifice of a lamb morning and evening would remind them of their need of atonement; for the burnt-offering was accepted for the offerer "to make atonement for him" (Lev. 1:4), and its blood was sprinkled "round about upon the altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation." There should therefore have been no difficulty in the mind of a Jew from this description of Christ; for it really embodied the essence of their own economy. The Lamb of God was the one sacrifice to which all their own directly pointed — the one sacrifice, provided for them in the grace of God, which, since provided by Himself, would meet His own mind, and abrogate the necessity of their continually offering those sacrifices which could never take away sin. What godly Jew, moreover, could have read: "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth: He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth" (Isa. 53:5-7) — what godly Jew, I say, could have read this chapter without expecting Christ to suffer for sin? The announcement therefore that He was the Lamb of God should have filled their hearts with gratitude and joy.

I can well imagine that everybody here is thinking, "Well, we do certainly know something about that; we should not be Christians at all if we did not know the Lord Jesus in that capacity." Still we must remember that the fact is stated in John 1:29, in all its greatness as God sees it. The point is not merely the taking away of your sins, or my sins, but the fact that He is the great taker-away of sin. In virtue of His sacrifice as the Lamb, God is going ultimately to take away the last vestige of sin and all its results from that great universe which will lie through eternal days beneath His smile.

76 Now, beloved friends, a step more for those who have got that conscious access to God. The apostle goes a little farther. We find our nature an evil tree; we have got the sins put away. "Christ appeared once in the end of the world to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." That is, that the work of the blessed Lord, besides the bearing of the sins, is so perfect, perfect in everything, that He was made sin for us; and that there sin was dealt with absolutely. "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." It is not only that my sins have been borne, but that God Himself has been perfectly glorified in Christ who died. "Now," he says, "the Son of man is glorified, and God is glorified in him." That is, He stands there as made sin, not only as bearing my sins, but as the Holy One; the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. Not only as the obedient One; God has been perfectly glorified in Him. I have no doubt the full result does not come out till that day when there will be the new heaven and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. "The Lamb of God taketh away the sin of the world" - that being so, the whole question has been settled with God, so that finally we shall have the new heaven and the new earth.

The ground of God's first relationship with man was innocence; the next, sin, in which He has developed all His attributes, and glorified Himself in grace and divine righteousness. Hence it leads to what is heavenly, because it displays God as He is there. In the new heavens and earth, His relationship will not be innocence, nor of course sin, but righteousness. This is through Christ, the last Adam. It is secured in righteousness which is past evil and all its power, but in those who have the divine quality of the knowledge of good and evil. This it is that is marked in John 1, "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." Without that, God could not have set it on and been in relationship with it on the ground of righteousness; but thus He is.