What does Agnus Dei mean?

The Jews had sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask John, Who art thou? He told them that he was not the Christ, but the voice of one crying in the wilderness, etc. (vv. 19-27.) "The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." (John 1:29.) The Jews had failed to understand the mission of John; their eyes could not discern in him the forerunner of the Messiah, and consequently John now proclaims the Messiah, in His suffering character, as the altar victim, God's Lamb.

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.

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!”

"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.

God has provided a lamb, a victim for sin — a lamb for our need, but it is God's Lamb for Himself. We have not to find a lamb, but God has found it and set it forth to us. It is not now we having to bring a lamb to God, but He bringing His to us. What grace! Abraham said, God will provide Himself with a lamb for a burnt-offering, and God has provided a lamb.

Second Day. — The priests and the Levites would be well on their journey back to Jerusalem, when the Baptist's two announcements concerning the Lamb of God were being made. On the first of these occasions John saw Jesus coming to him, and said, "Behold the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world" (1:29). An announcement this was never previously heard upon earth. Isaiah (53:7) had written of One, who would be "brought as a lamb to the slaughter." John spoke of a man present before him, and called Him the "Lamb of God." With sacrificial lambs all Jews were familiar. But for a man to be the sacrifice was little, if at all, then understood, though in Ps. 40 and in Isa. 53 it had been predicted. And this One, the Lamb of God, would do what no other sacrifice had attempted, or could accomplish. He would take away the sin of the world.

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.

On the following day, John testifies to the Person and work of Jesus, saying, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). These are wonderful words, proclaiming that Jesus was the antitype of the sacrificial lamb seen in so many ways in the Old Testament types. Here was the answer to "Where is the lamb?" by Isaac, to the Passover lamb, to the lamb of the continual burnt offering, and many more of the sacrifices; but He was not only the Burnt Offering, but the One who will remove sin from the world, laying the basis in His death upon the cross. No doubt this looks forward to the removal of sin as an active agent in the world, which the Lord will remove by His return to earth, but based upon His sacrificial work.

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.

When Christ comes again in His kingdom, there will be a further result; for all creation will then be delivered from the bondage of corruption, and Israel will at length look upon the Messiah Whom they pierced in their blind unbelief. The blessing resulting from the sacrifice of Christ will then be far and wide extended, but not complete. Only the new heavens and new earth (and this exceeds the limited scope of the Jewish prophets, but is the full meaning which the Christian apostles give the words) will behold the ultimate fulfilment; and then indeed it will be seen how truly Jesus was "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." For then, and not till then, will sin have disappeared absolutely and all its active consequences. The wicked having been judged and cast for ever into the lake of fire, as well as Satan and his angels, righteousness will then be the footing of God's relationship with the world, not sinlessness as at first, nor dealings in Christ in view of sin as since and now, but all things made new.

To John there had been given a sign by God, "Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, the same is He which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost," so that John could say, "And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God" (John 1:33-34). It was a wonderful revelation to John Baptist that Jesus was the Son of God, and also the Lamb of God. Jesus had come as Messiah for Israel, but He had come to do a great work for God and for men, to take away the sin of the world. God would not allow sin to mar His fair creation for ever, and it was His own Son who had come to deal with it, first by sacrifice to remove it from before God in judgment, and finally by power to take it away as an active agency of defilement from the world into which man had brought it.