Why Is Jesus Called 'The Lamb of God?'

This is a link to our weekly radio program #4009d:

Gary:

You are listening to a special presentation of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call.  Now, our final segment:

UNDERSTANDING THE SCRIPTURES

We return once again to 2000 with Dave and Tom.

Tom:

Our topic to this segment is the gospel of salvation, and we are going through certain verses of the gospel of John which relate to the salvation we have in Christ, and of particular concern of verses which tell us who Jesus is, which is critically important to our understanding of the gospel.  Dave, I want to pick up with verse 29, this is chapter 1, verse 29.  Now we covered that last week, but just to kind of bring us back to the context here.  Verse 29:  “The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”  “This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me:  for he was before me.”  Now, just to make a comment here, we’re talking about who Jesus is.  Now we know that John the Baptist was born before Jesus, but He was before him, not just in stature and who he is, but He is the eternal Jesus that we are talking to.

Dave:

Micah:5:2But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.
See All...:  “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel: whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.”  This is the eternal God, God the Son who has become a man now.  John:1:29The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
See All..., “The next day” that’s an important phrase, “the next day” what would that be the day after?  The day after John baptized Jesus, because the verse that you are about to read, verse 31, begins, “And I knew him not.”  He did not know—we talked about that in our last program.  He did not know even though this was his cousin, and he knew Jesus, surely they must have played together as children, they must have known one another as they grew up.

Tom:
Sure, there had to be visitations between Elizabeth and Mary.

Dave:

Right, but he did not know that Jesus was the Messiah.  And it was not until he saw the signs that God had given him.  He said, “Upon whom you see the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and abiding upon him, the same is he, and I saw and bare record this is the Son of God.”  So the day after the baptism now John is able to identify Jesus as the Lamb of God.  He couldn’t identify him as that before, but now he knows.

Tom:

Dave, again, keeping with what we are trying to do here, we’re looking to who Jesus is.  Now we just mentioned that “He was before me.”  In other words, Jesus is eternal.  We’ll find these characteristics of his godly nature, not godly but He is God.

Dave:

If He’s not God He can’t be our Savior. 

Tom:

Right, but that raises an interesting question.  We began by saying that John the Baptist baptized Jesus.  Now, isn’t there a conflict here between Jesus being the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, the sinless sacrifice of God, yet He is being baptized, why is that?

Dave:

Well, in fact, John the Baptist refused mildly, he said, look, you should baptize me, I can’t baptize you.  Obviously, from what he knew of Jesus, He was sinless, and John the Baptist—

Tom:

There is no baptism of repentance here for Jesus.

Dave:

No, John the Baptist was calling people to repent, and baptizing them as symbolically washing away their sins, at least their desires to be cleansed and the law had made provision.  He sees Jesus coming to him, He’s sinless, and he knows of no sin that Jesus would have to confess.  In fact, Jesus said to the rabbi’s, “…which of you convinceth me of sin?”  Point out a sin, I mean, would you dare to say that to anybody?  Point out a sin that I have ever sinned.  So then, why would Jesus be baptized?  Well, Jesus said, “It behooveth us to fulfill all righteousness.”  Jesus has come to take our place, He’s the one who is going to die in our place, He is the second man, He’s the last Adam, and He’s the representative of the human race.  He’s the progenitor of the new race, and so in that capacity Jesus is being baptized for all mankind.  Now this statement, “Behold the Lamb of God,” this is a tremendous, amazing statement.  We have the lambs, of course, in the Old Testament, the Passover Lamb; we have the lambs that were slain, offered on the altar for sin.  And their sacrifices, their blood could never take away sin.  They were symbolic; they were looking forward to one who would come.  You get that in a beautiful picture when Abraham takes Isaac up, remember? To offer him on the altar, and he has the knife raised.  He has his son bound on the altar and the knife raised as the angel of the Lord calls and stops him and turns him around and he sees a lamb caught in a thicket with its horns.  Speaking of its power, only God himself, the Infinite One could pay the infinite price for our sins.  But on the way up the mountain, Isaac innocently says to Abraham, Father, here’s the wood and here’s the fire, but where is the lamb?  And Abraham prophetically said God will provide himself a lamb.  So this now comes the Lamb of God, the one who is the fulfillment of all the Old Testament sacrifices.  They could not take away sin. He will take away sin, and He is the Lamb of God.  Now you get that powerfully in Hebrews 9 and 10, and it tells us, Hebrews 9 says that, once in the end of the age, that is, the end of that old system under the law, Christ has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself to pay the full price as it is appointed unto man once to die, and after this the judgment.  So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that look for Him shall He appear, the second time without sin and salvation he’s coming back.  And then Chapter 10 begins talking about the Old Testament sacrifices, and the author of Hebrews, inspired of the Holy Spirit of course says the very fact that these sacrifices had to be repeated over and over and over, day after day, indicated they couldn’t take away sin.  If they could take away sin they would have ceased to be offered, because sin having been purged you would have no more remembrance of it, and you wouldn’t need another sacrifice.  Then in contrast to the Old Testament sacrifices that had to be repeated,  the writer says but this man Jesus, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, He sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.  And verse 18 says, “There is no more offering, no more sacrifice for sin.”  Now, tragically, there are those who think that every time they take the Eucharist, the bread, the cup that this is Jesus that He is literally being offered again for our sins.  That is contrary to the Word of God; that is an abomination to God; that is a denial of the sufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ upon the cross, that He must be offered over and over and over.  Now He is no better than the Old Testament sacrifices.  Now this is the Lamb of God who is the fulfillment of those Old Testament sacrifices who has come by one sacrifice. He has paid the full penalty.  That’s why when He gave His spirit into his Father’s hand, we’ve pointed this out many times as have many others, he said, “It is finished!” Tetelesti, in the Greek.  They stamped it on promissory notes, on documents that meant “paid in full.”  Now where the payment has been made in full, you don’t continue to make payments.  And that is the basic problem with the Roman Catholic sacrifice.  They call it the Sacrifice of the Mass and they say that Jesus is literally being immolated.  That’s their language, not ours, that He is literally being immolated, sacrificed on their altars.  Well then, what He did on the cross was not sufficient, and that’s a denial of the scriptures.  So, if I’ve got to go back again and He’s being offered again and again and again, how many times more must He be offered before my sins are all paid for, or did He pay for them once for all?  And when I believe that, the Bible says I am saved.  I have passed from death to life because I have accepted the sacrifice that was made on my behalf.  I have accepted the full payment that Christ made for my sins.  But if I reject this, and I say He must be offered over and over and over, then how many more times must He be offered?  So, Behold the Lamb of God who bears away the sin of the world!  What a glorious statement from John the Baptist.

Tom:

Right.  Dave, this relates to our opening segment where we were talking about loving the Lord your God will all your heart, with all your mind, with all your strength, and so forth.  You just have to be in awe that the Creator of the universe would do this for us sinners, not because of who we are, but who He is.

Dave:

Wretches who rejected Him and taken our own way.

Tom:

Yet we are, talk about beneficiaries, I mean, this is incredible!

Dave:

It’s enough to cause you to worship Him and to love Him with your whole heart.

Gary:

We hope you have enjoyed this special edition of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call.  And now, to tell you more about our ministry, here’s TBC Executive Director Tom McMahon:

The name, The Berean Call, is taken from the Book of Acts 17: 10 and 11, where we find the apostle Paul entering the synagogue in the Greek city of Berea after he had just come from Thessalonica.  To these Bereans he preached that Jesus was the long awaited Messiah sent from God.  They were commended for being noble, or fair minded, not only for their willingness to hear what Paul had to say about the matter, but more specifically, because they searched the scriptures daily to find out whether or not what the apostle was saying was found in God’s Word.  That’s what we hope to encourage through this ministry.   Our prayer is that we can be used of God to stimulate Christians to look to the Bible alone as their rule of faith, authority and practice in living lives pleasing to our Lord and Savior.

Gary:

In addition to this radio program we publish a monthly newsletter which we make available free of charge.  We also produce and distribute a wide variety of teaching materials including books in print, e-book and audio book formats, CD’s, DVD’s and other items to encourage the serious study of God’s Word.  For a complete list of materials, or to get a copy of today’s broadcast write to us at POB 7019, Bend, Oregon97708, call our toll free order number 800-937-6638, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org.  If you would like a copy of today’s broadcast on compact disk, ask for Program #4009, and be sure to mention the call letters of this station.  Get a pen or pencil ready; we’ll repeat our contact information in just a moment.  Next week we continue our series of revisits to Dave Hunt’s book, An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith, and, “What is the most important commandment?”  In Religion in the News: “The Simpsons Has too Much Religion.”  We’ll take a look at that story and examine the question, “Is legalism Christian?”  We hope you can tune in.  If you have questions or comments about this program, we urge you to contact our offices.  Search the Scriptures Daily Radio Ministry is made possible by God’s grace, your prayers and your financial support.  I’m Gary Carmichael, and for Dave, Tom and everyone here at The Berean Call, I would like to thank you for joining us, and invite you to tune in again next week.  Until then, if you desire to know God’s truth, search the scriptures daily.  For more information about The Berean Call, contact us at POB 7019, Bend, Oregon97708, call our toll free order #1-800-937-6638, that’s 1-800-937-6638, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org.