12/03/2014

The Confession

John 1:29 “The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, ‘Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!’” (NASB)

John’s use of terminology in this verse establish two things regarding Jesus and His reason for being on this earth. First, John identifies Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God. His audience that day would have had two associations with that terminology: the Paschal lamb & the Messiah. The Paschal Lamb was the sacrifice made during Passover to celebrate the deliverance from bondage in Egypt.

In Isaiah 53:7, we read “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” (NASB)

John’s reference to Christ as the Lamb of God establishes him as both the Messiah and the means by which the people will be delivered from their bondage of sin.

The second thing John does in this passage is expand the scope of Jesus’ salvation. He didn’t say that Jesus would take away the sins of the religious, or the sins of the Jewish, or the sins of the people who tried really hard to earn it, John says the Lamb will take away the sins of the world.

John knew that God’s plan was bigger than one city, one nation, one region, one people. God’s plan was to so thoroughly shatter the bondage of sin that no one would ever be beyond the reach of grace.