“BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD” – Charles Spurgeon
BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD
“The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” John 1:29.
John the Baptist’s one business was to bear witness to Christ. He was the morning star which heralds the rising sun. When the Sun appeared, he had no more reason for shining. You cannot account for John except by Jesus—the one reason for John’s existence is Jesus. I wish it might be so with us. May we be able to say, “For me to live is Christ.” May our life be such that it cannot be understood apart from Jesus—take Him away and our whole character would become an inexplicable mystery! I am afraid that some professors could be easily interpreted apart from Christ—perhaps could be better accounted for if there were no Christ. But if we are like John, true witnesses to Jesus, we shall find in Jesus the conscious purpose of our being and His Glory will be the clue to all the windings of our lives. For this purpose were we born and for this end have we come into the world, that we may bear witness to the Lord Jesus Christ! Search and look, my Brothers and Sisters, whether it has been so with you. When our Lord was thus set forth by John, it is well to note the special character under which He was declared. John knew much of the Lord Jesus and could have pictured Him in many lights and characters. He might especially have pointed Him out as the great moral example, the Founder of a higher form of life, the great Teacher of holiness and love. Yet this did not strike the Baptist as the head and front of our Lord’s Character, but he proclaimed Him as One who had come into the world to be the great Sacrifice for sin. Lifting up his hand and pointing to Jesus, he cried, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” He did not say, “Behold the great Exemplar”—no doubt he would have said that in due season. He did not even say, “Behold the King and Leader of a new dispensation”—that fact he, by no means, would have denied, but would have gloried in it. Still, the first point that he dwells upon, and that which wins his enthusiasm is, “Behold the Lamb of God.” John the Baptist views Him as the Propitiation for sin and so he cries, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” My Brothers and Sisters, we may depend upon it that this must be a very practical Truth of God, for John was preeminently practical. What is the sum and substance of his teaching but, “Repent. Bring forth fruits meet for repentance. The axe is laid unto the root of the trees”? He has a word for everybody that comes—even the Roman soldiers are told to be content with their rations. John is no theorist or quibbler about dogma. He deals with life and character and demands works meet for repentance. Yet he makes a great point of our Lord’s being the Sacrifice for sin. This, indeed, is the text of his life-sermon! Rest assured that there is something wonderfully practical about that Truth of God! And those who becloud it under the notion of being practical are laying aside the best instrument of doing good to men. For the reformation of manners and the overthrow of evil, and the setting up of the Kingdom of Righteousness throughout the world, there is no Truth of God like that which reveals Jesus as the Sacrifice provided by God for removing the sin of men! The stern Baptist, the true Elijah who grappled hard with sin and laid the sword of repentance to its throat, saw that nothing could be done unless he pointed out the Lamb of God, by whom the world’s sin is taken away. When repentance is the sermon, Jesus must be the text and the substance of the discourse! He puts life, power, energy into what otherwise would be a dead moral essay. O you who would save men from sin, take care that you preach the great Sacrifice for sin! It is clear that this doctrine has to do with repentance, for the Apostle of repentance introduced it—he whose first word was, “Repent,” brought forward Jesus as the great Sin-Bearer, for he saw what I wish all would see, that there is a very intimate connection between the creation, growth and purity of repentance and the sin-bearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Brothers, the fact is, the more we have to do with penitent sinners, the more we feel the need of a sin-bearer. O you that have never sinned and are wrapped up in your own self-righteousness, you imagine that you can enter Heaven by your own works! The bearing of sin by the Lamb of God does not seem to you at all necessary, but if you once dwelt, as John did, in the midst of a burdened people who came lamenting and confessing their sins, you would feel that nothing could bring them into reconciliation with God but faith in the appointed Atonement. “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,” is the text which evangelists love because without it they cannot face the troubled ones who throng around them! My Brothers, in proportion as you wisely love your fellow men you will prize the Sacrifice for sin. Your practical dealing with a perishing people will make you prize the Savior. Oh, what would I do if I were sent to preach to this vast throng and had no sin-offering to declare to you! Might I not break my heart before a task so useless, so cruel, as to have to denounce sin and yet to have no pardon to declare and, consequently, no hope? Now that I can tell of One who bore in His own body on the tree the transgression, iniquity and sin of men, I find my task a solemn one, but certainly not hopeless, nor even dreary! Happy, indeed, am I to be permitted to set forth so blessed a salvation! Blessed are the lips which are allowed to cry, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” You see, then, that the practical character of John’s mission made him all the more at home in setting forth the sacrificial Character of our Lord. If John the Baptist had not felt that the Character of our Lord, as a Sin-Offering, was the chief matter, he might have fitly pointed Him out as an example at the time when he delivered the words of our text. The Savior had not yet revealed to anyone the fact and meaning of His future death. His Passion was as yet a thing in the dim future, while His life was just blossoming out into public observation. He had newly left the holy quiet of the parental roof at Nazareth and the charm of early holiness was on Him. Should not the world now mark Him, that His example might be known throughout its entire length? In His retirement, His conduct had been such that the austere and devout Baptist had noticed it—and had felt bound to acknowledge that his younger relative was a worthier Person than himself, saying, “I have need to be baptized by You.” But John does not seem, when he beholds the Lord after His baptism, to think of His godly life already commenced, nor of that holy life which he could foresee in Him. Rather he fastens his eyes upon the sacrificial Character of that wondrous Personage and dwells on that, alone, saying, “Behold the Lamb of God.” Brothers, that age needed an example as badly as ours does, but it needed a Savior still more—and John sees first that which is first! Let me add that the time was doubly opportune for dwelling upon our Lord’s example, since He had just returned from His famous temptation in the wilderness, wherein He had rehearsed His life-struggles. You cannot, in reading the narrative, piece in the 40 days’ temptation in the wilderness anywhere else but just here. We read that our Savior, after His Baptism, was led up immediately into the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil. Tempted He was, but He yielded in no point. In the threefold battle He vanquished the power of darkness at every point, and now, armed for the fray, in mail which He had tried and proven, the Champion stood before John! And it would not have been singular had the man of God cried out, “Behold the Perfect One, in whom the prince of this world has no place. Copy His supreme example!” But no, the great Baptist’s eyes rest not on that—the blood and wounds of the Passion are before his mind’s eye and beyond all else he sees the sacrificial Character of the wondrous Being who now stands in the midst of the throng. The fact that He is the appointed Victim for human sin enwraps the whole soul of the preacher and he cries, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” Brothers and Sisters, I desire to be in the same case with John the Baptist. I would have my thoughts of Christ concentrated upon His atoning death henceforth and evermore! During the little time in which I may be spared to lift up my voice in this wilderness, I would bear witness to the Lamb of God! The years may be short in which I may guide this flock, but around the Cross shall be to me, forevermore, the place of green pastures—and from the Sacrifice of our Lord shall flow the still waters. Many others are dealing with other aspects of our Lord’s work. Some, I doubt not, faithfully, and others with evil intent. I may very well leave them to do their best or their worst, for at least one may be allowed to be baptized for the Crucified, separated unto the Cross, dedicated to the Atonement by blood. I know no Atonement but Substitution, no Substitute but Christ. “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.” To the declaration of that fact I set myself apart to life’s end.
I. The Personal Perception of John the Baptist
To come still closer to our text, I would have you notice, in the first place, that JOHN SET FORTH CHRIST AS A SACRIFICE WITH EVIDENT PERSONAL PERCEPTION OF THE FACT. When a man says, “Behold!” he sees something himself. He sees that something with clearness and he desires you to see it and, therefore, he cries, “Behold! Behold!” John had, from his birth, been ordained to be the herald of the Christ. But he evidently did not know who the Lamb of God might be. As a babe, he leaped in the womb when he came near to the mother of our Lord. But yet he did not know Jesus as the Lamb of God. He says, “I knew Him not.” Some suppose that John and Jesus had never met during their early years, but I find it hard to believe. I see quite another meaning here. John knew Jesus, but did not know Him as the Sin-Bearer. I think he must have known the life of the Holy Child, his near relative, while He grew in favor both with God and man, but he had not yet seen upon Him the attesting seal which marked Him as the Son of God. John admired the Lord’s Character very much, insomuch that when He came to be baptized by him, John said, “I have need to be baptized by You.” Yet John says, “I knew Him not.” He knew Him as one of high and holy character, but as yet he saw not the token which the Lord God had secretly given to his servant— for he saw not the Spirit of God descending and resting upon Him. John shrewdly suspected that Jesus was the Son of the Highest, of whom he was the forerunner, but a witness must not follow his own surmises, however correct they may be! John, as the Lord’s servant, did not dare to know anything of his own unguided judgement—he waited for the secret sign. Certain preachers tell their people anything they invent out of their wonderful brains, but the true servant of God has no business to put forth his own thoughts or opinions—he must wait for a word from God. The message should come straight from the Master—“Thus says the Lord.” John, though he saw about this wondrous Jesus such marvelous traits of Character that he was sure He was much greater than himself, yet says, “I knew Him not.” He would know nothing but as it was revealed to him by the Lord God who sent him. But when, at last, he received that personal token when he plunged our blessed Master into the waters of the Jordan— and saw the heavens opened and the Dove descend—and heard the Voice saying, “This is My beloved Son,” then he knew Him and was, therefore, sure. When he afterwards spoke, he did not say, “I think this is the Lamb of God,” or, “I am under the impression that this is the Son of God.” No, he boldly cried, “Behold Him! See for yourselves. This is the Lamb of God! I speak with the accent of conviction! Nothing can shake me. The Master has given the sign and, therefore, I bear confident witness. Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” From then on, to John the Baptist, the Lord Jesus Christ was more than He appeared to be to any others. To those who looked at the Savior, He would have seemed to be a plain, humble Jew, with nothing particular to mark Him out, except it were the gentleness of His demeanor and a certain heavenliness of carriage. But to the Baptist, He was now before all and above all! When a person was to be baptized, he confessed his sins to John. But when Jesus came with no sins of His own to confess, did He whisper in John’s ear, “I bear the sin of the world”? I think He did, but in any case, this was true to the Baptist’s mind—and to him, Jesus was the matchless Sacrifice, the one Atonement for human sin. This was an extraordinary Truth of God to John. It took a miracle of Grace to make a Jew see, “The Lamb, who takes away the sin of the world.” The Jew thought that the Sacrifice of God must be only for His chosen people—but John saw beyond all bounds of nationality and restrictions of race—and clearly perceived in Jesus “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” Remember that John was of a priestly race—he was familiar with lambs for sacrifice. But as a priest, he never saw a lamb for sacrifice in a place far off from the consecrated shrine. There was only one altar and that was at Jerusalem—and there the lamb of sacrifice must be—not by Jordan’s lonely stream. Yet John saw, in a place never dedicated in any peculiar manner to the service of God, the one great Sacrifice standing in the midst of the people. “Behold,” he says, “this is the Lamb of God.” See how well the Lord had taught him and how fully he had broken away from natural prejudices! Beloved, I pray that each one of us may know, for himself, Jesus as the Sacrifice for sin. You were brought up as children to believe that Jesus is the Lamb of God, but all Revelation in the Book must again be revealed to the heart, or it will not be really known and perceived. For the life of the Truth of God to enter into our life it must become a matter, not of head-creed only, but of heart-belief. That Jesus is the Substitutionary Sacrifice, the Propitiation for our sins, the Expiation for our iniquity, must be taught us by the Holy Spirit. I can truly declare among you that I do not preach this doctrine of vicarious Sacrifice as one among many theories, but as the saving fact of my experience! I must preach this or nothing! I know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and Him Crucified, because I have neither hope nor comfort outside of the great atoning Sacrifice. He was made sin for us, even He who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. “He was made a curse for us, as it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree.”
II. Emphatic Declaration of the Sacrifice
Pray that each one of God’s people may have a clear knowledge of Christ as the sin-bearing Lamb and have it written on his individual consciousness, for then nothing will shake him out of it. When men find their own deliverance from sin and their own peace with God flowing out of the atoning Sacrifice, this great Truth of God becomes a part of their inward experience and it can never be torn from them.
O my Brothers and Sisters, when the great Sacrifice has saved you, you will never be able to doubt it! You will sooner doubt your own existence than doubt this blessed fact, that He bore our sin in His own body on the tree, and that through Him we are reconciled unto God! It was a matter with John of personal perception.
III. The Lamb of God: The Divine Sacrifice
Let us advance a little. JOHN SET FORTH OUR LORD AS EMPHATICALLY THE SACRIFICE—“Behold the Lamb of God.” This is more than John would have said of all the lambs that he had ever heard or read of since the first appointment of sacrifice. He remembered the firstling of the flock which Abel offered and the sacrifice of a sweet savor which Noah presented. He knew the sacrifices of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He was familiar with the lamb of the Paschal Supper and those of Israel’s high festivals. He remembered the thousands of offerings that had been presented by David and by Solomon, and by other kings in the great national acts of worship. But passing them all by as if they were all mere shadows, he points his finger to the Man, Christ Jesus, and he says of Him, “This is THE Lamb of God.” In this I think the Baptist comprehended everything that went before. There was the daily lamb of which I read to you in the commencement of the service, from Exodus 29. There had been slain before the Lord a lamb every morning, and a lamb every evening, all the year round throughout the centuries of Israel’s history. Always and ever the continual sacrifice of the lamb was the symbol of Jehovah’s dwelling with His people. But John puts his finger down upon a single Sacrifice and says, “This is the Lamb.” All the other daily lambs had been but prefigurations of this! “Behold the Lamb.” Let me also call your attention to another wonderful lamb, the Paschal lamb, slain on the night when Israel went up out of Egypt, when each Hebrew smeared the lintel and side-posts of his door with blood—and the sight of that blood sufficed for the deliverance of the family, according to the Word of Jehovah, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you.” These Passover lambs were many and sacred to every Jewish mind! But John passes them all over and says, “Behold the Lamb of God.” Do you not think he also had in his mind the lamb spoken of by Isaiah, the great evangelical Prophet? Had he not in his memory that famous passage, “He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter”? John the Baptist cries, “This is He of whom the Prophet spoke, Behold the Lamb of God.” Yes, and if John’s eyes had been turned to the future as well as to the past, so that he could have looked down the centuries and shared the visions of the Seer of Patmos, he would have seen the Lamb in the midst of the Throne, and have heard the song unto Him that was slain! But after seeing all the visions of the coming Glory of the Lamb, he would still have kept his finger pointed towards the blessed Christ of God, standing among the people, and would have said, “Behold the Lamb.” All that you read of sacrifice and sin-bearing in the Old or the New Testament. All that you have ever heard, or ever shall hear, of the putting away of sin, if it is true, is all centered in this line, “Behold the Lamb.” It is a great thing when we can focus our testimony upon a single point! Let every servant of God do so and bear his witness that there is none other name given among men whereby we must be saved! There is no other purgation for sin in the whole universe save that great Sacrifice which takes away the sin of the world!
IV. Bearing Away Our Sin
We will go a step further again—JOHN, IN DESCRIBING OUR LORD JESUS IN HIS SACRIFICIAL CHARACTER, WAS VERY EXPLICIT IN DECLARING HIM TO BE THE SACRIFICE OF GOD. He says: “Behold the Lamb of God.” These words contain a great depth of meaning. “The Lamb of God.” Did not the Baptist thus recall the day when Abraham walked with Isaac towards the mount that God had told him of? “And Isaac said to his father, My Father, behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham answered, My Son, God will provide Himself a lamb for the burnt offering.” John, standing centuries after, seems to say, “Now is the saying of the Father of the faithful fulfilled! Behold how God provides! Behold the Lamb of God.” Under the old Jewish dispensation, if a man sinned, he said to himself, “I must go and find a lamb.” And he went out to his own flock, or else to his neighbor’s and he bought a lamb. That was his lamb which he brought for his own trespass. But you and I have not to go and find a lamb—God has already provided a Lamb—and we have only to accept the Lamb of God. And is it not a wonderful thing, that He, Himself, against whom all sin was leveled, provided the Sacrifice for sin? Behold the sin of man and the Lamb of God. Jesus is the Father’s best Beloved, His choice One, His only One and yet He delivered Him up for us all—and God’s Son became God’s Lamb! O my Father, my Father, do I sin and do You find the Sacrifice? But if a Sacrifice must be found by the Father, why was it found so near His heart? He could find the Sacrifice for sin nowhere but in His own bosom. He had but one Son, His Only-Begotten—and “God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son.” Jehovah gave His only Son to be a Sacrifice! Let Heaven and earth be filled with astonishment!
V. Removal of Sin: Present and Continuous
Beloved, if you think of it, who else could have provided a Sacrifice for the sin of the world? None will pretend to such ability. And when God, Himself, provided a Sacrifice, what other could He have found but His co-equal Son? Who else could render the honor which was due to the broken Law? Who else could offer to Divine Justice the vindication which it demanded? Justice must be violated, or else man must perish forever—there remained no way of escape from this dilemma until the Son of the Highest condescended to become a Sacrifice and put away sin by His own death. So, you see, the Lord must, Himself, provide the Sacrifice—and that Sacrifice must be His only-begotten Son. I do not think I can preach more, for a faintness has come over me, nor is there need for more if you will but chew the cud of this one precious Truth of God—Jesus is the Lamb which God provided and He is the Lamb which God Himself presented at the altar. Yet I must rouse myself to say a little more. Who was it that sacrificed the Lamb of God? Who was the priest on that dread day? Who was it that bruised Him? Who put Him to grief? Who caused Him the direst pang of all when He cried, “Why have You forsaken Me?” Was it not the Father, Himself? This was one point in the hardness of Abraham’s test—“Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and offer him for a sacrifice.” He must, himself, officiate at the sacrifice! This, the great Father did! He is the Lamb, the Lamb of God. And now, today, the bright side of this Truth remains. He is the Lamb that God always accepts, must accept, glories to accept! Bring you but Jesus with you and you have brought God an acceptable Sacrifice! You cannot fail to be forgiven when you come pleading the name of Jesus. If you should bring the fattest of your flock and the choicest of your herd, you might hear God say, “I will not accept your sacrifice”! But when you bring God’s own Sacrifice, He cannot reject you! You are accepted in the Beloved! There is such acceptance of Christ with God that it overlaps your unacceptableness. It covers your sin. It covers you—it makes you to be dear to the heart of God!
VI. The All-Sufficiency of the Lamb of God
There are many sins you have committed. Some you may not even recall. But “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”