If you’ll please turn with me in your Bibles to Exodus chapter 12 for our first reading.
The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, ‘This month shall be for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the 10th day of this month, every man shall take a lamb according to their father’s houses, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons, according to what each can eat. You shall make your account for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats.
And you shall keep it until the 14th day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at Twilight. Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lentil of the houses in which they eat it.’
Then down to verse 13: ‘The blood shall be assigned for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.’
From there, we turn to the Gospel of John, chapter 1, beginning at verse 29.
The next day, he saw Jesus coming toward him and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water that he might be revealed to Israel.’
And John bore witness: ‘I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I have seen and borne witness that this is the Son of God.’
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Let us pray.
Lord, we thank you for your word, for all that is contained within, even things that seem strange but perhaps also familiar to us. Help us to hear you speak and to see how you do not change through the ages, how what has been is what will be, and how your purposes are fulfilled. You have told us it will happen before so that we may know that you are God. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
So, we’ve now reached the moment when the Baptist’s purpose is fulfilled and his mission completed.
See, now we will discover precisely what it was that John the Baptist was sent to testify to as he came to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. Summarizing everything and bringing us up to this point, first we considered how the Baptist’s authority was derived from him being sent by the Lord God, his apostleship as a witness to the Eternal FAL, who is Theos.
Then next we considered who John was—meaning what his role was as the voice crying out in the wilderness, the herald of the Lord, preparing for and announcing the arrival of the Christ.
Now finally, we get to hear his actual testimony, his proclamation.
However, I will warn you beforehand that John the Apostle’s narrative concerning the Baptist is very different from the encounter between John and Jesus that we ordinarily hear.
We usually hear about the adult Jesus coming down to the river Jordan to be baptized by his relation John. Then when Jesus comes up out of the water, the heavens open and a voice declares, ‘This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased,’ as the Holy Spirit descends and rests upon Jesus like a dove. Immediately after this, Jesus is compelled by the Spirit to go into the wilderness to fast and resist the devil’s temptations for 40 days. Then, some indeterminate time after this, Jesus begins to call and collect his first disciples.
But John’s Gospel, in general, and this particular narrative are different because much of it takes place within the gaps of the three synoptic Gospels.
Recall that when we considered the authorship of John’s Gospel and the three Epistles attributed to him, we learned from the 4th Century historian Yus that a great motivation prompting John to write his Gospel account was filling in the blanks and sharing with us those earlier parts of Jesus’s ministry which were either ignored or overlooked by the other Gospel writers.
This encounter between Jesus, the Baptist, and some others takes place sometime after Jesus’s baptism in temptation, but before Herod Antipas arrested John, likely soon after Jesus’s return from the wilderness, sometime in between Mark 1:13 and 14.
Recognizing the difference of this time and place is important for us because it demonstrates the Baptist’s public response to and his support of Jesus.
The next day, presumably the day after John the Baptist’s questioning by the temple representatives, he saw Jesus coming towards him and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!’
Please note that it’s only John the Baptist and John the Apostle who called Jesus the Lamb of God—a title that the Apostle will later expand upon in the Revelation as the lamb who was slain. Although this metaphorical description is unique to them, it is exceptionally important because there’s only one possible interpretation of it that remains faithful to the Hebrew Scriptures: Jesus will be some kind of sacrifice, a sacrifice provided by the Lord for the Lord, as the Lord provided a sacrifice in place of Isaac for Abraham.
So remember this because Jesus being a sacrifice is the primary point which we’ll circle back around to this morning.
But when the Baptist—the voice crying in the wilderness—heralded the arrival of the Christ using the authority given him as God’s messenger and witness, what did he proclaim exactly?
The Apostle records him saying, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks before me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water that he might be revealed to Israel.’
And John bore witness: ‘I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I have seen and borne witness that this is the Son of God.’
So the Baptist specifically testified three things about Jesus: that he’s the Lamb of God, meaning that he’s a sacrifice for sin; that he’s someone greater than the Baptist, someone who ranks above him because he precedes him; someone who, although he is younger in age in his earthly ministry, begins after his is older as the eternally pre-existent Logos who was in the beginning with God, because he is God; and that he’s someone who would baptize people with the Holy Spirit, whereas John was only baptizing them with water.
Therefore, since Jesus is greater, his baptism must also be greater than John’s. But it’s not really explained how it will be greater, only that it will be.
And while the synoptic Gospels explained that John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance, here the Baptist says that its purpose was to reveal the Christ to Israel. Therefore, we should expect that Jesus baptizing with the Holy Spirit would further reveal the Lord to God’s people, Israel.
Lastly, John testified that Jesus is the Son of God.
However, while these three things were not without precedent, the Hebrew Scriptures attributing them to the person of Jesus was considered outrageous, which makes the divine origin of John’s authority all the more important.
How did the Baptist know or recognize these things about Jesus when nobody else did?
The Baptist knew because he was prepared for this revelation by the one who sent him, baptizing with water; God, the Lord, who sent him.
What sign was it that he was told to look for? The Holy Spirit descending upon someone and remaining there.
But what would that sign signify? That this person would be the one to baptize others with the Holy Spirit; that he would be the light of life about whom John was sent to testify.
So then, after witnessing all of this, what did the Baptist conclude and proclaim? That this man is the Son of God, the Christ, the Lamb of God.
Because the Baptist had the eyes to see it, he concluded that Jesus is God himself, the Logos, who Theos, recognizing the Holy Spirit upon and within him. But this also greatly surprised him, admitting, ‘I myself did not know him.’
See, what John does not deny is knowing Jesus, knowing who the man Jesus was—a carpenter in Nazareth and the son of Mary and Joseph. He surely knew Jesus because they were family.
However, adult John did not comprehend the truth about Jesus like prenatal John did. John did not know Jesus as the Lord or the Christ until God revealed it to him. But once the Lord revealed that truth to him, everything was immediately and fundamentally transformed.
Remember the Baptist; he possessed no innate advantage over any of us. So, his apparent ignorance and lack of understanding before God’s revelation should be a comforting reminder for us. It should comfort us and give us hope for many of the many non-believing people we know.
Because, says John, he knew all the facts—all the gnosis about Jesus that a person could know—but he did not comprehend, understand, or know OIDA who Jesus is before them.
John had a relationship with Jesus, but he didn’t have the proper relationship with him before this time. John didn’t relate to Jesus as his Lord or King, nor with him as God and creator. He related to Jesus merely as an older cousin.
Understanding this about John should help us to hope and pray for the salvation of those who might seem to be close to Christ or should be but yet remain far away.
Remember, there are plenty of people out there who learn all the knowledge there is to know about Jesus but still do not know or understand him.
There are plenty of people who might have some kind of relationship with Jesus but not the correct relationship, like John, who was raised to serve in the Lord’s Temple.
PKs—pastor’s kids, like me—often easily fit into this category. We were raised in the church; we attended every church event, and every day we were surrounded by everything Jesus. But none of that guaranteed or meant that we actually knew Jesus Christ. None of that meant that we were or would be saved, chosen, and elected by God.
We might have walked like followers of Christ, and we might have talked like Christians, but that does not mean we actually were until God revealed himself to us and opened our eyes, ears, and hearts to his truth.
But although PKs are the most obvious example, I can also be describing your own children, the children of your friends, your nieces and nephews, or your own grandchildren.
Or there are men like those whom I knew and worked with as a prison chaplain. They have nothing except time on their hands and many of them spend countless hours reading, memorizing, and studying the Bible. Many of them can quote chapter and verse or even recite whole books of the Bible from memory, but despite these impressive feats of knowledge, it does not mean that they know Jesus or that they’re saved.
Or there are those people who are nominally Christian—they believe or say that they’re Christian but lack a right relationship with Jesus.
These are the type of folks about whom Matthew writes, claiming, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do mighty works in your name?’ To whom Jesus would reply, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.”
See, they try to leverage a relationship with Jesus to further their own ends. We saw this a lot in the past with cultural Christianity when people used to come to church to see and be seen rather than because of their faith.
Then there are those who claim the name of Christ, as some politicians do, to appeal to certain voters.
Or there are those who incorrectly believe that all the good things they do are what will get them into heaven, wrongly believing that they can earn a heavenly reward instead of relying upon God’s grace and mercy alone.
Or some try to relate to Jesus just as their brother, friend, and savior, stubbornly refusing to relate to him as the sovereign Lord over their life, refusing to submit to his will and obey his commandments, or refusing to repent of their sins by continuing in sinful lifestyles or by claiming sinful identities.
So, you see, like John the Baptist, people may appear to be close to God. The people who might appear closest may still be far away until the Lord acts.
Until God does something, it’s all in the Lord’s hands. He must first draw them, draw us, to himself. If there’s hope for such a religious person like the Baptist, then there’s hope for all of them and for all of us.
I’m just grateful that he’s revealed himself to me and that there are those who have helped to prepare me and set me up for success in faith and for all of their hopes concerning what Christ may do with and for me. And I pray that y’all can say the same.
So now that we know what the Baptist understood about Jesus and why, we can circle back around to his proclamation and testimony: Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
Because this is the most important thing he says about Jesus. This is the pivot point around which our whole salvation turns. The execution of Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God during the Passover was God’s greatest work of salvation on behalf of his chosen people.
It is what was signified by the entire Jewish sacrificial system, but most especially by the first Passover in Egypt—God’s first lesser redeeming work of deliverance.
Excuse me.
Now, there are many reasons commanded for sacrifice under the old covenant, but the two which we most often connect to Jesus’s death are the Passover and the Day of Atonement. However, the meaning and purpose of these two sacrifices are not the same, but they were closely related and ultimately united in the work of Christ.
The Day of Atonement sacrifices were sacrifices of expiation—satisfying the requirements of justice, paying our moral debt of sin, and removing it from our account. This kind of sacrifice was necessary to achieve taking away the sin of the world, to remove and ultimately destroy our sin.
Then the original Egyptian Passover sacrifice was a sacrifice of propitiation—gaining the favor or blessing from an otherwise wrathful God—which makes sense when we remember the whole plague narrative was a series of events showcasing the Lord’s increasing displeasure and wrath against Pharaoh and the Egyptians for keeping Israel in bondage.
Whereas the bloody sign upon their doorways caused the Lord to pass his wrath over that household, leaving those within in peace and life instead of death.
Since it was by this kind of sacrifice that the Lord mercifully passed over the people of Israel as he inflicted his just wrath against Egypt for their idolatry and Israel’s bondage, so through the same kind of sacrifice, the Lord graciously passes over his elect—those who are covered by the blood of Christ through faith.
Paul in Jesus states, ‘For Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed,’ where he names him the true sacrificial Passover lamb.
Now, although these two types of sacrifice are very similar and seem to achieve the same result, they were distinct, necessary, and important. You can hear and recognize the difference between the two types of sacrifices by those strange terms.
The ‘ex’ in expiation is a prefix meaning ‘out from,’ ‘remove,’ while the ‘pro’ in propitiation is a prefix meaning ‘towards’ or ‘favorable.’
But regardless, Scripture teaches us that Christ’s death upon the cross has the dual effect, accomplishing and achieving both things for us.
But what does that have to do with John the Baptist proclaiming, ‘Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world’?
It is the Baptist’s authoritative declaration about Jesus as this sacrificial lamb that sets up Paul’s affirmation. And John the Baptist was the only person who could say this.
See, under the old covenant system, any animal that was brought to the Lord as a sacrifice was required to be without blemish, without any defects at all. Every sacrifice needed to be perfect and pure because they were being given to the perfectly holy Lord.
Evaluating potential sacrifices and declaring them suitable, perfect, and without blemish was a principal duty of the Levites serving in the temple. Thus, John’s family job adds a weight of authority to this declaration.
So when John, as both a Levite and a prophet of the Lord, proclaimed Jesus to be the Lamb of God, he was declaring Jesus without blemish and perfect.
John declared Jesus to be a sacrifice acceptable to the Lord—pure, holy, and undefiled. The Baptist declared Jesus Christ to be the true sacrifice for sin.
His proclamation leads us into our application, but it is something that’s often overlooked because it comes directly from Moses’s instruction for the Egyptian Passover by how it relates to Jesus.
But before we can apply it, we need to understand what a sacrifice is. What does it mean for us to sacrifice something?
Sacrifice is the giving up of or surrendering or forgoing something that has a real deep or meaningful value to you. Sacrifice is costly and expensive, but unless it honestly affects you—unless it negatively impacts you somehow—it’s really not a sacrifice.
I mean, I could say that I would sacrifice eating mushrooms—swearing to never again intentionally eat them—but that would not be a sacrifice since I already do not eat mushrooms because I’m allergic to them. Clearly, that’s not a sacrifice for me, but it is a sacrifice for my wife that she makes out of her love for me because she actually likes them.
Or we could talk about giving sacrificially to the church. We could put an extra five, 20, or 100 dollars in the plate and then forgo or reduce the frequency of our Starbucks, Dunkin’, or Panera coffee drinks—giving up things of tangible value and personal value.
Or, as in Bible times, we would sacrifice the first and best of our herds—our prized and pricey bull, sheep, or goat—a loss which could severely set us back both financially and agriculturally.
However, the Passover sacrifice commanded by God to Moses was far more costly because it actually carried an emotional cost.
‘Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the 10th day of this month, every man shall take a lamb according to their father’s houses, a lamb for a household. Your lamb shall be without blemish, and you shall keep it until the 14th day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at Twilight.’
See, the Israelites were to take their lamb and separate it from the rest of the herd on the 10th of the month, bringing it into their household and keeping it safe until the 14th.
What do you think happened when the lamb was brought inside and kept with the family for four or five days? What do you think would happen if we did that today? What do you think would happen if the Troys or the Bays brought a cute little one-year-old lamb into their home for one week?
I bet Ben and Tucker would be perfectly ready to sacrifice it after a few days, while the rest of the family would be totally devastated at the idea of killing their new adorable pet.
Keeping this lamb safe and cozy and warm within their home must have surely created an emotional attachment between each family and their lamb.
However, what we do not realize, what we often choose to overlook in the Gospels, is that this is precisely what happened to Jesus during that Passover week.
What will we celebrate on Sunday, March 24th, this year—Palm Sunday? When the Jerusalem crowds welcomed Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, into their city like a king.
What do we celebrate, remember, and mourn four or five days later? Jesus’s sacrificial death that takes away the sins of the world.
Jesus was welcomed, and he was loved for a time. Then betrayed by those who loved him, he was killed as a sacrifice for their benefit—the turning aside of God’s wrath by removing their sin for expiation and the gaining of his favor in adoption—propitiation.
So you see, truly Jesus is our Passover Lamb, just as Paul wrote. That is the great testimony which John the Baptist was sent by the Lord to testify to.
He came heralding the arrival of the Christ as well as proclaiming Jesus’s mission to redeem and rescue the children of God from their sins.
But remember, the work of Christ—his atoning sacrifice—only benefits those who receive him: everyone who believes on his name, who is covered by his blood, those who’ve been made into the adopted children of God through the regenerating will and power of our heavenly Father.
What we must remember is that because we are all still human, none of us are perfect. We remain sinners, although sinners redeemed by God’s grace.
The picture that the story of Holy Week paints for us is lived out within each and every one of us daily or more often. First, we receive Jesus with joy and gladness. Then we betray him again when we sin.
But remember, Jesus’s willing sacrifice upon that Friday afternoon still covers our sin. Jesus forgives us when we confess and repent, turning away the Father’s wrath and turning the Father’s favor towards us.
If and when we remember that, we may rest confident in the grace that we’ve received by faith through Jesus. Our hope of life eternal is restored, and our hope for the kingdom grows as we look forward to a resurrection like his.
So pass on John the Baptist’s testimony and point everyone you know and meet towards Jesus: ‘Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!’
Believe this—know that your sins are forgiven—and live. Amen.