Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to the Gospel according to John
chapter 1, and reading through our text, verse 29, particularly
the latter part of that verse. The next day John seeth Jesus
coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh
away the sin of the world. And it is that which John said,
and it is our text. Behold the Lamb of God which
taketh away the sin of the world. And with the Lord's help this
morning, I wish to bring before you three headings. Firstly,
Behold the Lamb through prophecy. And secondly, behold Jesus of
Nazareth. And thirdly, behold the work
he came to do. But first, I want to make a few
introductory comments. Who is telling us to behold? This was the question that the
priests and Levites from Jerusalem were asking him in verse 19,
who are thou? And John is telling them that
he is not Esaias, he's not a prophet, or not that prophet, and they
asked him who he was then. His answer was in verse 23, I
am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight
the way of the Lord as said the prophet Esaias. And he is referring
to Isaiah chapter 40 and verse 3. The voice of him that crieth,
the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our
God. He's also pointing to that which
is in Malachi in chapter 3. Behold, I will send my messenger,
and he shall prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom
ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger
of the covenant whom ye delight in. Behold, he shall come, saith
the Lord of hosts. And so this is John the Baptist,
born of Elizabeth, six months older than our Lord after the
flesh. And he is the one that is pointing
out the Lamb of God here. In the other three Gospels, Matthew,
Mark, and Luke, They particularly dwell upon what is said in Isaiah
about John's work of preparing, a preparing the way before the
Lord. When we think of the Jews here,
that the Lord Jesus, the seed of the woman, the Christ should
come, suddenly come, But God saw fit to send one like John
to stir up a real interest and to have many asking questions
and to be in real expectation and a preparation that the time
of the coming of the promise was drawing nigh. And we're reminded
in this that God is a preparing God. In the creation, he prepared
first. If you look at the things that
were done in the six days, the first three days were just preparing
days. He prepared the heavens, he prepared
the sea and the air, and he prepared the dry land. That was in the
first three days. And then he goes back and he
puts the sun and the moon and the stars in the heavens, And
he puts the birds in the air and the fishes in the sea, and
he puts the animals and man on dry land. And with Adam, he had
prepared a garden to put him in. When the children of Israel
went from Egypt to the promised land again, it was to a land
that was already prepared. They did not need to plant the
vineyards. They did not need to build the
houses. They were all prepared. And regarding
heaven, the Lord says, I go and prepare a place for you. And
if I go and prepare a place for you, I'll come again and receive
you unto myself that where I am, there you may be also. And the
Lord prepares his people for that place as well. They are
a prepared people for a prepared place. In Elijah's day, when
the children of Israel had gone after Baal and idols, Then they
were prepared to receive the word on Mount Carmel by a three
and a half year famine. And then they were prepared to
put their God, Baal, to the test against the true and living God.
We need to be prepared and the Lord often uses trials, afflictions,
sicknesses, things that will open our ear, things that will
make us ready to hear what we wouldn't hear before. And it
was in this case then that there are those there that are being
prepared to receive the Lord. And of course the vital thing
in receiving the Saviour and being blessed and being saved
is to be pointed out first where we may expect that salvation
when paul was at mars hill athens then he noticed how many different
altars they had to many gods and then an altar to an unknown
god and he said to them that he whom he ignorantly worship
i declare unto you and he pointed them to the true and to the living
god before a soul is even saved before they receive the word,
before they have faith in Christ, they are pointed first as to
where salvation is, where it may be expected, where it may
be looked for. If we think in our land, if someone
was trying to work out where they could be saved, and you
just drive around and you've seen Gravesend, the great big
Sikh temple, is that the place where we would go? Is that the
God? Or if we drove to another place
to see another building and people that were gathering together
there, was that the place? Was it Joseph of the Mormons? Was it Smith of the Jehovah's
Witnesses? Or whoever it was that was being
lifted up. But here the Jews, They were
being pointed to Jesus of Nazareth. And so John, he comes and he
says, behold. Now the word behold, really it
means see. You see this, you look here.
But it is more than that. It is giving an expectation there
is something or someone of a special remarkable or impressionable
nature. And that would have been an amazing
thing to these Jews, to have our Lord pointing to Jesus of
Nazareth and saying, behold, the Lamb of God which taketh
away the sin of the world. And part of that is because of
what they would have associated with the idea of the Lamb of
God. So I want to look, with the Lord's
help, at these three points, how they would have thought first,
as John is mentioning the Lamb of God, what they would have
thought when he is saying, behold the Lamb of God, what their expectation,
should they have known the Scriptures well, would have been, and what
they were looking at and associating with as to what had been set
forth in the Old Testament. So behold the Lamb through prophecy. There would have been six things,
probably more we could look at, but six things that they would
have thought of and associated with the Lamb of God. The first I bring before you
is the substitutionary lamb, a lamb in the place of another. This was what was shown to Abraham,
who, our Lord said, saw my day and rejoiced at it. Going up
the Mount Moriah, Isaac, he says, my father, behold the fire and
the wood, but where is the lamb? cray burnt offering. And first
it was Isaac that was bound upon the altar. But Abraham had said
to him, my son God will provide himself a lamb, cray burnt offering. But Isaac was bound there first
and the knife was raised and there was expectation that Isaac
was going to be killed. Isaac was going to be offered.
But then the angel stayed Abraham's hand, he stopped him, and he
showed him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns, and Abraham
offered him up in the stead of his son. So they would have thought
here, what is being beheld is a substitute, is an offering
instead of us, instead of the sinner, There is one that is
going to stand in the sinner's place, who is going to endure
the wrath of God in our place, who is going to have the fire
of justice and of God placed upon him. This is the Lamb that
is being pointed out. But secondly, they would have
thought that here is one that is without blemish, because the
Jews were told very clearly in selecting out the lamb for the
Paschal lamb when they were departing from Egypt, that it had to be
a lamb without blemish. No tear in its coat, nothing
that was of any imperfection in that lamb. And that's why
when we mentioned about Abraham and the ram caught in the thicket,
it was caught by its horns, not by its fleece. If it had been
caught by its fleece, then the fleece would have been ripped.
It would have been imperfect. So it was caught by its horns.
And the children of Israel had to diligently seek out that lamb
without blemish. Our Lord and Saviour had no sin. He was without blemish. He wasn't
stained and died with sin, as we are. The children of Israel
were familiar with this, and when pointing to one and saying,
Behold the Lamb of God, they would have expected to see something,
to see a person that was without blemish, that was spotless, that
was pure, that was holy, because that is what they associated
with the Paschal Lamb, with the Lamb of Offering. In the third place, they would
have expected that here was spoken of the blood of the Lamb. Inseparable to the Lamb was always
the blood. The lamb had to be slain, the
blood had to be shed. When I see the blood, I will
pass over you. That would have been an inseparable
thing. The Lamb of God wasn't just like
the other lambs in the flock that maybe just spent their lives
and all they were, it was to be shorn or to be used for the
fleece or used to bear other lambs. that the Lamb of God was
one that was to be slain, His blood was to be shed. They would also, in the fourth
place, associate the Lamb with that continual burnt offering,
an offering morning and evening of the children of Israel. How
constant was that offering. all the time it was to be presented
to them. And we are reminded for that,
that the Lamb of God is to be a constant, the fruit of His
offering is a constant offering. We have a picture in heaven of
the throne in heaven and the Lamb as it had been slain in
the midst of the throne. This is a picture of that constant
offering. It's not that it needs to be
offered often. In Hebrews, we are told that
the blood of bulls and of goats, so constantly offered, could
never put away sin. But this man, by one offering,
hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. But they would
have, when pointed out a person that was the Lamb of God, they
would have been thinking, This is what was set forth as the
constant offering morning and night. They would have also thought
of this suffering lamb, especially as set forth in Isaiah 53, because
we are told there that he was afflicted, He was oppressed,
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 done, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison
and from judgment, and who shall declare his generation? For he
was cut off out of the land of the living, for the transgression
of my people was he stricken. they would have thought, as John
said, behold the Lamb of God, of all of the sufferings that
had been set forth in the prophecies, especially there in Isaiah 53. They would also lastly have associated
the Lamb of God with their peace, the peace offerings where the
Lamb that the children of Israel had to lay their hand upon, and
the offering was made, and it made peace with God in a ceremonial
way. So the Lamb of God was what they
would have thought, here is one that is our peace. So when John says, behold the
Lamb of God, Those that knew the scriptures, all of these
things would have gone through their minds and they would have
had that expectation. They would have expected to see
something remarkable, something impressive, something that would
answer to this substitution and the blood and the suffering and
the one that is without blemish and the one that is our peace. And yet what they would have
seen was a man, Jesus of Nazareth. I want to look secondly at the
whole Jesus of Nazareth. In one way, it must have been,
I might say, an anti-climax or
something that didn't seem to add up at all. If we were walking
down the street and someone said to us, you know, behold this,
look at this, and you looked at it as something, and you said,
well, there's nothing special about that, it's just something
ordinary. There's nothing remarkable about
that. You would have that expectation,
you would see something remarkable, but what they saw here was Jesus
of Nazareth. We referred to Isaiah 53, and
we read there that whoever believed our report, to whom is the arm
of the Lord revealed. He is despised and rejected of
men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. We are told that
he had no form or comeliness. When we shall see him, there
is no beauty that we should desire him. Those that were looking
at the Lord wouldn't have seen anyone any special than any man
that you and I might see in the street. In fact, the Jews later
on, they were offended at him. They said, his mother we know,
his brethren we know, and they were offended at him. And our attention is drawn not
to the outward, but to what is said of him. If we were to think
of when our Lord was born, when he was as a babe and he was brought
into the temple, Then we have Simeon and he is taking him up
in his arms and he's lifting him up and he is saying, Now
Lord, let us now thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes
have seen thy salvation. And then Anna, she speaks of
him to all them that were looking for redemption in Jerusalem. And so again, all they were seeing,
those that were coming into the temple, were seeing a baby that
was no different than any other baby. But as Mary, she marveled
at those things that were spoken of him. Things that were said
of him that the natural eye was looking at and weren't immediately
seeing and recognizing and knowing. These were things that were said
by revelation. The Spirit had said to Simeon
that he should not see death until he had seen the Lord's
Christ. And so John here is pointing
to Jesus of Nazareth and this is highlighted later on when
after John has pointed him out, then we have a succession You
notice through this account, we read again and again, the
next day, the next day after, the next day following. Things
were happening quite quickly, day after day. And there were
those that were being brought to see Jesus as the Christ, see
him as the Son of God, as the Lamb of God. And you can see
the reaction, especially as described by Nathanael, can any good thing
come out of Nazareth? That is where Philip was pointing
to Jesus of Nazareth. John had pointed to him and so
Nathanael is asking that. There was that expectation that
there would be those good things, there would be that answer to
what had been set forth as the Lamb of God. But all they are
seeing is Jesus of Nazareth. The things of God are spiritually
discerned. The Jews were already forewarned
that when they should see Him, there is no beauty that they
should desire Him. The hymn writer says, Veiled
in flesh, the Godhead see. And yet through our Lord's ministry,
there was to be a series of miracles that showed His Godhead. He was to be a real man and truly
God. And in one sense, it's just as
important that they couldn't see anything different with Him
as that they could see because they bore that record that here
is one that is truly manifest in the flesh. What had to be
unfolded, just as certainty, was that this is Immanuel, God
with us. King Solomon had said, the heaven
of heavens cannot contain thee how much less this house that
I builded, but will God in very deed dwell upon the earth. It is just as an important doctrine
that the Lord Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, was a real man with
body and soul, made like unto his brethren, sin accepted, as
it is vital to view that he is truly God, manifest in the flesh,
that he is truly divine, that he is Emmanuel. John is pointing
out, behold Jesus of Nazareth. You look at him, you observe
him, you look for all what is foretold of the Lamb of God throughout
history, you look for it in this man. You look for it in his life,
his death, in all that shall happen in the next, well he didn't
say, give a time, but it was going to be in the next three,
three and a half years. He struck me in reading this
account because he says that there is one dwelling among you
whom ye know not, and for thirty years he dwelt among them. He
had sojourned with them, they knew him, they saw nothing different,
nothing remarkable, he might say that than any other. And
then suddenly he is pointed out and his work begins, his ministry
begins, his miracle begins. Those things that were done to
prove his Godhead all begun from this time. And so they are viewing
him as Jesus of Nazareth. How vital it is that we have
an expectation before we actually see. There are many that will
hear the claims of the Gospel or hear about the Lord Jesus
Christ, and because they don't immediately see anything special,
anything remarkable, anything that is attractive to Him, they
just dismiss Him. But the Jews here were pointed
out, our Lord, as to have a real expectation. And was that expectation
cut off? How soon we find those who, like
Nathanael, were so persuaded that this one who could see him
under the fig tree, who could see him where other people couldn't
have seen him, that he was truly the Son of God, the King of Israel. We think of those times that
he raised the dead, that he healed the sick, that he multiplied
the loaves and the fishes, that he stilled the winds and the
waves with his word. We think of the power of God
that was shown him, one moment asleep in the hinder part of
the ship, and the next risen up and commanding the winds and
the waves. The Old Testament type of the
Ark of the Covenant, when the children of Israel moved, the
Ark was covered with the veil of the temple, and then it was
covered with a covering of blue. Blue is setting forth grace. And under that blue was just
the badger skins. But then under the badger skins
there was the golden ark. And yet that was veiled, that
was hidden. And that was like our Lord here
below. They could not resist His words. They marveled at the gracious
words that proceeded out of His lips. They saw His grace. But then often they stumbled
because they saw his manhood. They saw that he was a real man.
And they couldn't see the gold underneath. They couldn't perceive
and know and believe that this truly was the Christ, the Son
of God. So John is beholding and pointing
to Jesus of Nazareth. And those that looked, they were
to look not to see immediately all what they expected to see,
but to have that expectation and to wait and to look and to
continue with the Lord. And what an advice that would
be to any that are looking for salvation, to any that feel the
need, their sins pardoned and forgiven, because whether we
feel it or not, We have need of it. We are all under condemnation. We are born in sin and shapen
in iniquity. We need a substitute, otherwise
we shall die for our own sin. We need the precious blood shed
for us. Without the shedding of blood
there is no remission. It is vital that that be the
case. It needs to be spotless, otherwise
it will not have any merit Any mere man could not even save
his own soul, let alone another. And so we need those things that
are set forth before us in the Lamb of God. And it is in due
time that those were unveiled and shown to the disciples as
they continued with Him. Our Lord says in John 8, to those
disciples that believed on Him, that is, believed that He, Jesus
of Nazareth, was the Christ, If ye continue in my word, then
ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. And he says, ye shall be my disciples
indeed, my followers indeed. There was always to be that continuing
and abiding with him. The Lord deliver us from being
those that just see a glimpse and then just pass over it. It's
like seeing a a lump of gold in the Australian deserts or
just seeing and it covered over with soil and just casting it
away has been useless. But if it was brushed off, if
it was washed and cleansed and refined then you would see that
gold underneath. How easy it is to by not knowing
the value of something, just throw something away. How many
times you read of those who have got something that's an antique,
and they have no idea of the value of it. Maybe they bought
it for a pittance, and the person that sold it never knew the value
of it. And they've gone and got it valued,
and the valuer says it's worth thousands of pounds, and they're
amazed that it should be worth so much. How many view our Lord
and view how He set forth in the Word, and they despise Him. They don't see the value. They
don't see His preciousness. Well, no doubt many of the Jews
didn't. But those that continued with Him, those that believed
John's testimony, they would have seen many more things later
on that were done. And John's whole message throughout
his gospel is that Jesus is the Son of God. Summed up at the
very end in chapter 20, many other signs truly did Jesus in
the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this
book, but these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is
the Christ, that is, Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, the Son
of God, and that believing he might have life through his name. So John has this message pointing
to Jesus of Nazareth, behold Jesus of Nazareth, behold the
Lamb of God. But John also has another message,
and in our third point to notice this, behold the work he came
to do. Behold the Lamb of God which
taketh away the sin of the world. What does that mean? Well, let
us go back to creation, because this chapter, it begins with
creation, begins with the Lord. The Word was with God, the Word
was God. The same was in the beginning.
All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything
made that was made. Following the creation, then
there was the command that they should not eat of the tree of
the fruit of good and of evil, but that in the day that thou
eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. And our first parents ate
of that fruit and they died. They died spiritually and they
died literally and there's a second death afterwards. And sin entered
into the world and death by sin. That is the sin of this world. That sin that entered there with
Adam and Eve is the sin. that is in this world today. That is why men and women die.
That is why there is sickness and illness. That is why men
die now. That is why we are still under
that same condemnation, that same wrath of God. It's not the sin of another world.
It's not the sin that is just man's devising or man's idea. Sin is the transgression of the
law of God. And that is what our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ came to deal with, the law of God that
He had given, and that man had broken, and for which things
sake the wrath of God came on the children of disobedience. In Mount Sinai, the law of God
was given with great thunderings and lightnings, and it was magnified
in such a way that no man could think that he could
ever fulfil that law. And our Lord, while He was upon
earth, He magnified the law, He made it honourable, He extended
it to the thoughts and intents of the heart, The whole idea
was to make it so very clear that man himself was incapable
of fulfilling the law of God. But the Lord Jesus Christ was
to fulfill that law. He was to completely make that
law honorable and to fully satisfy the demands of justice and demands
of a holy God. He gave the law and he fulfilled
the law. He fulfilled it in his spotless
life and perfect obedience. And he also fulfilled it in his
demands that those that transgress that law, that without the shedding
of blood, there is no remission. The only way the sentence can
be taken away is by the blood shed. And this then is the expectation
of the Lamb of God. Those that were in Egypt, they
sheltered beneath that blood. When I see the blood, I will
pass over you. Those that were viewing Abraham,
the substitutionary offering, Isaac is set free and released
from death. So the Lord came to deal with
sin, that which the children of Israel would have been very
familiar with. All of the types and the shadows,
all of the offerings, it all had to do with sin. Behold the Lamb of God which
taketh away the sin of the world. This was his work. But what is
meant then, particularly by the sin of the world and taking it
away, Has it been taken away in a literal sense? In that sense
that there's no more death? Or there's no more illness? Or
there's no more horrible people in the earth? There's no more
evil things done? No, there aren't. And even with
God's children, they still are sinners. They still remain sinners. So we know that What is set forth
here is not taking it away so that we now live in a sinless
society, in a world that has no sin in it. It was not pointing
to taking it away in that way. But it was taking it away in
the sense that for a people that were His, given of Him, of His
Father, that He took their sins And those sins were laid upon
him. He had laid upon him the iniquity
of us all, like the substitutionary offering for Isaac. Isaac was
set free and the lamb suffered in his stead. And so the Lord
says, and John again in John 10, he says, I lay down my life
for the sheep. Other sheep I have which are
not of this fold, that is the Gentiles as well as the Jews,
them also I must bring." And he sets himself forth as one
that lays down his life, suffers in the place of his sheep. He
says to the scribes and the Pharisees and those that were denying that
he was the true Lamb of God, He says, ye are not of my sheep,
therefore ye hear not my word. And so those that he laid down
his life for, it was a particular redemption, a redemption for
the sins of his people, bearing their sins in his own body on
the tree, being made a curse for them. For it is written,
cursed is everyone that hangeth upon a tree. So though we hear
and have the message here that it is a taking away the sin of
the world, we must read of other portions to know how that sin
was taken away, how that relates to a people, whose those people
were, and how their sin was put away. In our Lord Jesus Christ,
the justice of God is satisfied, The law is fulfilled. The sentence
against them is taken away. We read in Romans 8, there is
therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. In that sense, he was to take
away their sins, take away the sin of a believer, take away
the sin of his people and bear it himself. endure the wrath
of God himself, take away the condemnation, take away the judgment,
take away the sting of sin, take away its power, take away its
condemning power, and is laid upon the Lord Jesus Christ, which
taketh away the sin of the world. How do we view our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ. How do we view our own sin? How do we view the one who is
appointed by God to bear that sin? And without one to bear
it for us, we must bear it ourselves. This truly must be a welcome
sight to those who feel and know their sin, that it is the sin
of this world, that they have it in their bodies, that we have
it, we groan under a body of sin and death. Paul says, who
shall deliver me from this body of death? I thank God through
Jesus Christ. And there he points to the Lord
Jesus Christ. Himself, he says, the good I
would I do not, the evil that I would not, that I do, a wretched
man that I am. But he says, if I do that which
I would not, there's no more I that doeth, but sin that dwelleth
in me. With sin, dealt with and taken
away, the Lord gives to his people a new nature. He gives to them
new life, eternal life. And in that eternal life they
seek for those things which are above, and sin does not have
dominion over them. And after death, death shall
be that portal that takes them to be with Christ and to be with
Him forever. And so the work that our Lord
Jesus Christ came to do is a work that we need Him to do for us
and truly For those for whom Christ has died, that work is
done, already accomplished, already finished in the Lord Jesus Christ
on Calvary's tree. That work we need, the same John
pointing out Christ. Do we view Him as the Lamb of
God? Do we view Him as the one that
has borne our sin in His body on the tree? Do we view Him as
our peace? As the Israelites, they laid
their hand on the palm, the Lamb of God, and offered that peace
offering when they, by faith, could see that this was what
was their peace. Our Lord said, in me you shall
have peace. In the world you shall have tribulation,
but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. And so we have the message here
for us to behold. Behold the Lamb through prophecy,
behold Jesus of Nazareth, and behold the work He came to do. And may we behold it as a believer,
a believer that the Lord hath done this for us. They shall
look upon Him whom they have pierced. They shall mourn for
Him. They shall testify as Dear Thomas
did, my Lord and my God, they shall view him and see him as
their Saviour, their Redeemer. As Job looking forward said,
I know that my Redeemer liveth, and he shall stand at the latter
day upon the earth. This is the one that John is
pointing to, at the latter day upon the earth. And this is the
same one that each of the Lord's servants, like John, Point to
the Lord Jesus Christ and testify that there is salvation in none
other. There is none other name given
among men whereby we must be saved. He that believeth and
is baptised shall be saved. He that believeth not shall be
damned. May the Lord grant us to believe
in his name. With the heart man believeth
and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Lord, at His blessing. Amen.