Jesus Comes to His Own

KEY 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.” —John 1:29

SELECTED SCRIPTURE: John 1:6-8, 19-23, 29-34

THE ‘lamb’ symbolism is used very prominently in the Scriptures in connection with God’s plan of redemption and restoration through Christ. It first appears associated with a burnt offering which Abel presented to the Lord. (Gen. 4:4) Its last appearance is in Revelation 22:1, where we are informed that “a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal,” was seen “proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.”

Again a lamb was offered in sacrifice by Abel. Our first parents had been sentenced to death and driven from their home in the Garden of Eden, but the Lord had said that the “seed of the woman” would bruise the serpent’s head. (Gen. 3:15) This indicated that divine love in some way still overshadowed God’s human creatures. Our first parents, yielding to the influence of “that old serpent which is the Devil, and Satan,” had transgressed God’s law.—Rev. 20:2

They had sinned, and had forfeited their right to God’s favor. But God’s mention of the seed bruising the serpent’s head indicated that in some manner their sin would not always stand against them. So it might well be that having made this promise, God began to illustrate how it would be carried out: that there was to be a remission of sin through the shedding of blood—the blood of “the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.”—Heb. 9:22

The symbol of a lamb was used in God’s dealings with Abraham. God had promised the patriarch that through his seed all the families of the earth would be blessed. (Gen. 22:18) Here, again, the setting aside of the death sentence was pictured. When God asked Abraham to offer his son, Isaac, a type of Christ the true ‘seed’, as a sacrifice, Abraham complied. When he had built the altar, and had laid Isaac upon it, he raised his knife to slay his son. But an angel of the Lord intervened, directing that Abraham substitute a lamb on the altar instead of Isaac.—Gen. 22:5-13

This is a very meaningful illustration. The offering of Isaac indicates that before all the families of the earth could be blessed, a loving father must give up in sacrifice his beloved son. In the outworking of the divine plan, the Scriptures reveal that it is the Heavenly Father who gives his “only begotten Son” for the sins of the world. (John 3:16) The lamb that was substituted as a sacrifice pictures the Son of God whom he sent to redeem mankind from sin and death, and who would be known as “the Lamb of God.”

In the prophecies, the Redeemer is described as a lamb which would be “brought to the slaughter.” (Isa. 53:7) This prophecy further states concerning God’s Lamb, that “he is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.”

The lamb symbolism is used again at the time of the Exodus of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage. Israel’s firstborn were the first to be saved under the protection of the blood of the Passover lamb, and the next morning the entire nation was led forth to freedom, saved from the continuing oppressive hand of Pharaoh, which eventually would have destroyed them. Thus in the Passover and Exodus we are reminded that, in God’s plan of redemption and salvation, the followers of the Master, the antitypical firstborn, are the fast to be delivered from the thralldom of sin and death, and then, in the morning of earth’s new day, all mankind will be delivered from the bondage of sin and death.

John the Baptist had the blessed privilege of identifying the one that all of these typically sacrificed lambs pointed to—our Lord Jesus.

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