May I turn in your Bibles to John chapter 1 for our meditation this morning before we participate in the Lord's Table. John chapter 1. While you're turning there, you'll remember that John chapter 1 verses 1 to 18 are the prologue to the entirety of John's Gospel. And those themes that are set forth in John 1, many of them are amplified or shown to be the case in the remainder of John 1.
We're going to read verses 19-42, focusing on John the Baptist's testimony concerning our Lord Jesus, with special reference to verse 29, as Jesus, the Lamb of God. I'll pick up reading in verse 19. Now, this is the testimony of John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, who are you? He confessed and did not deny, but confessed, I am not the Christ.
And they asked him, what then? Are you Elijah? He said, I am not. Are you the prophet?
And he answered, no. Then they said to him, who are you that we may give an answer to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself? He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.
Make straight the way of the Lord, as the prophet Isaiah said. Now those who were sent were from the Pharisees, and they asked him, saying, Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet? John answered them, saying, I baptize with water, but there stands one among you whom you do not know. It is He who, coming after me, is preferred before me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to lose." These things were done in Bethabara, beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
The next day, John 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 is preferred before me, for He was before me. I did not know Him, but that He should be revealed to Israel. Therefore, I came baptizing with water.
And John bore witness, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him. I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, Upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God. Again, the next day, John stood with two of his disciples, and looking at Jesus as he walked, he said, Behold, the Lamb of God.
The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. Then Jesus turned, and seeing them following, said to them, What do you seek? They said to him, Rabbi, which is to say, when translated, Teacher, where are you staying? He said to them, Come and see.
They came and saw where he was staying and remained with him that day. Now it was about the tenth hour. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, we have found the Messiah, which has translated the Christ.
And he brought him to Jesus. Now when Jesus looked at him, he said, you are Simon the son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas, which is translated, a stone. Amen.
Well, let us pray. Father, we thank you for the Holy Word of God. We thank you that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and that it's profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. And we pray that you would thoroughly furnish us and do every good work and cause us again to marvel at the wonderful gospel of free and sovereign grace.
Cause us to behold the Lamb of God. Cause us not only to do this on one Sunday of the month when we have the Lord's table, but God, may it be a daily activity. May we live always by faith in the Son of God who loved us and who gave Himself for us. May we never stray from the cross, Lord God, but may we always find our joy and our delight and our comfort and our strength for Christian living wound up or bound up in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
We just pray that Your Spirit would be at work in our hearts, We pray for any and all who do not know You here. We just pray that Your Spirit would convict them. Bring forth that knowledge of sin and show them as well the glory of Jesus Christ and all of His ability to save to the uttermost all who draw near to God through Him. And we ask in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Introduction
Well, as we have seen here, John the Baptist is being questioned. He is being asked very specific questions concerning his identity, concerning his place in redemptive history. You remember that he is baptizing people. And of course, in this, people would be curious as to his authority, as to his position, as to his qualification to do such thing.
And John answers these Jews in verses 19 to 28. He gives, or the question is posed, who he is or his identity. He states very clearly that he is not the Christ, but rather he has been sent in accordance with the prophets as a forerunner. He cites Isaiah 40 and verse 23, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord.
There is a great progression there in Isaiah 40 through chapter 66. We see the forerunner come and announce the arrival of the great King. We see that King introduced in Isaiah's prophecy as the servant of the Lord. That one sent from God on a very specific mission to save His people from their sins.
That servant then ushers in a new heavens and a new earth. That's the whole thrust of the latter half of Isaiah. And I believe John the theologian here is picking up that theme and he is showing us the fulfillment as it is in our Lord Jesus Christ. And then John gives specific testimony concerning Jesus in verses 29-34.
He identifies Him as the Lamb of God. in verse 29. That will occupy our attention this morning, but just so you can see the structure and how the passage flows for your own later reflection. He then shows or tells that Jesus is the preeminent one in verse 30. Notice he says, this is he of whom I said, after me comes a man who is preferred before me, for He was before me." Later, John will say of Christ, I must decrease, but He must increase.
He saw Jesus as the fulfillment of God's promises to save His people from their sins, and therefore, He is the preeminent One. John then identifies Jesus as the coming One. Verses 31-33, when he says, I did not know Him, he doesn't mean he didn't know Him at all. He didn't know Him as the One who would fulfill all that the prophets had spoken.
And then he identifies them very clearly in verse 34, as the Son of God. I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God. Just by way of a side note, when we come this morning to feast on the bread and on the wine, this is the Son of God Himself who loved us and who gave Himself for us. What a glorious picture of mercy and of grace.
What a glorious presentation of glory and grace in the sense that God made man. God sent His Son to save man from their sins. We ought to marvel at His goodness this morning. as we are reminded of these truths. Well,
Three Points of Meditation
as we consider verse 29, there's three points I want to make by way of meditation. The first is simply this.
His Arrival: Behold the Command
His arrival. Don't think it's accidental that John uses this word, behold. It is a command. He is saying to take notice.
It is somewhat similar to what we find in the ordinance or sacrament of the Lord's Supper. We are told to remember. I believe the idea is that we are prone to wander, prone to leave the God that we love. We go astray.
We get tied to this present world. Our minds, instead of being at the right hand of the Father, get focused on ourselves, get brought down. We are consumed with that unholy trinity of me, myself, and I. And so the supper, the table, calls us back to a positive reflection, to a positive remembrance of who Jesus is and what He has done on our account.
And I think bound up or wrapped up in John's announcement here is the reality to take heed to, to take notice of Jesus Christ. Remember, this is a very epic moment in redemptive history. All these promises have been given for several thousand years. And now John the Baptist has come in accordance with the prophet Isaiah.
He is announcing the arrival of the King. He is being asked if he himself is that King. He says, no, there is one who is coming after me. He is preferred far above me.
He is the Lamb of God. And so he calls his audience to behold this Lamb of God. To take notice of Him. To take heed to Him.
To give attention to Him. In the theology of Hebrews 9.11-15, I believe this accurately reflects what's in John's behold here. In Hebrews 9.11 it says, But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come. with a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is, not of this creation, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the most holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
And for this reason He is the mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. What John is identifying or what John is highlighting in this simple command to behold the Lamb of God is that the promises of God are yea and amen. The promises of God have come to fulfillment. Brethren, I think we take these things so routinely.
We are steeped in Christianity. We are steeped, hopefully in a right sense, biblically. And the temptation is to hear these truths preached Sunday by Sunday, to read them in our Bibles each and every day, to gather around as families and to rehearse these things, and they sort of become old hat to us. And we don't stop for a moment to behold.
We don't stop for a moment to reflect. We don't stop for a moment to take notice of the fact that this Son of God came into this cesspool of sin to die for us and to rise again. It's truly amazing. It's truly mind-blowing.
Truly, Wesley wrote, amazing love. Or Anne Kennedy, amazing love. That's the kind of an attitude that should find us on this Lord's Day morning. We just go through our work of day lives and we become deadened to the realities intrinsic in these emblems here.
We become hardened or callous, not evilly so, not maliciously so. We don't reject Jesus so much outright, but we reject Him when we don't give Him priority in our minds. We reject Him when we don't give Him priority in our lives. We plan, we detail, we orchestrate everything in our lives, and we oftentimes exclude that which is most important.
Be like sort of packing up your van to take your kids to the park. Putting all the toys in there, putting the balls, and putting the digging toys, and all those things that kids like to play with when they go to the park. You get in the van, you fire it up, you're on your way, and you say, oh yeah, we forgot the kids. We have all the stuff, we have all the trinkets, we have all the periphery, but we don't have the substance.
I believe that finds us out as Christians in the church today. We have all the stuff, we have all the trinkets. We have all the things externally there, but we're missing the very substance, the reason we gather here, the reason we call one another brother, the reason that we seek to pray for one another. Our common bond is in Jesus.
And John's behold and this ordinance of the Lord's Supper calls us to stop. Just stop. I realize we're all busy. I realize we have many things going on.
I realize that this room right now is very hot. I realize that maybe you didn't get a good night's sleep last night. Or you've had a tough week. But John's Word is appropriate to each of us this morning.
Behold, stop for a moment. Think about the glory of Jesus. Isn't it hard to think of anything outside of ourselves? Let's just be honest here.
We're all selfish. Oh no, not me, man. Okay. You may be an exception to the general rule, but for the most of us, 99.9% of us, we're selfish.
All we can see is what affects us. What's in it for me? That's the heart of man. Even redeemed man.
I've been at this game long enough to see that redeemed sinners are still sinners. Not reigning sin, but remaining sin. And one of those elements that hangs on, hangs on for dear life, is that love of self. That attraction to self.
That commitment to self. John says, get your eyes off yourself and behold. Behold this one. Again, it is a command.
You need to stop in your busy life to behold the Lamb of God. You need to stop in your daily activities to behold the Lamb of God. That's the glory and the beauty of the day of rest that God has given to us. Man was not made for the Sabbath, but Sabbath for the man.
To give for the man so that we can stop for a day to behold. So that we can come in out of the world. So that we don't have to work our fingers to the bone. So that we don't have to put ourselves into an early grave.
So that we don't have to go into coronary arrest or cardiac arrest. So that we don't have to have high blood pressure. God has given a gift of a day, so we can stop and behold. And then, mercy upon mercy, He gives us this ordinance.
So that with this bread and with this wine, we can stop and behold, we can taste and we can drink. He satisfies every desire, every need that man has. God is a giving God. I was reminded of something this past week in my reading, and I know that I've said this many times.
When we come to church, we ought to seek what we can give. We should. We ought to give praise. We ought to give worship.
We ought to give glory. But we ought not to forget that church is a place where God gives. God gives us. God serves us.
God comes in these means and He blesses His people. He visits us, which is the primary blessing. But then He gives us these ordinances. He gives us His Word.
He is serving us. He is benefiting us. He is strengthening us so that we'll then leave from this place and go out and serve Him in this world. Brethren, behold.
His Identification: The Lamb of God
Notice his identification. He calls Him the Lamb of God. Now, I know all of you are somewhat steeped in some knowledge of the Old Testament. But remember this audience.
They knew the Old Testament. They knew it very well. They wouldn't have called it the Old Testament, mind you. Just as Jews today don't call it the Old Testament.
They reject the New Testament. Therefore, there would be no Old Testament. They simply call it the Tanakh or the Bible. But John's audience, when they heard him say, Behold the Lamb of God, texts would start coming to mind.
Texts that I hope are coming to your mind.
The Lamb in Genesis
Genesis chapter 3. Man sins and what does he do? He hides himself in the trees. As if we can hide from a sovereign God amongst trees.
As if making fig leaves and placing them over our groin area and then hiding amongst some trees is going to hide us from the sovereign searching eye of God Most High. Don't you see the folly of sinners there? Of course, we see it in Genesis 2. We see their folly.
Genesis 2 and 3, rather. We see their folly and madness. Look at them making loincloths for themselves and then trying to hide in the trees. I wonder, though, how many people here are making loincloths for themselves and hiding among the trees.
Instead of coming to believe the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Look, I can make loincloths. I can atone for my sin. I can do better.
I can try harder. I can get more intelligent. And then I'm going to hide from God. He won't find me out.
It's folly. It's madness. It's wretchedness. But what happens when God comes to them?
He initiates. He seeks. He saves that which is lost. The beauty of the Genesis account is not that man sought God, but that God sought man.
That God comes. That God makes skins for them. He killed animals right before their eyes and takes those skins and clothes them with it. They obviously taught their children this because when it came time to sacrifice, or came time at the end of days to offer up to God, Abel does that very thing.
Takes an animal out of his flock, puts a knife to its throat, and offers it up to the Lord God. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. John's words ought to cause you to start thinking like a biblical theologian. You ought to start thinking of Genesis 3.
The Lamb at Moriah
You ought to start thinking of Genesis 22, when God calls to Abraham and says, take your son, your only son. Take Isaac, the son of your love. I want you to take him up to Mount Moriah, which was the site of the temple. I want you to take him up there, I want you to bind him, and I want you to stick a dagger in him.
That is not given for us to imitate. That is not an example. You are not to take your son out to Mount Sham and cut him up for the glory of God. That was a case-sensitive, unique application in redemptive covenantal history where God is making a point.
What's Abraham about to do? He's about to drive that dagger into his son, his only son, the son whom he loves. That's how he's described. It's no accident that Jesus is described in the same way.
God's only Son, the Son of His love. He's about to bury that dagger in that son, and the angel of the Lord stops him. What had Abraham already told Isaac? When Isaac was savvy enough to see the wood, to see the fire, to see the instruments for sacrifice, and he asked for an animal.
What's Abraham say? Oh, God will provide. When the angel of the Lord stops Abraham from following through this activity, what does he look behind him and see? He sees a ram caught in the thicket.
And it says he offered that up instead of his son. Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The Lord does provide. The Lord does act upon His promised Word.
God is faithful to His covenants.
The Passover Lamb
Remember the Passover Lamb, when the children of Israel were told to cut that Lamb up and to put some blood over the lentil of their door so that the angel of death would pass over them. Paul the Apostle in 1 Corinthians 5.7 says, Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. The weight of John 1.29 ought to sink you into a happy euphoria of reflection upon gospel mercy. It ought to weigh you down with the glory of God.
The Lamb of God has come. The Lamb of God has arrived. The Lamb of God is present. It reminds one of Isaiah 53, 6 and 7.
All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth.
He was led as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. Reminded us of something Pastor Cam read in the last hour concerning, behold, the lamb. He said, if we don't stop and behold the Lamb, we're worse than Pontius Pilate. Pilate said, behold the man.
How many Christians are beholding the man? Christ Jesus. How many of us have become less than Pilate himself, who confesses the thrice holiness of Christ and then tells man, behold Him. You need to stop and reflect.
You know, this is the answer to your busy life. I suspect that the church's attempt to be relevant through the trinkets, the puppets, the ponies, the programs, she has made herself irrelevant. What is most appropriate and what is most necessary for today is the preaching of Christ and Him crucified. That's what John is doing.
Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. His identification.
The Lamb in Revelation
We might subtitle the book of Revelation as Behold the Lamb. I wish I had thought of that last May, but I didn't. Behold the Lamb. Why do I say that?
Do you know how John presents Jesus in the book of Revelation several, several times? As the Lamb of God. Now, we often, when we think of Lamb, we think of gentle Jesus, meek and mild. Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, died, was buried, rose again, and now He sits enthroned at God's right hand, Most High, where He is victorious.
I think John's presentation of Jesus as Lamb in the book of Revelation is to highlight His victory. His victory over sin, His victory over death, His victory over the grave, and His victory over the hearts and minds of all men. That's what John's about in the book of Revelation. There's no accident in Revelation 1.
He sets forth Christ as prophet, priest, and king. The way we know He says He's king is that He is now, currently, the ruler over the kings of the earth. That scene in Revelation 5, when he is presented as the lion of the tribe of Judah. John turns and what does he see?
He sees a lamb. A lamb is having been slaughtered. Revelation 5 is punctuated with the Lamb of God. Revelation 6.
Revelation 7. Revelation 14. I read that at the outset of worship. That's a unique place.
Not just because it follows numerically Revelation 13, but if you're keen on Revelation, you'll know that in chapter 13, two beasts are presented. There's a beast from the sea and a beast from the land. There is a beast that has power and authority. There is a beast whose followers receive His mark on their foreheads.
It's no accident then that the contrast to Revelation 14 demonstrates the Lamb on Mount Zion with His 144,000. I believe the clear implication is whatever the beasts do on earth, whatever they engage in in terms of men, there is no uprooting the sovereignty of the Lamb of God who is enthroned at the right hand of His Father and who exercises absolute sovereignty. G.K. Beal says, the immediate juxtaposition of the Lamb in 14.1 to the beasts of chapter 13 serves the contrast between the two sides.
There are those who are unbelievers who follow the beasts. There are those who are believers who follow the Lamb. And interestingly enough, they get the mark of God on their forehead. Brethren, John the Baptist sets forth the glory of Jesus as the Lamb of God, and John the Apostle never forgets that.
He never lets that go. I think there's something very unique here for us to consider. We need to think on Jesus as the Lamb of God. We need to think of Him as victorious over our sin.
We need to see Him led away like a lamb to the slaughter. We need to see Him in that priestly office. We need to see Him as the sacrifice, as the substitute, as the ram ultimately not caught in the thicket, but placed there by His Father. And I think this whole idea of the Lamb of God shows that it's God's provision.
It wasn't our choosing. It wasn't our making. We would have never designed the Gospel. We would have never, ever had the ingenuity to design a triune God who created all things, who governs all things, and who redeems His elect.
We would have never thought in terms of blood atonement. We would never come to design a holy God. We would never come to design justification by faith alone. We always want congratulations.
We always want a part. We always want to participate. God's ways are not our ways. We need to behold the Lamb of God.
We need to behold the Lamb of God. The idea that Christ is the Lamb of God highlights God's provision in the salvation of sinners. God sent forth His Son, and His Son willingly laid down His life for the sheep. John 10, 17 and 18.
So we've seen His arrival with, behold, His identification as the Lamb of God.
His Mission: Taking Away Sin
Notice His mission. Who takes away the sin of the world. That's a great mission. It's a beautiful mission.
It's prophesied in Isaiah 49. God says, it is too small a thing for you to redeem those in Jacob. Behold, I give you a light as a light unto the Gentiles. It's too small.
It doesn't display His power. It doesn't display His majesty and His honor and His glory. It doesn't display what He is capable of. This one takes away the sin of the world.
And notice that John the Baptist's ministry had redemption from sin as its focal point. Brethren, we all want a nice life, don't we? I don't think any of us would say, I'd like to live in a hut and have no water and no food. And when I get water and food, I'd like it to be dirty water and I'd like to sprinkle ashes in my food so that it tastes bad.
For the most part, you ask anybody on the face of the earth, do you want a nice life? We're probably universally wired to say, yes. It's not bad. It's not wicked.
You're not evil. You're not malicious. You're not vile. You're not wretched.
But you know there's something so much better than a nice life now? There's something so much more glorious than the trinkets and the externals? There's a holiday by the seaside that God offers to us, but we want to make mud pies in the gutter. That's not my flower.
That's C.S. Lewis who said that. The prophet Isaiah says, why do you spend your wages on that which does not satisfy? Why do you labor?
Why do you work? Why are you diligent? Why are you busy, busy, busy on that which does not satisfy? Why do you go to a nice restaurant and say, can I just go into the back and eat out of the dumpster?
God offers forgiveness of sins. Now brethren, I believe that we need to pray that God's will would be done on earth as it is in heaven, because Jesus taught us to pray that way. I believe that insofar as Christians are able, we ought to try and ameliorate the problems and the difficulties that people have. But having said that, we cannot neglect that greatest and most chief and most excellent of blessings, the forgiveness of sins.
Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. A.W. Pink said it was the Spirit of God presenting the Lord Jesus to Israel in the very office and character in which they stood in deepest need of Him. They would have welcomed Him on the throne, but they must first accept Him on the altar.
And is it any different today? Christ as an Elijah, a social reformer, will be tolerated. And Christ as a prophet, as a teacher of ethics, will receive respect. But what the world needs first and foremost is the Christ of the cross, where the Lamb of God offered Himself as a sacrifice for sin.
Don't miss that. We can preach Jesus as a wonderful teacher, and people will say, yes. We can teach Jesus as a wonderful social reformer, and people will say, yes. But you preach a bloodied, battered, broken, crucified man, and to the Greeks, foolishness, and to the Jews, a stumbling block.
But we preach Christ crucified, Paul says. For those who are being saved, it is Christ, the wisdom and the power of God. I love that. I believe Pink was right on with that.
Notice, he says, who takes away the sin of the world. Why sin singular? I think it means the whole wretched mess. The aggregate of all our sins.
He takes away the sin of the world.
Gill on the Removal of Sin
Here's Gil. The phrase, taking away sin, signifies taking it up as Christ did. He took it voluntarily upon Himself and became responsible to divine justice for it. And also, bearing and carrying it, for taking it upon Himself, He bore it in His own body on the tree and carried it away as the scapegoat did under the law.
He's picking up Leviticus 16, that day of atonement, where those two animals, one is sacrificed and the sins are confessed and transferred to that one, and then he is sent out into the wilderness not to return. What's that showing us? That in the forgiveness of sins, there's a removal of it. There is God taking it and blotting it out.
Christ deals with it once for all. He goes on to say, Christ has removed it as far as the east is from the west, out of sight, so as never to be seen anymore. He has destroyed, abolished, and made an utter end of it. Do we think that way?
I think practically we say, yeah, or doctrinally we affirm justification by faith alone. But practically, we're whiners, groaners, and complainers because we have not realized there truly is a fountain open for sin and uncleanness. It sounds a lot more noble, a lot more holy, a lot more wise, a lot more pious than, oh, I'm so sinful. Yeah, you are.
But Christ is so glorious. Christ's blood is that powerful to atone for every sin. It's not as if Jesus does 99.9 and then sends you out to finish that .9. You'd be in hell.
Jesus paid it all. Every single sin. If it were not so, we'd all be in hell, brethren. That's the clear testimony of Scripture.
It's not a little bit of this and a little bit of that. It is exclusive. Either Jesus pays it all or we're in hell. That's why we go tell people, believe the Gospel.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. You cannot atone. You cannot work. You cannot labor.
Moral reform will not help you. Justification by faith alone. You want comfort, brethren. Think on that.
Yeah, you've got issues. You've got problems. I do too. But Jesus paid it all.
Oh, but that'll promote sin. That'll promote a license to sin. No, it won't. No, it won't.
What shall we say? Romans 6.1. Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? May it never be.
This doctrine doesn't promote license. It promotes fear and comfort. This doctrine doesn't promote sin and godlessness. It promotes righteousness.
An accurate understanding of justification is the most liberating thing for your Christian life. If you think you're trying to slug it out because you're contributing, you of all men are going to be the most to be pitied. You cannot work it. He goes on to say, and this is expressed in the present tense, taketh away, to denote the continued virtue of Christ's sacrifice to take away sin.
Don't miss that either. Remember Jesus in John 19.30. Here's where an understanding of a bit of grammar actually promotes Christian happiness. Jesus on the cross said, it is finished.
And the way that He spoke that verb, it was in the perfect. That means it is a completed action that has abiding results. They found this verb all over receipts. They, archaeologists.
They kept seeing this word, tetelestai, not in rich theological discourse concerning Jesus, but in bills paid. I come to pay my bill and you stamp it with tetelestai. It is a past completed action with abiding results. When I get my paycheck on the first, I don't have to say, ooh, I've got to pay something over there.
No, it's got abiding results. It's been dealt with. It is finished. It is complete.
He goes on to say, "...and the constant efficacy of His blood to cleanse from it, and the daily application of it to the consciences of His people, and which is owing to the dignity of His person as the Son of God, and to His continual and powerful mediation and intercession, This must be a great relief to minds afflicted with the continual outbursts of sin. These brothers knew the heart. I mean, you do like a who's who of theology. Sometimes John Gill is depicted as this rough, harsh Hebraist that leans toward hyper-Calvinism.
He was a superlapsarian. Didn't believe in a well-meant offer. By that, he did not mean we don't preach Christ indiscriminately. He was a Calvinist.
He was, you know, a sovereignty of God. Small church. I mean, on today's marketplace of the church, Bill would have been looked at like, dude, you've got 100 people after how many years? 120 people? Cash in your chips.
Go to Walmart. Be a greeter. But there's nothing wrong with being a greeter at Wal-Mart. Just find something else.
Listen to this pastor. Listen to how he knows the soul. All this theology, and I purposefully read it. The efficacy, the intercession, all these things.
Theology. What does that mean? This must be a great relief to minds afflicted with the continual outburst of sin. He actually uses the word ebullition.
Didn't know what abolition means. It means outburst. We don't use abolition, so I took the liberty to give it a modern meaning. He says, which is taken away by the Lamb of God as fast as it rises.
And who for that purpose are called to behold and wonder at the love and grace of Christ in bearing and taking away sin, and to look to Him by faith continually for everlasting salvation, and love Him, and give Him the honor of it, and glorify Him for it. What good is theology? It makes you praise. It makes you worship.
It makes you stand in awe. It makes you behold the Lamb of God focusing on His redemptive work in His blood shedding at Calvary for our sins. That's why you need to behold the land of God.
The Scope of 'The World'
John uses the word world here. He doesn't mean every single person. John has a unique way, not a unique way. John has a biblical way of using the word world.
Notice in verse 10 of chapter one, just for one example, he uses the word world in three different senses. Verse 10, he was in the world. That means earth. Doesn't it?
He wasn't on Mars. He wasn't on Venus. He was in the world. And the world was made through him.
He made the Earth, but he made Venus, and he made Mars, and he made Jupiter. Therefore, he made the universe. The world has that idea. But notice, and the world did not know him.
It's used in an ethical sense. Do not love the world. That doesn't mean you should be eco-terrorists and put plastic in the ground so that everybody will have a cursed life on the earth. That doesn't mean hate the world in that sense, exploit its resources, kill its animals, do all whatever.
No, it means hate the world, the ethical element, that which is in rebellion against God. John tells us that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Later on in John 3, verse 16, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. But it's qualified that everyone believing in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
John 4, verse 42, the Samaritans learn that very valuable lesson. Jesus is the Savior of the world. Not just Jews, but a world of Jews and Greeks. Men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, as John defines it, or spells it out in Revelation 5-9.
He's not teaching that Jesus takes away the sin for every single human being on the face of the earth. He's not a universalist. He does not teach that, nor does the rest of Scripture. The Bible is clear.
If you reject the Son, you shall not see life. But the wrath of God abides on you. The converse is true. The contra is true.
You believe and you will see life. God deals with that wrath. He takes it away because He poured it out upon His own Son. So behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
D. A. Carson said, the sacrifice envisaged is not restricted in the purpose or effectiveness to the Jewish race. This Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world.
That is, of all human beings without distinction, though not as the prologue has already made clear, of all without exception. This is God's provision. Jesus is the Lamb of God.
Application: Daily Beholding
Brethren, that ought to occupy our thoughts. Not just today when we take the bread and the wine. But hopefully and prayerfully, it will occupy our thoughts each and every day. Because we all sin.
We have remaining corruption. We have struggles. We are like the Apostle Paul. The good I want to do, I don't do.
The bad I don't want to do, I find myself doing. Oh, wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? What does he do?
He goes to Jesus. He goes to Jesus. The Bible never tells us that we're going to be without sin on this side of heaven. The Bible is not a Wesleyan perfectionist document.
The Bible realizes the reality of remaining sin. Paul speaks to this as well in Galatians 5.17. The flesh lusts against the Spirit. The Spirit lusts against the flesh.
It's never a matter for us whether or not we'll sin. The issue is always what do we do with our sin. Zechariah 13.1, there is a fountain open for sin and uncleanness. You need to be near Christ, you need to believe, you need to keep close to the cross, you need to be walking by faith in the Son of God who loves you and who gave himself for you.
Closing Prayer
Well, let us pray. Our Father, we thank You for the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. We thank You for such a mighty and a victorious and a wondrous Savior. We thank You for the fact that He is prophet and that He is King.
And we thank You that He's our priest. We thank You that He ever lives to make intercession for us. And by His one sacrifice, He has dealt with our sin. He has dealt with the wrath of God.
He has brought us salvation, full and free. God, I pray that we would rejoice in this, that we would just continue to praise and worship and honor You, and that we would be comforted with this reality, and that it would promote true gospel holiness in our lives. And we ask in Jesus' name, Amen.