John 1:29 - Behold, the Lamb of God!

1:29

We continue with John making it clear that John the Baptist was pointing people towards Jesus, and not to himself. Despite John never having drawn attention to himself, it seems that a belief among some (though probably a fairly small number) that John the Baptist was the one to follow. People can be easily misunderstood. Just because someone misunderstands you does not mean that you were not clear. Sometimes the error lies with the hearers, not with the speakers! 

Here John the Baptist sees Jesus coming towards him. John recognised him as Jesus, and declared to those around him “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”. In this early confession the emphasis is on the sin-bearing role of Jesus. Sin is our biggest problem, and dealing with this is the primary role of Christ. He is described as the “Lamb of God”, He is God’s sacrifice for sin. Any preaching which does not address the problem of sin is not gospel preaching.

We need to recognise that while we instinctively associate Jesus with the cross, this was not the case when Jesus was on earth. Witness the difficulty the disciples had with the concept of a suffering messiah. Because of this most modern commentators  deny that John the Baptist made this declaration. Most modern commentators are wrong! They leave no room for inspiration, no room for the Holy Spirit revealing the truth to someone. Now we can use “inspiration”, “God told me” as an excuse for all sorts of nonsense, but if there is no revelation then we are totally lost. The Bible is an inspired text, it is God revealing Himself and the truth to the world. If you do not treat the Bible as God-breather then you will never understand it properly. This does not mean we do not use our brains, do not look at historical evidence etc, but it is God’s revealed word, not a merely human construct.

Jesus takes away the sin of the world. He is not merely a Jewish Messiah, but a Messiah for the whole world (Is 49:6). Later on John the Baptist would have doubts (Matt 11:2-19), this does not detract from what he said here. He was a man like all other men, and even when God has revealed something to us, or we have become aware of the significance of a part of Scripture it is still possible for us to have doubts at a later time. We are all weak human beings.