December 8: Lamb of God
“ The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
We looked yesterday at Jesus as the King of Kings – that he is Lord of all and reigning over all things. Today we consider its stark counterpoint, and in doing so, see how they shine together all the more brightly, like a gleaming diamond on a dark velvet cloth. For the story does not go that the King of Kings stayed safely in his throne room, but that he ventured forth into his fallen kingdom on a rescue mission. The King of Kings came to give himself, to rescue and redeem his children as the Lamb of God.
In the Old Testament, once a year on the Day of Atonement, two lambs would be set aside: one as a burnt offering, and the other (the scapegoat) would have the sins of the entire nations confessed over it, and sent away into the wilderness, symbolizing the removal of sin by blood and by substitute.
John the Baptist, upon meeting Jesus declares to the crowds: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” John was exactly right. That’s why he had come. He came to take it all away. All your guilt, all your shame, all the stains sin has left on your heart and soul. All the evil you’ve done and evil done against you. Psalm 103:12 says that “as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” He’s come to wash it all away. The Day of Atonement was about the day Jesus would come, not once a year, but once for all time as the perfect sin offering to take away sin.
Hanging on the cross, Jesus says: “It is finished” (John 19:30). The Day of Atonement is done. John Stott wrote: “as we face the cross, then, we can say to ourselves both, “I did it, my sins sent him there,” and “He did it, his love took him there.” He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He did it for you.