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 John 1:19-37
So far we have seen that John was the great preparer for Jesus. After 400 years of silence God required someone to come before Jesus and prepare the people to hear about the way of salvation, to level the road, to straighten the bends and make a highway for the saviour. Secondly we saw that John was the proclaimer, the preacher who called people to repentance and faith. His preaching was practical and applicatory – it called for a real response and a change of heart, which good preaching always does. We saw at the end of the last message that John pointed to Jesus, he pointed beyond himself to one greater than he whom people needed to believe in if they were to be saved. It is this point I want to pick up on and expand on in this message.
The people listening to John were growing in their curiosity. Who was John? Was he the Prophet spoken of in Deuteronomy 18:15; was he the Elijah spoken of by Malachi? In some ways he was, as Jesus would later confirm, but he was definitely the fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah – “I am the voice of one calling in the desert. Make straight the way for the Lord.” So he was not The Prophet, he was not the Messiah, he was not a resurrected Elijah. Who was he – he was the one sent to prepare the way for one who was so great he could not even untie his sandals, one who would baptise with the Spirit and with power, which was an intriguing prospect.
John, the gospel writer, does not mention John baptising Jesus, he refers to it indirectly (v.33 suggests that the baptism has already taken place). A suggested chronology of events here is that John has been preaching and baptising for some weeks, then Jesus appears and is baptised by John. A further 6 weeks passes and then the deputation from the Sanhedrin arrives. Then the day afterwards Jesus once more comes to the Jordan. Picture the scene. Crowds surround the river. John is the centre of attention as he preaches and baptises.
Men, women and children are sitting and standing on the banks. Suddenly John looks up and sees Jesus approaching. He points at him and says loudly “Look, the Lamb of God” You can see the crowd go quiet and swivel round to look at this man.
Notice in scripture that we are never given a description of what Jesus looked like, except indications that he looked normal, ordinary, in fact there was nothing especially attractive about him to go by the prophecy of Isaiah 53:2 – “no beauty or majesty to attract us to him; nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.”
The people would have looked at Jesus and thought – he is just a man. What is so special about him? Our messiah is supposed to be a king, coming to set up a kingdom. They were probably bemused. They looked from John to Jesus and back to John. Yes there was no mistaking the certainty in John’s voice, the brightness of his eye, the joyful look on his face. John was certain, this is the one I meant, this is the one who is to come, this is the one I am preparing the way for.
The people probably looked at Jesus and said “But he’s just a man. Some others might have said is this not Jesus the carpenter’s son, have we not grown up with him”?
But John had the insight of the Holy Spirit. John saw what others did not see – yet. John himself said “I did not know him until God revealed to me who this was at his baptism”. Isn’t that always the way. For many today as then Jesus was a good man, a good teacher but it needs God to work in a person’s life before they see that Jesus was much more than this. It takes the Spirit to work in our lives before we can see that this is not just a man but a Lamb. Those who do not have the Spirit just see a man - a good man maybe, a good teacher, an ethical teacher, but just a man.
Like John we can point people to Jesus, that is our responsibility, but we need God to work in people’s lives so that they see Jesus for who he is. Our responsibility is to bear witness. We are to point away from ourselves to Jesus. In John 3:30 John said of Jesus “he must increase, I must decrease”; that is a good principle for us to apply to our lives.
For those of us who are in this building today we must ask ourselves this question. When I look at this Jesus who do I see, a man or the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world? By this shall we all stand or fall – what did we do with the man called Jesus Christ.
If we, like John, have our eyes open to who Jesus is we shall see five things about Jesus and we should constantly point people to these five things to behold.
1.Behold the Lamb. He is the Passover Lamb (v.29a). This refers to the ritual that the Jews went through on the first Passover night as the angel of death moved through the city. The Jews took the blood of the lamb and placed it over the door posts. When the angel of death saw the blood it passed over that house and those inside were safe. Passover spoke of a substitute dying in place of the first born. It spoke of salvation, it spoke of escape from a tyrannical ruler.
In pointing to Jesus as the Lamb he was pointing to the one whom God had chosen to act as our substitute. He was the one whose blood shelters us from receiving the punishment our sin deserves. This Lamb does not just cover a household but has the potential to cover the sins of the world. “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Is the mark of the Lamb upon you and your household. This is the mark that will save us and reconcile us to God our heavenly Father.
It was customary that every year as the Passover feast approached the lamb was chosen by the head of the family. Three days before it was killed it would be taken to the priest to have it sealed with the Temple seal. It was God’s seal of approval that the lamb was without defect, the sacrifice was good enough. Three years before his death Jesus comes to John and a seal of approval is placed upon the Son as Jesus hears God’s voice “This is my Son in whom I am well pleased.” We also read in John 6:27 “On him, that is Jesus , God the Father has placed his seal of approval”. 1 Peter 1:19 reminds us that we have been redeemed “with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.” In pointing to Jesus as the Lamb John highlights the sacrificial nature of his role as well as his purity. Jesus is the perfect Passover lamb, he is a human lamb, he is a divine lamb, he is an unblemished lamb. As Christians we point to Jesus and say behold the lamb.
2. (v29b) Behold the sin bearer. This is further backed up by John’s statement that he takes away the sin of the world. Jesus was born to die. This was his purpose in coming. Romans 3:25 tells us “God presented Jesus as a sacrifice of atonement – or as the one who would turn aside God’s wrath, taking away sin.”
Jesus is the sin bearer. So although many there would not have fully understood it John was pointing to God’s plan of salvation; the only effective way that God had fore-ordained to take away sin. The OT sacrificial system was a shadow, a foretaste, a picture but the full reality would come in Christ. How could the sacrifice of an animal pay for human sin – it could not. Hebrews 10:4 says “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” But Jesus could and did, he could deal with the sins of anyone and everyone who has ever lived, past, present or future. Behold the Lamb. Behold the Sin bearer.
3.Behold the eternal. In v.30 John points to the pre-existence of Jesus. “A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.” (see also Jn.1:15) In fact Jesus is not just before John in time, he is before creation, he is before time itself.
Behold the eternal one. Jesus himself had of course said in Jn.8:58 - “Before Abraham was, I am”. The Jews were very disturbed by this for in effect Jesus was claiming the status of divinity. They picked up stones to stone him to death. Jesus was in effect calling himself God – I am was the name for God (Ex.3:14). Here is a claim to his pre-existence
In our witnessing, in our apologetics, in our pointing to Jesus we have to do what John did much as people will not like it. That is to point to Jesus as no mere mortal or ordinary man but as the God/man. We worship a triune God, one person in three persons. This of course is the dividing point between Christians, Jews, muslims, Hindus, Jehovah’s witnesses, Mormons. We declare that Jesus is eternal, the divine, He is God. This is a fundamental part of our creed and we believe that until and unless people believe this they cannot be reconciled to God.
4. Behold the powerful one. In v. 32 and 33 John refers to Jesus as the one on whom the Spirit came and remains. Jesus is the one who will baptise with the Spirit. Remember Isaiah 11:2 says of the coming messiah “the Spirit will rest upon him”. Up until this time people believed the Spirit came upon people for certain tasks, here the Spirit rests and remains on Jesus in a unique way. Not only will it rest upon him but he will baptise, he will give out the Spirit, he will minister the Spirit, the Spirit will proceed from him. No-one ever had this power. And so Jesus says people must be born of the Spirit if they are to know God. Jesus develops this thought in his night time conversation with Nicodemus. Jn.3:3 “You must be born again, or from above.” Jn.3:5 “no-one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit”. Flesh gives birth to flesh, the Spirit gives birth to Spirit.”
We are back again to this idea of how we relate to Jesus. Is he a mere man or is he God? For us to see him as God then a powerful work needs to occur within us from outside of us. We need a baptism, an immersal in the Spirit so that we can see spiritual things and discern real reality.
5. When Christ is presented we realise that we who preach and point cannot save people, our responsibility is like John to point to one who is a Lamb, a sin bearer, eternal and powerful. Our prayer is that then people will be enabled with John to say finally - Behold the Son. “I have seen and testify that this is the Son of God” (v.34). There is faith here but there is certainty here. John bears witness, he testifies publicly to the Son. This is where we need to get to where we publicly testify to who Jesus is and that we have a relationship with him.
Are we prepared to do this in these secular, materialistic days where church attendance is in decline, where the uniqueness of Jesus is sidelined. Are we willing to be fools for Christ, for we see Christ as the hope of the world? We are signposts for our generation. How effective are we at pointing people to Christ?
As a final note look at v.35-36. The next day John is out with two of his disciples and he sees Jesus and again points to him as the Lamb of God. Note then that the two disciples of John start to follow Jesus. John suffered a loss here of those who followed him, but it was more important that they followed Jesus. Sometimes in our ministries we can be consumed with our ministry, our organisation, our church, and we forget that it is not about people following us or growing our ministry but it is about people following Jesus. Sometimes we get in the way. John let the disciples go. John 3:30 again “He must become greater, I must become less” (or as KJV has it – he must increase, I must decrease.”) Is your ministry about Jesus and his church or about you and your following. Everything must be submitted to him and to his glory.
What are you beholding today, yourself or Him.
John was a preparer, a preacher, a pointer. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Behold the only one who can do this for he is the Son of God. Follow him and worship Him.
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