The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 

John 1:29 

Before we leave our meditation on this verse, let us spend a few moments contemplating the whole of the text within its context and the implications of it for us. We are the spiritual inheritors of the mantle of John the Baptist. He was ‘the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Prepare the way of the Lord.’ He was the forerunner of Christ in His First Advent, so far as public ministry is concerned. We are His forerunner with regard to His Second Advent. Therefore, it behooves us to make much of Christ. Our message to the lost is, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God.’ Are you weak and faltering; trying every day for satisfaction, for hope, for joy, and for ‘the good life?’ ‘Behold, the Lamb of God!’ Are you hoping for better days, for a better future, for an end to the vague unsettledness that seems to plague you? ‘Behold, the Lamb of God.’ Christ will not only bear away your sins, He will satisfy your soul in ways beyond what you can imagine. Our message is also for the saint of God. ‘Behold, the Lamb of God.’ The same Christ who saved you is the One Who will, ‘deliver you from every evil work, and will preserve you unto His heavenly kingdom.’ ‘Behold, the Lamb of God.’ It is to Christ we point you first, to Christ we shall point you last, to Christ we will point you always. The message we have is both simple and sublime. ‘Behold, the Lamb of God!’ 

O Christ, enable us to lift You up. 
Fill our mouths with high and holy praise. 
Enable us, by life and lip, to daily point to You. 

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 

John 1:29 

‘…Who takes away the sin of the world.’ What a glorious message! What a grand privilege to declare this message to weary, wounded souls. ‘What? All my sins taken away? All my deep iniquities; wild and wicked thoughts; lusts of the flesh and eyes; pride of life; transgressions of the deepest kind; all taken away by the Sacrifice of this Lamb of God?’ Yes, all of yours, and of your neighbor, and of your friends, and of all God’s elect in all ages and all cultures and all climates over all the world throughout all of history. Here is the grand work which Christ performs. He ‘takes away the sin of the world.’ Every sin that will ever be forgiven by a Holy, Sin-Hating God will be forgiven on the basis of the Merits of Christ, and because of His Atoning Sacrifice. ‘He has made Him to be sin for us Who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.’ Here is the Grand Substitution. Christ, the Sinless One, bears away the sins of all His Blood-bought people. ‘Guilty, vile and helpless we; spotless Lamb of God was He; Full atonement! can it be? Hallelujah! What a Savior!’ Let us rejoice today in the Spotless Lamb of God, and in the wonderful, saving work which He has infallibly performed. 

‘Dear Dying Lamb, 
thy precious Blood shall never lose its power, 
and all the ransomed Church of God, 
be saved to sin no more.’ 

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 

John 1:29 

Christ bears an abundance of titles. All of them set forth some aspect of His Person or of His Work. Our text today holds up the title, ‘the Lamb of God,’ one of the dearest and most delightful to us poor sinners. John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, who ministered in the spirit and power of Elijah, declared, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God.’ Stand with me, upon the high peak of history and let us cast an eye over all the previous ages. Behold, the smoke of the sacrificial fires on the Passover night, as they consumed the lambs, whose death would mean life for the household. Behold, the lambs as their blood pours into the bowl and then adorns the posts and lintels of the doors. Behold, the lambs sacrificed, first in the Tabernacle, and then in the Temple. Over the course of the ages, from the days of Abel, to the hour when John the Baptist utters his revelatory exclamation, all these lambs are the signposts pointing to Christ, the Lamb of God. Our contemplation does not end there. If we skip to the last book of the Scripture, we see the saints of God, gathered around the Throne, and their song is, ‘Worthy is the Lamb.’ We behold the Lamb from ancient days. We behold the Lamb in the days of His humiliation. We behold the Lamb in His exaltation. We cry out and sing with all the saints for all eternity. ‘Worthy is the Lamb!’ 

We rejoice in You,  
O Christ, Worthy Lamb of God. 
You are the Great Object of our praise, 
both now and for all eternity, Amen and Amen. 

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 

John 1:29 

We encounter here one of the most sublime declarations of all of Scripture. The Book of Acts tells us that the Apostles, ‘ceased not to teach and preach, Jesus Christ.’ I may make true statements from the Bible, and yet not preach Christ. The hallmark of the ministry of John the Baptist, and of the Apostles, was that they made much of Christ. Our text begins with, ‘Behold.’ If we take this one word from our text today, it points us to the attention which Christ attracts. Expand it to its widest context, and ‘to Him give all the prophets witness.’ The message of all the prophets is, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God.’ Down through the ages, the ‘Holy men of God, who spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost’ all bore witness to the Person and Work of Christ. He is ‘the seed of the woman’ in Genesis 3; the ‘Shiloh’ of Jacob’s dying prophecy; the Passover Lamb; the Prophet, like unto Moses; the Lion of the Tribe of Judah; and David’s Greater Son. As Christ is so lifted up, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, He attracts all manner of people unto Himself. From those that are like Nicodemus, to the woman at the well; from Mary Magdalene to the Maniac of Gadara; from the fisherman of Galilee to Saul of Tarsus, Christ being lifted up, attracts souls unto Himself from every walk of life, from every culture, and from every conceivable background. Let us spend some time today contemplating Christ as the prophets have presented Him, and drawn our attention to Him with their oft-repeated, ‘Behold.’ 

Our Living, Loving, Lamb of God, 
how we long today to look full in Your Wonderful Face, 
and to find ourselves enraptured with You, 
‘The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.’ 

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning