John 1:29 –
The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
If you are reading along you will find each chapter of a Gospel covers a bunch of ground. We start talking about Jesus and his “divinity” and quickly move to John the Baptist. Then John describes Jesus and finally Jesus starts picking His disciples. So rarely does a chapter focus on a single subject. Now John the Baptist, not the writer of John, sees Jesus for the first time and announces to the crowd His presence.
We read this today and the image of a cute fuzzy animal running around a field. When in actuality when these words were spoken, the Jews looked at lambs as the blood sacrifice for their sins. Each year they would gather in the temple and slaughter perfect lambs to atone for their sins. So what we take as a cute cuddly image was actually a precursor to what is in Jesus’ future. John knew before it all started what the perfect sacrifice Jesus was going to be.
It’s funny how all throughout Jesus’ ministry there is imagery thrown out about Him being the Lamb of God, yet most with Him were surprised at His crucifixion. Guess everyone thought the “imagery” of the lamb was an analogy more than a reality. We need to move our image from a cuddly animal to the sacrificial lamb to really understand what Jesus did for us on the cross. I know it was easier when you were living in the sacrificial system, but at the same time we have the Hebraic Law and the rest of the Old Testament to give us clarity.
Everyone seems to want to study the Gospels and maybe some of Paul’s writings, but when it gets to reading the Old Testament we tend to avoid it. I know it took me decades before cracking open that part of the Bible. But I “tell you the truth”** it will open your eyes to the significance of what Jesus did for us on the cross. I love going back and not only gaining a foundation for what happened, but getting to see the prophecies written thousands of years before Jesus that foretold about Him. This alone should excite you about reading the whole Bible, not just the revelations you will get about God. The key is to read these writings not only as a person today, but as one within the period to gain clarity of the true meanings of the Bible.
** You will notice in John, he records Jesus saying this often.