A Messenger of Hope

John gives his eyewitness account of the Spirit descending on Jesus. From the other Gospels we understand it took place at Jesus’s baptism. First, God himself had given John a message: “The one you see the Spirit descending and resting on—he is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit” (v. 33). Second, John witnesses this event (v. 32). He had known Jesus but had not realized Jesus was the one sent from God (v. 31). However, when he saw the Holy Spirit descend on Jesus, it became clear. Third, the Spirit rested on Jesus. The word rest is used in both verses 32 and 33. In the Old Testament, when the Holy Spirit came on a person to empower him for a specific task, it was temporary. Yet the Spirit remained permanently on Jesus. When John saw the Spirit descend and remain on Jesus, he recognized the fulfillment of the promise of God to send the Messiah. John testifies to the deity of Jesus Christ in verse 34: “I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.” He does not hesitate, waver, or doubt. John is clear: Jesus Christ is God.

John begins his message with a remarkable statement, “Here is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (v. 29; emphasis added). What does it mean that Jesus is the Lamb?

This account took place just days before the annual Passover celebration (2:13). The focus of the Passover celebration was the sacrifice of a lamb, which served as a reminder of God’s deliverance of Israel from captivity in Egypt. Exodus 12 records the first Passover, when God commanded each family to choose a lamb, kill it, and wipe its blood on the doorposts of their home. God was going to send death to every home except for those with blood on the doorposts. Those homes would be passed over. As the Jews congregated in Jerusalem each year to remember this work of God, each family would bring a lamb to the temple to be sacrificed on the altar.

However, lambs were not just sacrificed at Passover. Every day two lambs were killed at the temple, one in the morning and one in the evening. John the Baptist’s father was a priest who served at the temple. John would have been familiar with the sacrifices offered there. His father would have returned each day with blood-stained clothes from the slain lambs. Why must lambs be slaughtered every day? Their death was necessary because of sin: blood must be shed for sin to be forgiven (Heb 9:22). These lambs pointed to the one who would be sent from God to shed his blood one time so sin could be forgiven forever (Heb 7:27). Jesus was the Lamb sent by God to offer his life as a sacrifice. He was the one of whom Isaiah wrote, “He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. Like a lamb led to the slaughter and like a sheep silent before her shearers, he did not open his mouth” (Isa 53:7; emphasis added).

Who was responsible for bringing a lamb as a sacrifice for sin? The sinner. But who brought this Lamb to be sacrificed? God did. Was there sin in God that needed to be covered? No, God was offering his Lamb as a substitute. We should pay the price for our own sin, but God provided a way of escape. He sent a Lamb who could perfectly and completely pay the penalty for our sin. Jesus, the Lamb of God, died in our place for our sin. He’s the only one whose death was sufficient to pay the penalty for our sin. He is not simply a lamb of God. He’s the Lamb of God. Only through Jesus can we find forgiveness for our sin.

Did you notice that the religious leaders didn’t ask John if he was the Lamb of God? They asked him if he was the Messiah or a famous prophet, but not the Lamb. I wonder if it’s because they were looking for something other than a lamb. They were hoping for a prophet or a king but not a lamb. They hoped the promised one would come and liberate them from the tyranny of the Romans, but they didn’t realize they needed liberation from the tyranny of sin. I wonder if they didn’t ask about the Lamb because they had no sense of their own sin. They were right to expect a king—Jesus will reign over all the earth—but they didn’t pay close attention to the prophets. Before the King would ascend the throne, he must first lie down on the altar. Before he would come as a conquering leader, he must first come as a crucified Lamb. All the religious leaders were interested in was seeing the Lion of Judah, and he did come, but he came first as the Lamb of God.

John Piper writes,

The Lion of Judah conquered because he was willing to act the part of a lamb. He came into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday like a king on the way to a throne, and he went out of Jerusalem on Good Friday like a lamb on the way to the slaughter. He drove out the robbers from the Temple like a lion devouring its prey. And then at the end of the week he gave his majestic neck to the knife, and they slaughtered the Lion of Judah like a sacrificial lamb. (Seeing and Savoring, 30)

In Revelation 5 we briefly glimpse the worship of Jesus in heaven, and we hear that the “Lion from the tribe of Judah . . . has conquered” (v. 5). But then our eyes look up and we see not a Lion but a Lamb, standing yet looking as if he had been slaughtered. Bowing all around him are people singing, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slaughtered” (v. 12). Jesus conquered sin, death, and hell by sacrificing himself as our substitute. He was a Lamb offered by God for our sin.

The sacrifice of Jesus fully satisfies the demands of justice. Our sin demands a punishment, but the death of Jesus fulfills the punishment that justice demands. God is a gracious and kind God, but he is also just and holy. Because of his justice, we (as vile, filthy, unholy sinners) cannot come into his presence. Beyond that, his holiness demands his just wrath be poured out on sin. As sinners, we are objects of God’s wrath, awaiting a day when God’s full fury will be poured out on us—a day when we will experience the punishment our sin demands (Rom 2:5).

However, Jesus, the Lamb of God, offered his life on our behalf, and in so doing he took God’s wrath upon himself. “How much more then, since we have now been declared righteous by his blood, will we be saved through him from wrath” (Rom 5:9). The great joy of the gospel is that I don’t have to pay for my sin; Jesus paid for it. I don’t have to endure the wrath of God; God’s wrath was poured out on Jesus. Jesus came to take away the sin of the world, to completely satisfy the justice of God. Our sin can no longer be held against us.

John’s message was a message of hope. We have no other hope than to flee to Christ, and we need no other hope. Through the sacrifice of Jesus our sin has been forever removed. Our guilt no longer remains. We are free from the power and the penalty of sin.

In the climax of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Aslan, the great Lion, marches to the Stone Table and is murdered by the White Witch. The two Pevensie girls, Lucy and Susan, cry themselves to sleep at the dead lion’s feet, feeling hopeless as the evil witch’s army marches to make war on Narnia. At that moment something happens:

I think within a nanosecond of deciding to adopt we knew what our daughter’s name would be. In fact, I don’t really ever recall discussing it that much. Perhaps it’s because of why we chose to adopt. Our driving motivation was to rescue a little girl and give her a family with hope for the future.

“Oh, oh, oh!” cried the two girls, rushing back to the Table.

“Oh, it’s too bad,” sobbed Lucy; “they might have left the body alone.”

“Who’s done it?” cried Susan. “What does it mean? Is it more magic?”

“Yes!” said a great voice behind their backs. “It is more magic.” They looked round. There, shining in the sunrise, larger than they had seen him before, shaking his mane . . . stood Aslan himself. (Lewis, The Lion, 158–59)

After their initial shock had worn off, Susan asked Aslan what it meant.

“It means,” said Aslan, “that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward.” (Ibid., 159–60)

Jesus, the Lion from the tribe of Judah, offered himself as the sacrificial Lamb so traitors would be forgiven, justice would be satisfied, and death would be broken. Worthy is the Lamb who was slain!