The Lamb
The Lamb
One of the prominent names of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Bible is “the Lamb.” From the beginning of the Bible to the end, we find Jesus Christ presented as the Lamb. In fact, in the Book of the Revelation, Jesus is called “the Lamb” at least twenty-eight times!
We want to consider four phrases in the Bible that summarize what the Word of God has to say about Jesus Christ the Lamb.
“Where Is the Lamb?”
Abraham and Isaac
The first phrase is a question found in Genesis 22:7. It’s the question Isaac asked his father Abraham as they walked together up the mountain: “Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?”
God had instructed Abraham to take his beloved son Isaac, his only son, to Mount Moriah and there offer him to the Lord as a burnt offering. Isaac was a young man at this time, not a little child, and he was God’s special love gift to Abraham and Sarah. His name means “laughter,” and he had brought much joy to his parents. But now God was asking Abraham to give back his son, and neither Abraham nor Isaac disobeyed God’s command.
Of course, our loving Father in heaven never asks for dead human sacrifices. He wants us to be “living sacrifices” for his glory (Rom. 12:1–2). Throughout the Old Testament, the prophets condemned the Jewish people when they imitated their pagan neighbors by giving their children as sacrifices to idols. God didn’t want Isaac’s life; he wanted Abraham’s heart, just as he wants our hearts today. The Lord wanted to be sure that Abraham was trusting in him and his promises alone and not trusting in Isaac.
“Where is the lamb?” is a question that was asked throughout the Old Testament period as believing people looked forward to the coming of the Redeemer. Abraham’s answer was a good one: “My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering” (Gen. 22:8). When Abraham bound Isaac, placed him on the altar, and was about to kill him, God provided a ram that took Isaac’s place; and one day at Calvary, God provided a Lamb who took our place.
“Where is the lamb?” When Isaac asked that important question, the Lamb of God was in heaven, waiting until “the fullness of the time” (Gal. 4:4) when he would come to earth to die for the sins of the world. But in the mind and heart of God the sacrifice was already assured, for Jesus Christ is “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8). Calvary was not an afterthought with God.
According to Hebrews 11, the Old Testament saints were saved by faith just as people today are saved by faith (Eph. 2:8–10). We today look back by faith to the finished work of Christ on the cross; but the Old Testament saints looked ahead to the coming of the Messiah. Abraham, for example, was looking far beyond Mount Moriah when he replied to Isaac’s question. Abraham was looking to Mount Calvary.
Jesus said, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad” (John 8:56). That’s why Abraham answered, “God will provide himself a lamb.” That Lamb, Jesus Christ, is not only the burnt offering, but he’s also the sin offering, the peace offering, and the trespass offering. Jesus Christ, God’s perfect Lamb, came and fulfilled all the Old Testament sacrifices when he died for the sins of the world.
The Exodus from Egypt
Centuries later the Israelites went into Egypt, suffered in slavery, and then were delivered by Moses. At the exodus, the lamb again played an important role. In Exodus 12:3–5, Moses instructed the Jewish people concerning Passover: “On the tenth day of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his fathers, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of the persons. . . . Your lamb shall be without blemish. . . .” (Exod. 12:3–5).
That’s an interesting sequence: “a lamb, the lamb, your lamb.” Our relationship to the lamb must be personal. Is Jesus Christ your Lamb, your personal Savior from sin? Can you honestly say, he “loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20, italics mine)?
The Lamb Led to the Slaughter
On Mount Moriah, God provided a ram to die for Isaac, an individual. At Passover, God provided the lamb to die for a household. But the prophet Isaiah announced that one day the Lamb would die for the nation: “For the transgressions of My people He was stricken” (Isa. 53:8). The Jewish high priest Caiaphas had this in mind when he said, “Nor do you consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and not that the whole nation should perish” (John 11:50).
Isaiah 53 is one of the most important messianic chapters in the Old Testament. It describes the humble birth of the Messiah (vv. 1–2), his life of rejection and sorrow (v. 3), and then his sacrificial death for the sins of the people (vv. 4–11). Jesus could have commanded the hosts of heaven to deliver him, yet he willingly “was led as a lamb to the slaughter. . . .” (v. 7).
Isaiah makes it clear that our Lord’s death was substitutionary. He didn’t die for his own sins, for he had none, but for your sin and mine. “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed” (v. 5). The emphasis in that verse is on the word “our.” The Lord laid on Jesus Christ, his Son, the Lamb of God, the iniquities of us all (v. 6).
“Behold! The Lamb!”
The question Isaac asked his father was answered centuries later by John the Baptist, recorded in John 1:29. John the Baptist pointed to Jesus and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” Every phrase in that important statement tells us something about the Lord Jesus, God’s Lamb, and the salvation that he purchased for us on the cross.
Behold!
John pointed to a person the people could see with their own eyes. In previous centuries, the Redeemer was seen as the Angel of the Lord, who occasionally and temporarily visited the people; or he was revealed in the types and ceremonies at the temple and in the sacrifices brought to the altar. Messiah was seen in the words of the prophets as the Suffering Sacrifice and the Glorious King, and the Jewish scholars had a difficult time understanding this contradiction. How could Messiah suffer so ignominiously and yet reign so gloriously?
But now, the promised Lamb was standing there in flesh and blood, and everybody could see him. The tragedy is, they didn’t recognize him! “There stands One among you whom you do not know,” was John’s indictment (John 1:26). “He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him” (John 1:11).
The Lamb
John said, “Behold! The Lamb!” (John 1:29, italics mine). Every Passover thousands of lambs were slain by the Jewish people, but not one of them could be called “the Lamb.” In the regular daily Jewish worship, at least two lambs were killed, one in the morning and one in the evening. Add to these the special sacrifices that were brought by the people, and the special sacrifices for the holy days, and you can well imagine that millions of lambs had been slain from the time of Moses to the time of John the Baptist. But John was specific; he said, “Behold! The Lamb!”
Jesus Christ is God’s final Lamb, sacrificed once and for all for the sins of the world. “But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God” (Heb. 10:12). It isn’t possible for the blood of animals to take away human sin (Heb. 10:1–4), and each animal sacrificed under the law of Moses only pointed to the one sacrifice, Jesus Christ, whose blood can wash away our sins.
There was no other good enough
To pay the price of sin;
He only could unlock the gate
Of heaven and let us in.
(Cecil F. Alexander)
The Lamb of God
Furthermore, Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God: “Behold! The Lamb of God!” (John 1:29). It was God who sent his Son (“The Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world”—1 John 4:14); but when he came, most of the people neither expected him nor welcomed him. Some of the religious leaders said he was sent by the devil, and the religious officials handed him over to Rome to be crucified.
Jesus was sent by God, yet the people didn’t want him. So often in Scripture, humanity rejects the gifts of God. The Jews repeatedly fought with Moses and the prophets, even to the point of killing God’s messengers to silence them. Jesus was rejected by his own people even though everything about him pointed to the fact that he was sent by God. Even his own relatives didn’t understand him. Jesus wasn’t man’s choice; he was God’s choice. “He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isa. 53:3).
Because he was God’s Lamb, he was perfect. At Passover, the Israelites had to pen up their lambs and watch them to make sure they were without blemish (Exod. 12:5–6). The Jews were forbidden to bring to the Lord a sacrifice that was not perfect. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, was examined from every side before he went to the cross. The demons admitted that he was the Son of God. Pilate said, “I find no fault in this Man” (Luke 23:4). Even Judas said he had betrayed “innocent blood” (Matt 27:4). The soldier at the cross said, “Truly this was the Son of God” (Matt. 27:54). The Lord Jesus Christ was examined on every side, and they discovered he was “holy, harmless, undefiled” (Heb. 7:26). He was “a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:19).
Takes away Sin
The blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God, doesn’t simply cover sin, as did the blood of the Jewish sacrifices. His blood takes away sin. There was not a lamb in the entire Old Testament period whose blood could take away sin. “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins” (Heb. 10:4).
Those sacrifices were animal sacrifices, and the blood of an animal cannot wash away the sin of a human being who is made in the image of God. Furthermore, those animals weren’t voluntary sacrifices; they were taken forcibly to the altar. No lamb ever volunteered to die. But when Jesus Christ came, he was voluntarily the sacrifice for our sin. He willingly gave his life for us (John 10:14–18), and his blood takes away sin and gives complete and final forgiveness. “And their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more” (Heb. 8:12).
One Lamb, not many lambs; God’s Lamb, not man’s lamb; a Lamb whose blood takes away sin, not a lamb whose blood simply covers sin. What a wonderful Savior!
A Lamb for the World’s Sin
Notice in John 1:29 that the Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world. The circle of God’s grace keeps getting larger! First, a ram died for Isaac (see Gen. 22). Then at Passover the Israelites selected a lamb for each household (Exod. 12). In Isaiah 53:7–8, the Lamb died for the nation. So God provided a sacrifice for the individual, for the household, and for the nation. But Jesus Christ was a Lamb sacrificed for the whole world!
The gospel of Jesus Christ is the only message that the whole world needs to hear. The gift of eternal life is the only gift the whole world needs to receive and can receive. (If you had to give but one gift to everybody in the world, what would it be?) That’s why Christians send out missionaries and support them. If God loves the world and gave his Son to die for the world, how can we keep that message to ourselves?
“This is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world” (John 4:42). He gives life to the world (John 6:63) and shines as the light of the world (John 8:12). He came to save the world (John 12:47), and therefore it’s our responsibility to take the message into all the world (Mark 16:15).
“Worthy Is the Lamb”
The third significant statement concerning Christ the Lamb is found in Revelation 5:12: “Worthy is the Lamb.” This chapter records a worship service in heaven. All the choirs of heaven sing the praises of God. “Ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands” (v. 11) say with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb” (v. 12). This Lamb, of course, is Jesus Christ.
At least twenty-eight times in the Book of the Revelation, Jesus Christ is referred to as “the Lamb.” John didn’t use the ordinary word for “lamb”; he used a word meaning “a little pet lamb.” The heavenly worshipers praise Jesus and say, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honor and glory and blessing” (Rev. 5:12).
One day all of God’s people will assemble in the courts of heaven and join in that song of praise. “Blessing and honor and glory and power be to Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, forever and ever” (v. 13). “Worthy is the Lamb!” But if we don’t worship and praise him on earth today, how can we praise him in heaven? Perhaps the greatest need in the church today is for God’s people to return to the sincere worship of God.
“Where is the Lamb?” That is the question of the ages. “Behold! the Lamb of God!” (John 1:29) is the answer to that question. “Worthy is the Lamb” (Rev. 5:12) is our worshipful response to Jesus our Savior. What a delight it is to worship the Lord Jesus and praise him because he died for us.
But, alas, there’s a fourth statement that ought to bring tears to the eyes of all of God’s people.
“Hide Us from. . .the Lamb!”
The Lamb will one day open the seals in heaven, and judgment will come to the earth. “And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?’” (Rev. 6:15–17).
What a statement! “Hide us from the. . .wrath of the Lamb!” (v. 16). We rarely associate lambs with wrath. When we think of lambs, we think of weakness and meekness. But the day is coming when those who have rejected Jesus Christ will cry out in fear and try to hide from the face of the Lamb. The Lamb of God will become “the Lion of the tribe of Judah” (Rev. 5:5) and will “roar” at his enemies and judge them.
Everything in the Book of the Revelation relates to the Lamb. The throne is the throne of the Lamb (22:1) and the heavenly city is the temple of the Lamb (21:22). The light in the city is the Lamb: “The Lamb is its light” (21:23). The marriage is the marriage of the Lamb (19:7) and the bride is the wife of the Lamb (21:9). The book that has the names of the saved in it is the Lamb’s Book of Life (21:27), and the song that is sung by the victors is the song of Moses and the Lamb (15:3). When we get to heaven, we will not be able to escape the fact that Jesus Christ is God’s Lamb!
What a tragedy that many religious people today don’t want to hear about Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. They want Jesus the Teacher, Jesus the Healer, Jesus the Example; but they don’t want Jesus the Savior who shed his precious blood to save a sinful world. Some denominations have taken the songs about Christ’s blood out of the hymnals, claiming that the idea of blood “offends” unbelievers who attend their services.
What Paul called “the offense of the cross” is still with us, and we must not compromise (1 Cor. 1:18–31). How can you preach the gospel if you leave out the Lamb of God who died on a cross? The gospel says, “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3), and if you leave that out, you have no gospel.
“Where is the Lamb?” That question need not be asked anymore because John the Baptist answered it for us when he pointed to Jesus and said, “Behold! the Lamb of God!” (John 1:29). If you have trusted Christ and are living for him, then you’re saying in your heart and with your lips, “Worthy is the Lamb” (Rev. 5:12). But if you have not trusted him, one day you will say, “Hide me from the wrath of the Lamb!”
Guilty, vile and helpless we;
Spotless Lamb of God was He;
“Full atonement” can it be?
Hallelujah! What a Savior!
(Philip P. Bliss)