John 1:29-34 "Behold, The Lamb"

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!  He is the one I was talking about when I said, ‘A man is coming after me who is far greater than I am, for he existed long before me.’  I did not recognize him as the Messiah, but I have been baptizing with water so that he might be revealed to Israel.”

Then John testified, “I saw the Holy Spirit descending like a dove from heaven and resting upon him. I didn’t know he was the one, but when God sent me to baptize with water, he told me, ‘The one on whom you see the Spirit descend and rest is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’  I saw this happen to Jesus, so I testify that he is the Chosen One of God.”

 First, let's look at what is actually going on here, then we'll look at what it means.


This is not John the Baptist's first encounter with Jesus.  Jesus was, in fact, his cousin.  And implied here when John says, "I saw this happen to Jesus," is that this is sometime after he had baptized Jesus; other Gospel accounts tell us that the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove and rested on Jesus at the time he was baptized.  


If this was after He was baptized, then it also must have been after He had fasted for 40 days in the wilderness because other accounts tell He did that immediately after being baptized.


So, here is what seems to be going on.  John baptized Jesus and witnessed the remarkable appearance of the Holy Spirit and remembered and had been meditating on what God had previously revealed to him -that the one on whom the Holy Spirit descends and rests is the Messiah.  When the delegation came from Jerusalem (verses 19-23) to question him, John had already been thinking about these things.  He knew his role -to introduce the Messiah.  Now he knew who the Messiah was.  So, when he saw Jesus returning from the wilderness after the 40 days of fasting, John introduced Jesus to his followers with the statement, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world."


For us modern non-Jewish folks, we may need an explanation of this title.  The Jewish followers of John the Baptist did not.  They had gone to the temple with their families many times in their lives to make sacrifice for their sins.  The appropriate sacrifice was an unblemished lamb.  John, in giving Jesus this title was prophesying about the sacrifice Jesus would one day on behalf of not just Jews, but all humanity.  He would die so that we could be forgiven.  Jesus would be the Sacrificed Lamb.