Written by the late Rev. G. Hamstra.

‘The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world’ (John 1.29).

John, the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth, was a prophet with a unique and remarkable mission. As the herald and forerunner of the promised Messiah, he prepared the way of the Lord. With a sacred boldness, he proclaimed the Word of God to a people whose religious worship was by and large characterised by a cold and barren formalism.

His plain and clear message was not weakened by man-pleasing inconsistencies or deceptive compromises. It was, rather, marked by strength of conviction, by faithfulness to the truth of God. It was of an awakening nature. It aimed at the heart with the blessed purpose of arousing a sense of sin and guilt, all to make room for the Christ whose presence was soon to be announced.

John stood on the threshold of the Old and New Testaments; he was called to introduce Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God, promised and sent by the Father. John’s prophetic witness was not based on private insights but on the authority of a special Divine revelation. This was essential in order to make his testimony authentic and of Divine sanction. From Matthew’s account of Jesus’s baptism, we may conclude that John was acquainted with Jesus enough that he recognised His superiority. However, in the fourth Gospel we are informed that John did not know Jesus as the Messiah until this was made known to him at Jesus’s baptism, when he saw the Spirit descending and abiding on Jesus. ‘And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God’ (John 1.33–34).

John was highly favoured of the Lord with rich views of Christ. Long before the cross, even before the inception of Christ’s ministry, John well understood the unsurpassed beauty, glory, and excellence of the suffering Servant of the Lord, who gave His life as a ransom for many. None of his contemporaries had more light than John. Neither has anyone in the church of all ages been able to go beyond John and give a richer testimony of the One who came to save. John proclaimed the matchless glory of Jesus; He is ‘the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world’ (verse 29).

As the son of a priest, John certainly was well acquainted with the manifold, rich Old Testament prophecies which foretold the coming of the Messiah. Moreover, he also knew of the countless offerings pointing forward to the one and only sacrifice of the Lamb of God, who was the fulfilment of such numerous blessed promises.

John declared Jesus to be the Lamb of God. This Lamb belonged to God in a very particular way. He was ordained from all eternity to be the sacrificial Substitute, whose blood was to be shed for guilty and hell-worthy sinners. John could not have made a richer designation of the One who, in the counsels of eternity, was chosen by the Father to be the sin-Bearer of His people.

The sinless, spotless Lamb of God was the Father’s choice and delight. He alone could accomplish redemption in harmony with divine truth and righteousness. He was qualified to do what neither men nor angels could even begin to achieve, namely, to take away the sin of the world.

Jesus, the Lamb of God, standing there among them, was already active in taking away sin by taking it upon Himself. He had publicly assumed this burden on the occasion of His baptism. God’s Lamb bore the sacred load until at Calvary He was victorious over sin, death, and hell.

God’s Lamb was appointed to take away the sin of the world. The great mass of all the sins of God’s people, whether they were Israelites or Gentiles, is expressed by the collective singular ‘the sin of the world’. The manifold transgressions of the elect of every nation are, in a certain sense, a mass of rebellion and of missing the mark of God’s perfect and holy law.

What the Lamb of God accomplished can never be valued too highly. He took away the sin, the rebellion which brought man so sorely under God’s displeasure. By the perfect sacrifice of His love, He atoned for the transgressions of His people. His blood cleanses from the deepest stains of sin.

When John employed the expression ‘Behold!’ he was definitely pointing away from himself and to Jesus. In John’s audience there were those who, in self-righteousness and pride, rejected his prophetic witness concerning Christ. Only after the second proclamation (see verse 36) did two of John’s disciples leave him and became followers of the Lamb (verse 37).

Also today, many hearers of both law and Gospel sadly have no desire for the One who came to take away the sin of the world. Yet there is wondrous hope and refuge in the Lamb of God for needy and helpless sinners. His grace is overwhelming in its power. His love is without measure. His beauty is beyond compare.

How blessed are all who, knowing their emptiness and poverty, look to Him alone for pardon full and free.

‘Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world’.

First published in Quarterly Record #619. Last updated 29 July 2025.