Behold the Lamb of God!--This is the main business of the preacher.
Had John been an eloquent declaimer of repentance merely, he would have missed his life-work. As the stars called “the Pointers” always point to the Pole Star, so must ministers point to the Redeemer. The Baptist’s eye was fastened on the Master, while he pointed to the Master. They preach Christ best who see Him best.
I. LEARN THAT CHRIST IS THE LAMB OF GOD.
1. He is the chief of all sacrifices, the term of “God often signifying” greatest, noblest.
(1) Because it contains all others.
(2) Because it does really and for ever what the others only typified.
2. He is the Lamb of God’s appointing;
3. Of God’s providing;
4. Of God’s offering;
5. Of God’s setting forth to the sons of men (Rom_3:25).
II. CONTEMPLATE JESUS UNDER THAT CHARACTER.
1. Christ, as the atoning sacrifice, ought to be the principal object of every believer’s thoughts
2. This is the grandest subject of thought in the universe. What are the sciences, the classics, poetry, in comparison?
3. No subject so well balances the soul as this. Other themes disturb the mental equilibrium, and overload one faculty at the expense of others.
4. This is the most needful subject of contemplation. Other things may be forgotten without serious damage.
III. GATHER INSTRUCTION FROM JESUS UNDER THAT ASPECT.
1. Doctrinal.
(1) The evil of sin.
(2) The magnitude of God’s love.
2. Experimental. Sin vanishes when Christ appears, and grief and fear.
IV. Behold the Lamb of God WITH REVERENCE, as do angels and glorified spirits. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Beholding the Lamb of God
I. WHAT ARE WE TO SEE WHEN WE LOOK ON JESUS? With what eyes? Time was when men saw Him with their natural eyes, and He was an offence. Time will be when every eye shall see Him, and He will be to many a terror. In heaven He is seen with glorified eyes. To us now He may be seen with the eye of faith. Using this, not having seen Him, we love Him and receive life from Him. What is the sight?
1. The great Creator (Joh_1:1).
2. The great Creator manifested in the flesh.
3. The Divine fulness for the salvation of men.
(1) The full expiation of sin.
(2) All the grace to be communicated to His saints.
(3) Grace for grace.
(4) All supplies necessary for living and dying, obeying and suffering, endurance and triumph, progress and perfection.
II. FOR WHAT ENDS ARE WE TO CONTEMPLATE HIM.
1. That we may have tenderness of heart under sin. Here is a sight to soften stony hearts.
2. That we may have relief under conviction of sin. If He can take away the sin of the world, He can take away a world of sin in you.
3. That we may have courage and patience under all suffering. As He was in the world, so must we be.
4. That we may not stagger at the promises through unbelief. The Messianic prophecies were fulfilled in Him. Shall we, then, disbelieve that those which concern us will bebroken. (A. Beith, D. D.)
The Lamb of God
I. SEEN.
1. By whom? By the Forerunner, who had been preparing His way; as all will--first here in spirit, afterwards in body; first by faith, and afterwards by sight; who by humility, faith, and desire, make themselves ready for His coming (Mat_5:8; Joh_16:16; 1Jn_3:2).
2. When? On the day after the preceding vision. Christ seldom puts His followers off with one sight of Himself: view follows upon view, according to growth in seeing and desiring.
3. Where? On the river’s bank, as He was separating Himself from the Baptist to commence His own work. Christ is best seen at a distance from His servants.
4. Why? To be pointed out. For this same reason Christ appears to His servants now.
II. POINTED OUT.
1. In what character? As the Lamb of God. Suggestive of
(1) Personal innocence or sinlessness.
(2) The meek and unresisting patience with which he should carry on His work.
(3) The propitiatory character of His mission:--the three main themes of the gospel ministry.
2. In what manner? With a Behold: to indicate
(1) The importance of the announcement.
(2) The earnestness of the herald.
(3) The liveliness of mind with which the announcement should be welcomed.
3. With what intention? To send men to Christ.
4. With what result? Two of his disciples follow Christ (Isaiah Iv. 11).
III. Followed.
1. Promptly. Delay imprudent and dangerous. If Christ be what the Baptist says, there is no time to be lost.
2. Inquiringly. This is all that Christ desires at first. The chief complaint is that men reject Him without examining His credentials.
3. Finally. So will all who seek Him with the whole heart.
4. Exemplarily. They led the way to a larger movement.
Lessons:
1. The proper business of the Christian ministry: to point out Christ to the world, and to point the world to Christ.
2. The necessary qualification of the ministry: to behold Christ, and have a personal insight into the character and work of the Saviour.
3. The encouraging reward of the ministry: to behold disciples going over to and following the Saviour. (T. Whitelaw, D. D.)
The Lamb of God
I. THE IMPORT OF THE APPELLATION.
1. It had respect to the personal character of Christ. He was a perfect pattern of
(1) innocence, and
(2) patience. It was thus that He illustrated, in His own example, the nature and genius of the gospel dispensation, as superior to every other.
2. It had a distinct reference to the great design of His appearance and death. It marks out His sacrificial character, prefigured by the legal offerings, more particularly the paschal lamb, the most ancient and important.
(1) The passover commemorated a great deliverance, and prefigured a greater.
(2) The passover averted an inevitable destruction; so did the sacrifice of Christ.
(3) In both cases there is no natural connection between the means and the end; the benefit is moral, not physical. The sprinkling blood was simply of Divine appointment, as a sign to arrest the progress of the destroying angel. So between the sacrifice of Christ and the expiation of guilt the relation is moral, resulting from the will of God.
(4) The personal qualities in the two victims are similar. The lamb was to be without spot or blemish; so was Christ.
(5) The blood of the one had to be sprinkled, so that of the Other must be applied.
(6) While many of the legal sacrifices were offered by individuals, the paschal lamb was required to be slain and offered by the whole congregation of Israel, it being understood that he who neglected this important sacrifice, would lose its benefit--would be cut off from the congregation. “Behold” [here] “the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world!”
(7) The time of slaying in both eases was the evening.
(8) Not a bone was broken in either.
(9) The paschal lamb was prepared by fire, signifying the agonies of the Lamb of God. How strangely mistaken, therefore, those who represent Christ’s death as an example or a martyrdom for truth.
II. THE SPIRIT AND DESIGN OF THE EXCLAMATION. It expresses the claim of Christ to attention from beings of every order.
1. Those who remain, as sinners, in their original character and state. There are three qualities which entitle an object to our regard:
(1) Intrinsic greatness--e.g., the wonders of the material world; those of the intellectual and moral universe; but here is something incomparably greater--Incarnate Deity.
(2) Novelty. What so original as the Invisible Creator clothed in mortal flesh; the Ancient of Days cradled as an Infant; He who upholdeth all things sinking under a weight of suffering; the Lord of Glory expiring on the cross; the Light of the world sustaining an awful eclipse; the Sun of Righteousness immerged in the shadow of death?
(3) Usefulness. The Lamb of God is the only Saviour.
2. Those who have repented and believed. The efficacy of this sacrifice covers all the needs of the spiritual life.
3. The redeemed in the world of glory. They owe their position and their continuance in it to the Lamb of God.
4. The holy angels, who may probably be secured in that felicity to which saints are promoted, by the mediation of Jesus Christ.
5. God Himself. To Him the Redeemer is an object of complacency and satisfaction. (Robert Hall.)
Christ’s whole character must be studied
If you wish to look at a portrait of Raphael’s, what would you think to see only the forehead uncovered, and then only the eyes, and so on, until all the features had been separately seen? Could you gain a true idea of the picture as a whole? Yet this is the way men look at the picture of Christ in the gospels, reading a few verses and mottoes here and there, and never considering the life in its wholeness and harmony. (H. W. Beecher.)
A two-fold use of the eyes
It is a beautiful remark of an old divine, that eyes are made for two things at least; first, to look with, and next, to weep with. The eye which looks to the pierced One is the eye which weeps for Him. Oh soul, when thou comest to look where all eyes should look, even to Him who was pierced, then thine eye begins to weep for that for which all eyes should weep, even the sin which slew thy Saviour! There is no saving repentance except within sight of the cross.
