JOHN 1:29-34 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

One of my professors at the seminary called this type of passage a GOSPEL METAPHOR.  A metaphor is a comparison without using the words “like” or “as.” So Jesus is being compared to a lamb. But we need to be careful to distinguish between what is literal and what is metaphorical. While the sacrifice that Jesus made is literal, He was not, of course, actually a lamb. We know that to be true. The incarnation of Jesus means that He became a literal man, not a literal lamb. However, Jesus would serve the function of a lamb for the people. He would be their sacrifice for sin.

What an ecstatic moment in the history of God’s chosen people that must have been for those who understood what John was saying: Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. The Jews who studied the Old Testament knew that there were prophecies of the Messiah that compared Him to a lamb (e.g. Isaiah 53:7). The hopes and aspirations associated with all the years of repeated sacrifice of literal lambs would find their fulfillment in this metaphorical lamb, the Son of God.

The reason Jews sacrificed lambs was to make payment for their sins. The sacrifice of lambs was something commanded of the people in the law of Moses. Yet they knew that a lamb itself did not have the power to forgive sins. Rather, their sacrifice of lambs pointed to the ultimate sacrifice for sins, which would be fulfilled through the death of Jesus Christ. One of our Lenten hymns explains this:

Not all the blood of beasts on Jewish altars slain
 Could give the guilty conscience peace or wash away the stain.

But Christ, the heav’nly Lamb, takes all our sins away;
A sacrifice of nobler name and richer blood than they.

On a little church in Germany stands a stone lamb that has an interesting history.  When some workmen were building the roof, one of them fell off.  His companions hurried down to the ground, expecting to find him dead.  But he was unhurt.  A lamb was grazing below when he fell on it, crushing the lamb but sparing his life.  He was so grateful that he made an image of the lamb in stone and placed it on the building as a memorial. That is what Christ has done for us.  He was crushed by the weight of our sins so that we might be saved from the punishment we deserve.

Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.