[Music] so today we're going to look at John chapter 1 verse 29 through 34 this is the Baptist's testimony to Jesus so we'll read it together and then we'll unpack it ask some questions and see how the Old Testament readings go with this passage so John chapter 1 verse 29 says this the next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world this is he of whom I said after me comes a man who ranks before me for he was before me I
myself did not know him but for this I came baptizing with water that he might be revealed to Israel and John bore witness I saw the Spirit descend as a dove from heaven and it remained on him I myself did not know him but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me he on whom you see the spirit descend and remain this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit and I have seen and bore witness that this is the Son of God alright a number of questions here that this text rises
raises for us let's just go through a couple of number one what does John mean when he says that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world as Catholics were very familiar with this expression but what would it admit in a first entry Jewish context for John to say that about Jesus number two why does John say that Jesus came before him and that he ranks before him because he was before him what does that mean number three this is a really interesting question how can John say he didn't
know Jesus he says twice when he was Jesus's cousin as we've read in the Gospel of Luke chapter one and two you got Elizabeth who was a cousin of Mary you got Zechariah and Elizabeth bearing John and John and Jesus they're cousins so what does he mean I didn't know him and he says it twice and then finally what is the meaning of John's testimony to Jesus wouldn't when he says I bear witness what exactly is that testimony what's its significance so let's walk through each one of those together first of all the Lamb of
God who takes away the sin of the world any first entry Jew hearing that expression Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world would have had to Old Testament passages that would immediately spring to mind the first is from the book of Exodus chapter 12 this is the famous story of the sacrifice of the Passover lamb which I've talked about in a number of writings and a number of videos so I'll just get it the basic point here if you'll recall in the book of Exodus it was the sacrifice of the Passover
lamb that not only set the Exodus in motion as the final plague that set the Israelites free from slavery in Egypt but it was also the sacrifice of the Passover lamb that saved the Israelites from the destroying angel from the Angel of Death as it's commonly called and then allowed them to begin their journey to the promised land so the Passover lamb was always associated with deliverance with rescue and with particular with deliverance from death so in this case Jesus or should I say John is signaling to us that Jesus is going to be the
true Passover lamb he's going to inaugurate a new Exodus that's going to deliver us not just from physical death but from spiritual death and it's going to begin our journey toward the not the earthly promised land but or the heavenly promised land so Jesus is a new Passover lamb and we'll see this in various places throughout the gospel where Jesus will say in chapter 6 unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man you have no life in you just like you had to eat the flesh of the Passover lamb in the Old Testament
in order to be preserved from death so on the one hand Jesus is prefigured by the Passover lamb but there's another text here that's very important and it's Isaiah 53 this is Isaiah famous prophecy of the suffering servant and the that Texas behind what John says is because we don't have any text to talk about the Lamb of God I'm sorry about the Passover lamb I should say taking away sin it protects from death it sets them free from Egypt but the image of taking away the sin of the world is actually an or an
allusion to the suffering servant so in the book of Isaiah chapter 53 Isaiah describes this mysterious figure of the servant who will take upon himself the iniquities of all the people and he says Isaiah says of the servant that quote like a lamb he was led to the slaughter and that upon him were the sins of the many that he bore the sins of the many and the image of taking away the sin of the people that's the image that John's getting at here so in a sense what John is doing in this opening statement
is revealing that Jesus is the new Passover lamb of the new Exodus but he's also the true suffering servant he's the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecies of this mysterious servant who would take away the sins of the people take away the sins of the world and by taking them upon himself that's the first point um what about the next question though what does John mean when he says after me comes a man who ranks before me because he was before me that's a weird thing to say about your younger cousin so if you go back to
the Gospel of Luke chapter one and two you recall that John the Baptist is six months older than Jesus right so in ordinary human terms I wouldn't say of my younger cousin that he came before me I would say that I came before him all right that would be the ordinary course of things and yet John here says that Jesus came before him what does that mean well John is pointing here to the mystery of Jesus's divinity in other words he is pointing to the fact that although Jesus was born after John in his human
body with his human nature he is in fact the eternal son of God theologians call this pre-existence in other words that or he became man Jesus that our I should have say the Sun the divine person the second person of the Trinity already existed from all eternity he existed before he assumed a human nature and became man in the Incarnation so the second aspect of John's testimony here is to the divinity of Christ he's pointing out the fact that although Jesus is coming after him both you know quanta logically in the sense of his ministry
but also biologically in the sense of his his youth his young the fact that he's younger theologically he is before John because he is the pre-existent son of God and you'll know this from John's Gospel chapter 1 because how did it begin in the beginning was the word the Word was with God and the Word was God all things came to being through him so Jesus is the eternal son of the Father he was never created he had no beginning he is the great I am he was begotten not made so on and so forth
all those things pointing to his eternal nature and his pre existence so Johnny revealing something very powerful about Jesus he's manifesting the divinity of Jesus by pointing to his pre existence [Music]
