Learning About the Lamb of God, Part 4

I’ve enjoyed working on this blog series because I didn’t know what conclusions I’d reach. My habit is to work out in advance what I want to communicate and then go about setting it down.

But here, I wanted to see what I could learn about Jesus as the Lamb of God. We’re now at the fourth post (here are Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3) and I think we’re getting near the finish line. Maybe one or two more posts.

In this article, I’d like to show you how two passages parallel each other. Using their distinctive terms, the apostles John and Peter present Jesus as the Lamb who saves us.

Here are the verses:

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

“For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, ¹⁹but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.” – 1 Peter 1:18-19

To organize the similarities in these passages, I’ve set the key terms in this box:

	John 1:29	1 Peter 1:18-19
1. Person	Jesus	Christ
2. Symbol	Lamb	Lamb
3. Characteristic	Of God	Without blemish or defect
4. Issue	Sin	Empty way of life
5. Source	World	Your ancestors
6. Action	Takes away	Redeemed

The first two classes are obvious, but I didn’t want to skip them. Both apostles describe Jesus as a lamb. And given the Old Testament background we’ve looked into, particularly the Passover, this symbol has sacrificial overtones.

The third category concerns holiness. Jesus belongs to God; He is set apart for His Father’s purpose to secure salvation for lost humanity. As God’s lamb, the Lord has to meet divine standards of righteousness and purity, and He does. Jesus has no faults.

Peter depicts Christ’s purity in two ways. He’s without blemish and He has no defects. The first phrase is actually a single Greek word (amomos) which means spotless, faultless, or unblameable. The second word (aspilos) can also mean spotless, but it has the additional meanings of irreproachable, unsullied, without fault, or unstained.

As the Lamb of God, Jesus is very much like God! He is holy and what’s amazing is that He offers Himself for us, unholy as we are.

The fourth group elaborates on our problem. Unlike Jesus, our lives are ruled by sin. Both John and Peter refer to our issue in the singular. The root meaning of sin (hamartia) is to miss the mark. We fail God; we fall short of His will for us. 

Yet we keep moving on; we’re accustomed to living apart from the Lord. But Peters decries such shallowness. Consider the range expressed by the Greek word Peter uses (mataios): empty; profitless; vain; devoid of force, truth, success, or result; useless; of no purpose; or worthless.

Such is life apart from God.

But it’s all people know; Peter says it’s our lifestyle (anastrophe); it’s how we exist and function in this world.

Which brings us to the fifth category–the source. John connects sin to the world; Peter identifies a fruitless life as an inheritance passed down from one generation to the next. 

The world is all we know; it’s what surrounds us. To make sense of it, we rely on those in our community who came before us. We depend on their wisdom to help us navigate the rough waters we encounter. Their traditions tell us what the world is like and how we fit in.

But it all falls short of God’s intentions for us.

The world, which oppresses God’s people, faces His judgment. The Passover lamb kept His nation safe.

And as the fulfillment of the Passover lamb, Jesus keeps His own from death which strikes this fallen world.

But He also offers those in the world an opportunity to join His people. To become one of them. To find safety under His blood.

And that takes us to the final section. John declares that Jesus takes away (airo) the sin of the world. This Greek word means to lift up, remove, pick up, or carry. Decades after Christ’s death on the cross, Peter writes that Jesus redeemed us. This Greek word (lutroo) means to release, ransom, or liberate.

As the sacrificial lamb, Jesus took away our sin; we’re no longer beholden to it. The power of sin need not rule us anymore.

We’re no longer slaves!

Jesus the Passover Lamb has delivered us!