Who is the Lamb? The Lamb is the most important person you could ever hope to know. He is Jesus Christ, “The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” John 1:29b (NKJV). When a religious leader asked Jesus what the greatest commandment of God was, “Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:37—40 (NKJV). That is His law, summed up in those two statements. Why Jesus is called the Lamb of God can only be understood by first understanding why He was born into this world.
So many people think that Jesus was just a good teacher, possibly even actually sent by God, who taught us how to live a better life and make this world better for all mankind. That even sounds nice, doesn’t it? Fortunately, that’s nonsense! I say we’re fortunate because of the one thing that all of us have in common, every single one of us will die one day and enter eternity. What will a better world here matter when we are living apart from this world throughout all of eternity? Wouldn’t it be better to know what eternity has in store for us? You don’t get to enter this world again, so if you trust that your good works making this world better will help you in eternity, you will have wasted the opportunity God gave you to repent from your way and trust in His way.
Jesus was not merely some gifted teacher, who taught how to make this world better. Talking about Jesus, the Apostle John wrote, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1 (NKJV) (emphasis added). He was God in the flesh, who came to show us the way to a better world, not to fix this world. Jesus came to save us from death, the curse of this world, and open the door for us to enter a world where we could be with God, enjoying all of His glory for all of eternity.
From a human perspective, Jesus was killed by the religious leaders of Israel (yet through the Romans) because Jesus claimed to be the God of the Jewish Scriptures, what Christians call the Old Testament. The Romans were convinced to carry out the execution based on the argument that Jesus claimed to be the true King of the Jews, and thus was a threat to insurrection against Roman sovereignty.
From God’s perspective, however, Jesus was the sacrificial Lamb of God, sent to take away the sins of the world. He was the fulfillment of the prophetic image of the lamb sacrificed at Passover, the sacrifice Abraham told Isaac that God would provide, and the first sacrifice in the Garden following the fall of Adam and Eve that was to cover the shame of their nakedness. Jesus was 100% man and 100% God, the second person of the Trinity. God the Son lived a perfect life, free of all sin. At the hand of God the Father, God the Son voluntarily died an undeserved sinner’s death in the place of all those throughout history who would turn from sin and put their trust in Him, trusting specifically that they will be declared righteous before God the Father because God the Son took their sin upon Him.
Jesus said, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword.” Matthew 10:34 (NKJV). Of course God cares about what we do in this world, and what we do with the blessings that He gave us, including the world He created for us. However, He did not come to bring peace on earth. Putting your trust in what you do to improve this world will not matter to you when you are dead. The Bible says, “And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.” Hebrews 9:27, 28 (NKJV).
So what’s this judgment all about? I’m so glad you asked. When God created mankind, Adam and Eve in the Garden, He gave them one command. Most of us know the story, God said that Adam and Eve could eat from any tree in the garden, except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Most of us picture it as the forbidden apple, sort of like the poisonous apple of the Snow White fairytale. Most people don’t really take this as a literal true story. Well that perception probably lies in the fact that most people reduce this story to the simplicity of Adam and Eve simply wanting to eat a nice apple that God told them not to eat. That’s not it at all!
Did God really care about the forbidden fruit? No. Why then did God put it there in the open for Adam and Eve to ogle at, knowing that they were commanded not to touch it? Is God guilty of cosmic entrapment? Absolutely not! God knew that Adam and Eve would disobey Him. So what was the point?
God knew His creation would reject His authority and fall from the paradise that God created for them. God knew that instead of submitting to God and trusting that God knew what was best for them, mankind would choose to satisfy the sinful cravings of their hearts, exercising the free will God gave them to choose whose authority they would follow. Through our oldest great-grandparents, you and I, every single one of us, chose to follow our own authority so that we could satisfy whatever sinful thing our hearts desired. Without the fall, we would never be able to see just how incredible God’s love is, and that is the point!
When Satan tempted Eve, he didn’t merely trick her into disobedience. He tricked her into thinking that if she disobeyed God’s command, and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, she would be able to become like God, knowing good and evil. The Bible records that Satan said to Eve, “For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Genesis 3:5 (NKJV). The deception lied in what Eve must have thought the outcome would be. She must have thought that she would become all powerful like God. That’s not what happened at all.
Up until that point in the history of mankind, we only knew what was good. God gave us paradise in His garden at Eden. By disobeying God, we learned evil. Satan was right in his statement to Eve, that once she disobeyed God’s command and ate from the forbidden tree, she would become like God, knowing good and evil. Now she knew both!
Adam, however, was not deceived. Knowing what his wife had done, Adam chose voluntarily to follow her. The Bible says, “And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.” 1 Timothy 2:14 (NKJV). Thus through our oldest ancestors, each one of us rejected God’s authority over us, and chose to follow the desires of our hearts. We often think that following the desires of our hearts is a good thing. The problem is that the Bible says so clearly that “The heart is deceitful above all things, [a]nd desperately wicked.” Jeremiah 17:9a (NKJV). Jesus said, “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.” Mark 7:21, 22 (NKJV).
The Law of God is what we refer to as the Ten Commandments. Essentially, however, the law is simply to “… ‘love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:37b—40 (NKJV). That is the law of the Lamb, the law of God, yet none of us have followed it:
There is none righteous, no, not one;
There is none who understands;
There is none who seeks after God.
They have all turned aside;
They have together become unprofitable;
There is none who does good, no, not one.
Romans 3:10—12 (NKJV) (see also Psalms 14:1—3; 53:1—3; Ecclesiastes 7:20). God gave us the Ten Commandments so that we would understand what the above Scripture is saying. Not one of us has submitted to God’s authority by following His rules, but rather all of us have chosen to follow our own authority by doing what we want – to follow the desires of our deceitful and desperately wicked hearts.
Do you not believe it? Do you really think you are good? Think about it for a minute, and don’t let your heart deceive you. Has God always been first in your life? Have you always viewed God as exactly how He is described in Scripture, or have you chosen to follow the imaginary god you created in your mind? Have you never taken God’s name in vain, which is blasphemy? Have you always kept the Sabbath holy? Have you never disobeyed your parents? Have you never been unrighteously angry? Have you never looked with lust at someone not your spouse? Have you never taken something that didn’t belong to you, regardless of its value? Have you never lied? Have you never wanted something that didn’t belong to you, instead of being content with the things God has already blessed you with?
Those are the Ten Commandments. Answering yes to any of them makes you a law breaker. If you’re thinking right now that no one has kept these laws, you are absolutely correct, that’s exactly what the Scriptures say. That won’t help you though, because when we come face to face with the Lord on our judgment day we will not be judged on a curve. Jesus said, “But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” Matthew 12:36, 37 (NKJV).
Now think about that for a minute. Every single transgression. Every lustful glance, every time you blasphemed the holy name of your creator and judge, every lie, every theft. You and I will be judged for every time we transgressed God’s law. Nowhere in Scripture does it say that you can overcome those transgressions by being good more times than you were bad. The Prophet Isaiah said:
But we are all like an unclean thing,
And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags;
We all fade as a leaf,
And our iniquities, like the wind,
Have taken us away.
Isaiah 64:6 (NKJV).
If our good works are like filthy rags, how could they ever overcome our bad works? If a murderer turns his life around, is he no longer a murderer? Well, coveters and liars and blasphemers are still lawbreakers too, no matter how much they are cleaned up. We will all be judged for the sins we committed in this life, and the Bible says, “For the wages of sin is death.” Romans 6:23a (NKJV).
We can never blot out our sins, so who can be saved? The Apostles asked Jesus that same question, and He answered them saying, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Matthew 19:26b (NKJV). Fortunately for us the rest of the verse from Romans quoted above reads, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23 (NKJV).
This is the Good News! It’s the Gospel of Jesus Christ, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” John 1:29b (NKJV). He is the ultimate sacrificial lamb who was slain as an atonement for you and I. You and I deserve God’s wrath because of our sins. The Bible says that “God is a just judge, [a]nd God is angry with the wicked every day.” Psalm 7:11 (NKJV). Jesus, however, was innocent. From a human perspective, He died the horrific death of crucifixion. Yet from the perspective of God, Jesus bore the wrath of God the Father that was supposed to come down upon us. Isaiah prophesied about Jesus, describing Him like this:
But He was wounded for our transgressions,
Isaiah 64:6 (NKJV).
If our good works are like filthy rags, how could they ever overcome our bad works? If a murderer turns his life around, is he no longer a murderer? Well, coveters and liars and blasphemers are still lawbreakers too, no matter how much they are cleaned up. We will all be judged for the sins we committed in this life, and the Bible says, “For the wages of sin is death.” Romans 6:23a (NKJV).
We can never blot out our sins, so who can be saved? The Apostles asked Jesus that same question, and He answered them saying, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Matthew 19:26b (NKJV). Fortunately for us the rest of the verse from Romans quoted above reads, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23 (NKJV).
This is the Good News! It’s the Gospel of Jesus Christ, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” John 1:29b (NKJV). He is the ultimate sacrificial lamb who was slain as an atonement for you and I. You and I deserve God’s wrath because of our sins. The Bible says that “God is a just judge, [a]nd God is angry with the wicked every day.” Psalm 7:11 (NKJV). Jesus, however, was innocent. From a human perspective, He died the horrific death of crucifixion. Yet from the perspective of God, Jesus bore the wrath of God the Father that was supposed to come down upon us. Isaiah prophesied about Jesus, describing Him like this:
But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
Isaiah 53:5 (NKJV).
Why would God have done that? God is just, and holy, and perfect, and righteous. He will not tolerate sin, so there had to be a punishment. You may ask why God couldn’t just forgive us if we are sorry. How could He? A good judge wouldn’t tell a criminal “you can go now because you apologized.” Only a corrupt judge would pervert justice like that.
God is not only a just judge, but He is also the essence of what love is. Scripture says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” John 3:16, 17 (NKJV). However, it also says that not everybody will be saved. That same passage continues, "He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." John 3:18, 19 (NKJV).
Before Jesus went to the cross, He warned, “Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.” John 8:24 (NKJV). We are not condemned for rejecting Christ, we are condemned already for our sins. It’s as if we are all splashing around in the sea about to drown, and someone comes along and says, “if you put on this life preserver, you will live!” We are drowning in our sin, but Jesus, in His incredible kindness and love for His creation, is offering us Himself to be our Savior. All we have to do is repent and trust Him. We must reject the sea of sin, and trust in the true life preserver, Jesus Christ!
The Apostle Paul explained “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” Romans 10:9, 10 (NKJV). Confessing that Jesus is Lord means we must break our pride before God, agreeing with Him that we are sinners who deserve judgment for the sins we have committed throughout our lives.
The Apostle Peter said, “God resists the proud, [b]ut gives grace to the humble.” 1 Peter 5:5b (NKJV) (see also Proverbs 3:34). Jesus did the work of our salvation on the cross, and He will not share the credit for this with anyone, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” Ephesians 2:8, 9 (NKJV). We can only be saved from the penalty we deserve by asking God for forgiveness in humility, casting away all pride, and turning away from whatever sin has a hold of our heart, and then trusting in Jesus alone, specifically that His sacrifice on the cross was in fact our actual individual substitution.
The Lamb of God did not come to make this world a better place for people to step out of and into Hell from. He came to throw us a life preserver so we could avoid Hell, the punishment we deserve for not keeping His law.
Through Moses, God told the people, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.” Leviticus 17:11 (NKJV). Why would you reject God’s offer to make Himself the atonement for your soul? The only reason to reject this offer would be if you insist on holding to your own authority, rejecting God’s rightful authority over you, because you are unwilling to give up whatever sin has a hold of your heart.
Jesus Christ made us, and died for us. Please don’t reject this. Read the Bible today, and figure this out for yourself. See if what I’m telling you matches up with Scripture, and then decide for yourself if what Scripture says is true. The writer of Hebrews, echoing the words of King David, implored, “Today, if you will hear His voice, [d]o not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” Hebrews 3:15, 4:7b (NKJV) (see also Psalm 95:7—8). If you hear His voice, do as Jesus commanded, “Repent, and believe in the gospel.” Mark 1:15b (NKJV).
Isaiah 53:5 (NKJV).
Why would God have done that? God is just, and holy, and perfect, and righteous. He will not tolerate sin, so there had to be a punishment. You may ask why God couldn’t just forgive us if we are sorry. How could He? A good judge wouldn’t tell a criminal “you can go now because you apologized.” Only a corrupt judge would pervert justice like that.
God is not only a just judge, but He is also the essence of what love is. Scripture says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” John 3:16, 17 (NKJV). However, it also says that not everybody will be saved. That same passage continues, "He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." John 3:18, 19 (NKJV).
Before Jesus went to the cross, He warned, “Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.” John 8:24 (NKJV). We are not condemned for rejecting Christ, we are condemned already for our sins. It’s as if we are all splashing around in the sea about to drown, and someone comes along and says, “if you put on this life preserver, you will live!” We are drowning in our sin, but Jesus, in His incredible kindness and love for His creation, is offering us Himself to be our Savior. All we have to do is repent and trust Him. We must reject the sea of sin, and trust in the true life preserver, Jesus Christ!
The Apostle Paul explained “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” Romans 10:9, 10 (NKJV). Confessing that Jesus is Lord means we must break our pride before God, agreeing with Him that we are sinners who deserve judgment for the sins we have committed throughout our lives.
The Apostle Peter said, “God resists the proud, [b]ut gives grace to the humble.” 1 Peter 5:5b (NKJV) (see also Proverbs 3:34). Jesus did the work of our salvation on the cross, and He will not share the credit for this with anyone, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” Ephesians 2:8, 9 (NKJV). We can only be saved from the penalty we deserve by asking God for forgiveness in humility, casting away all pride, and turning away from whatever sin has a hold of our heart, and then trusting in Jesus alone, specifically that His sacrifice on the cross was in fact our actual individual substitution.
The Lamb of God did not come to make this world a better place for people to step out of and into Hell from. He came to throw us a life preserver so we could avoid Hell, the punishment we deserve for not keeping His law.
Through Moses, God told the people, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.” Leviticus 17:11 (NKJV). Why would you reject God’s offer to make Himself the atonement for your soul? The only reason to reject this offer would be if you insist on holding to your own authority, rejecting God’s rightful authority over you, because you are unwilling to give up whatever sin has a hold of your heart.
Jesus Christ made us, and died for us. Please don’t reject this. Read the Bible today, and figure this out for yourself. See if what I’m telling you matches up with Scripture, and then decide for yourself if what Scripture says is true. The writer of Hebrews, echoing the words of King David, implored, “Today, if you will hear His voice, [d]o not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” Hebrews 3:15, 4:7b (NKJV) (see also Psalm 95:7—8). If you hear His voice, do as Jesus commanded, “Repent, and believe in the gospel.” Mark 1:15b (NKJV).
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