TITLES OF CHRIST
LAMB OF GOD
DR. JIM DIXON
JOHN 1:26-37
NOVEMBER 13, 1988
“Behold, the Lamb of God!” With those words, John the Baptist introduced Jesus Christ to his disciples, to the nation of Israel and to the world itself. But what do those words mean? What is the meaning of this title, “the Lamb of God?” It is evident in the Bible that this title has two meanings and these comprise our two teachings today.
First of all, the title Lamb of God was used with regard to the subject of sin. To say that Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God is to say that He alone is able to deliver us from sin. “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”
Now, the Bible tells us that we all sin, “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” And the Bible tells us that because mankind has sinned, because mankind has transgressed the laws of God, we must pay the penalty. That shouldn’t be hard for any of us here this morning to understand because we live in a society where whenever we transgress the law, we have to pay the penalty. Our system of justice, our judicial system is predicated on this same concept that when you break the law, you’ve got to pay the penalty. And we encounter this day by day.
I know that many of you have had traffic tickets and that’s been true of me, though I’ve not had as many as I deserved. But I remember in 1970 when I was dating Barb, I went by her apartment to pick her up and we were going to Marina del Rey. We were going to go sailing. This is, of course, is in Southern California. And when I came by the apartment, I couldn’t help but notice what Barb was wearing because Barb was wearing what in the late sixties and the early seventies were called ‘hot pants,’ which of course were short pants. And since we were going to the beach, they were certainly appropriate. I’ve really got to say in all honesty, that Barb looked very good in them.
Now, being a seminary student and preparing for the ministry, you know, I’m not supposed to notice that, but I did. And as we kind of drove along in the car, I wasn’t totally concentrating on my driving. We were going down the Santa Monica freeway and suddenly in the rear view mirror, I saw blinking red lights. A cop pulled me over and he asked for my license and for the vehicle registration. He said “I noticed that you seem to be having difficulty staying in your lane.” He said “what seems to be the problem?” I didn’t know what to say. The cop looked over at Barb and he smiled and he looked at me and he began to write. He wrote a ticket and, of course, I had to pay a penalty because that’s how it is. In this world, you break the law, you don’t stay within the lines and you’ve got to pay a penalty. We’ve all had tickets, and of course, if you don’t pay that dollar penalty, then you’ve got to go to jail and you pay the penalty that way. If you get enough tickets, you lose your license and you pay the penalty that way. That’s life.
We should understand; God wants us to understand that when we break His laws, we’ve got to pay the penalty too. In fact, the Bible indicates that every person in this world has a certificate of debt recorded in heaven. A certificate of debt. The Greek word that’s used in the Bible is the word “cheirographos.” It’s used to describe a written list, a written list of transgressions, of crimes, of grievances, and the Bible says there’s a list like that in heaven for each and every one of you, everyone in the world. All the sin we’ve ever committed, it’s there. Sins of omission; the good things God wanted us to do that we never did do, and the sins of commission; the bad things God wanted us not to do that we went ahead and did anyway. There is also the sins that were reflected in our actions and in our behavior and the sins that were simply resting in our thoughts and in our attitudes. Each day, every day, they’re all there. The Bible says “the penalty for that sin is death.”
You might not like that. You might not agree with that, but that’s the decree of God. The penalty is death. And the Greek word is “thanatos” which referred to separation of the soul and the spirit from the body, physical death. It also is used to refer to the separation of the soul and the spirit from God, spiritual death. Death, the penalty for sin. There’s not many people that want to pay this penalty, and God Himself, above all; He does not want you to have to pay that penalty, and yet justice has to be satisfied.
In the Old Testament age, the Jewish people knew that the penalty for sin was death. They said “without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin.” But they hoped, they hoped that somehow animals could pay the penalty for them and animals could die for them. So in the Jewish sacrificial system, you had the blood of sheep, the blood of lambs offered upon the altars of Israel, hoping that they might pay the penalty for man’s sin. But, of course, the Jews knew that animals could not really pay the penalty for our sin, and in the sight of God, the whole Jewish sacrificial system was simply a foreshadowing of the true Lamb of God who would come, Jesus Christ. And He did come. He came into our world and He took our flesh upon himself and He became one of us. He became a man and He lived a sinless life that He might be a lamb without spot or blemish, then he went to Calvary’s cross and He took our penalty, the death penalty, upon Himself. “He Himself,” the Bible says, “bore our sins in His body on a tree.” And now for everyone who believes in Him as Lord and Savior of life, He offers forgiveness. He paid the penalty, and now He offers forgiveness to all who believe in His name. The Bible says that when we come to Christ and we embrace Him, in that moment, that whole slate of sin is wiped clean. The certificate of debt recorded in heaven is wiped clean. No matter what we’ve done, it’s wiped clean.
You see in the Greek world when a certificate of debt was canceled, the cancellation was described by the Greek word “charizomai” which came from the Greek letter Chi, which is the equivalent of the English letter X because they would take an X…they would take a Chi and they would just write that over the certificate of debt. It was canceled, but of course, you could still read the transgressions that had occurred.
Well in the Bible, in the Book of Colossians, in the second chapter, there’s another word used to describe the cancellation of the Christian’s debt in heaven and it’s the word “exaleipho” better than charizomai because exaleipho is not simply putting an X over the certificate, but it is wiping it clean. You see, that’s what God has done for you by the Lamb of God. When you embrace Christ as Lord and Savior, He wiped your slate clean. It’s like all those sins never happened, and you have had the righteousness of Jesus Christ imputed to you. It doesn’t matter how bad the sin was, how long the list was.
Well, I know that all of you have heard of Tex Watson, though perhaps some of you do not remember him but you’ve heard of him. In the early 1960s, Tex Watson came to Southern California seeking total freedom. I mean, where else would you go if you’re looking for total freedom? And he made his way to an abandoned ranch where he met a man whose name was Charles Manson, and he became part of what was called the Charles Manson family. Tex Watson was a great student and he soaked in vast quantities of pot and acid and Manson philosophy. Charles Manson told Tex, he said “If you really want to be free, you have to discard the human part of you and you have to become like an animal because only the animals are free. If you really want to be free, you’ve got to view existence as mere life, death and killing.” In those years that followed, who knows? Only God knows the demons that entered the person called Tex Watson, but it all led to 1969 and the horrible Tate-LaBianca bloodbath when seven human beings were butchered. Tex Watson was convicted as one of the murderers, but a psychologist ruled that Tex Watson was totally insane, and he was.
At Los Angeles County, he would throw himself against the iron bars, ripping open his own flesh. In the subsequent weeks and months as they put him in various institutions, they had to chain him to the bed. He was so violent. They said it didn’t seem like there was anything human left in him. He had become an animal.
Well, he’s in prison today and he’ll remain there for the rest of his life, but he is not the same man today, Tex Watson, because one day somebody in that prison gave him a Bible. He began to read it. See, he felt no remorse, no remorse at all for that horrible night in 1969. He felt no remorse for any of his sin. But as he read the Bible, the Holy Spirit Himself penetrated deep within his spirit and Tex Watson began to see the horror of his own sin and he began to cry and he cried for days. He begged Jesus Christ to come and be his Lord and his Savior and to forgive him from sin. Today, Tex Watson leads a Bible study in maximum security. The guards and the people who see him and know him say they’ve rarely met a person with more compassion for other people. Tex Watson says that he’ll never cease to marvel at the power of the blood of Jesus Christ to forgive even his sin. But you see, Jesus Christ is a Lamb of God. He can wipe any slate clean, He bore our sins in His body on a tree.
Well, for those of you who are Christians, I know that some of you have this question. You want to know “Well, what about sins that we commit after we become Christians?” After the slate has been wiped clean, what happens now with the sins that we commit now? And we do sin, and of course, in the Christian world, there are two polarities of thought. There are some Christians who believe that you can sin sufficiently to lose your salvation. They’re called Armenians. There are other Christians who believe that once you’re truly born and new, and once you truly receive Christ, Lord and Savior, you can’t lose your salvation. You’re once saved, you’re always saved, and you have eternal security. They’re called Calvinists.
I have to say personally that I really do believe in eternal security, that Jesus Christ will never let His own go. But I also have to say in fairness to the word of God, that God wants us as Christians to take sin very, very seriously. Because you see, sin breaks our communion with God. It removes the joy and even the power of the Christian walk and we taint and we abuse the very blood of Christ when we continue in sin with no repentance. We pervert his grace to licentiousness. God wants us to understand that when we continue in sin, there are going to be consequences: the judgment seat of Christ. Many Christians will suffer loss of heavenly rewards. Some Christians, the Bible says, will be saved but only as through fire. So God calls us to holiness.
The Bible says “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as He was called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct, for it is written you shall be holy for I am holy.” If you invoke as father Him who judges each one impartially according to his deeds, conduct yourselves with respect throughout this time of your exile. For you have been ransomed from the futile ways inherited by your fathers, not by perishable things such as silver and gold, but by the precious blood of Jesus Christ like that of a lamb without spot or blemish. He was destined from before the foundation of the world, but made manifest at the close of the age for your sakes.”
If we sin as Christians, we need to come again to the foot of the cross and confess our sin. The Bible says “If we confess our sin, He is faithful and He is just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” John says “My little children, I’m writing this to you so you may not sin. If anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous. He is the expiation for our sins.” The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
Well secondly, and finally, this title the Lamb of God was oftentimes in the Bible used with respect to the subject of death. It didn’t simply refer to Christ’s role with respect to sin, but His role with respect to death. As a Lamb of God, only Jesus Christ can deliver us from death.
We live in a world that’s very much afraid of death. I know that all of you have heard of Queen Victoria and I’ve mentioned her from time to time in my sermons. Queen Victoria was, of course, the Queen of England and the Queen of Ireland. And she was the Empress of India. The Victorian Era draws its name from her name. She ruled the British Empire for 63 years, longer than any other British monarch. And during those years England rose to the very zenith of its power. She’s been called one of the greatest rulers of all time.
Well, Queen Victoria was married to Prince Albert and among royalty, their marriage was perhaps one of the most successful. They loved each other very much and they had nine children: four boys and five girls. Albert was a philanthropist. He was a student, a very learned man. He never ceased to learn and he was a businessman and the people loved him. But no one loved him more than Queen Victoria. But the problem was that Albert died. He died in 1861 and Victoria lived for 40 more years, but she’d never get over her grief during those 40 years. There never came a night no matter where she was, where she could go to sleep without having a picture of Albert at her side. She wore black, not for a few days or a weeks or months, but she wore black for years. The people of England referred to her as the “Widow of Windsor.”
She had many palaces. There was Kensington where she was born. There was Buckingham from which she ruled. There was Balmoral in Scotland, her summer retreat. But the most mysterious of all of her royal palaces was called Osborne House on the Island of Wight. It was her winter retreat, but in the latter years she stayed there year round. At Osborne House, in that great mansion, there was a staircase that went up and up and at the very top there were rooms into which no one could go but the Queen. Nobody ever entered those rooms but Queen Victoria and everybody wondered what is there.
Well, in 1901, Victoria died and her eldest son Edward ascended the throne. When he went to the island of Wight, one of the first things he did was go to Osborne House and he ascended those stairs and he opened the doors. He was amazed to see photographs, hundreds of them, on the walls and scattered around; of family and loved ones, but photographs of corpses. All these people photographed in death. Historians do not really understand why Queen Victoria had those things in those rooms, but they generally agree that she had some kind of preoccupation with death, reflecting some kind of fear of death.
A Christian, she confessed Christ publicly and openly and boldly, and yet she had a great fear of death. Psychologists tell us that everyone in the world down deep has some major of fear with respect to death and that’s true of you. Some people, of course, in the world try to capitalize on this.
In 1984, Psychology Today Magazine gave its “Scam-A-Rama Award,” “Scam-A-Rama Grand Prize Award” to an organization called Planning for the Future Incorporated. Planning for the Future Incorporated decided to capitalize on people’s fear of death and particularly those people who believe in reincarnation. Of course, the Bible refutes reincarnation. The Bible says “It is appointed unto men once to die, appointed unto men to die once, and after that the judgment.” But in this world of deception, there are people who believe in reincarnation. So Planning for the Future Incorporated decided to make money off that. They told people that they could leave this world and prepare for the next world by giving money to Planning for the Future Incorporated. All you had to do when you die is write into your will a $10,000 gift for their organization, and they promise that after your death, their spiritual mediums would contact your spirit in the spirit world and find out when you’re coming back and what your name, your new name is going to be. Then they’ll wait until you’re 21 years old and then they’ll contact you, and under hypnosis, they’ll have you identify your account number with Planning for the Future Incorporated and you’ll receive your $10,000 back with interest compounded annually at an incredibly high rate of return. You’ll be a millionaire! Well, they deserve the “Scam-A-Rama Award.”
But the Bible tells us that if you really want to plan for the future, if you really want to plan for life beyond death, and if you really want to conquer death, there’s really only one way and that one way is through the person the Bible entitles the Lamb of God. That one way is through Jesus Christ. He alone gives victory over death.
We can’t really understand this until we take a little bit of a look at biblical history, and I’d like to do this in conclusion. I know most of you have heard of Ramses II, the Egyptian Pharaoh who ruled more than 3,000 years ago. For no other reason, I know you’ve heard of him because artifacts from his time and from his reign were recently exhibited at the Denver Museum of Natural History. Some historians believe that Ramses II was the greatest ruler of all time. Most historians would not grant him a status quite so lofty, but all historians believe that he was one of the greatest builders of all time. After all, he built a new capital in the Nile Delta and he built the great temple of Amun-Re, sometimes called Amun Ra, at Karnak, the largest temple of its type in the world. He also built the rock temples of Abu Simbel. The Great Temple of Abu Simbel was carved into solid rock, 200 feet deep guarded by four statues, all statues of Ramses II, each statue more than 67 feet high. The smaller temple of Abu Simbel also had four statues, Ramses II, as well as two statues of Nefertiti, who was one of his many wives. And you see, Ramses II built all of these things for the manifestation of his own glory. Historians tell us that he built structures in most of the major cities of Egypt and he did that to manifest his own glory. Now, archeologists and historians know that he claimed to build structures that others built. He was so preoccupied with his own fame and his own glory and his reputation in history. He was a proud man, swollen with conceit.
Some historians believe that Ramses II was the Pharaoh of the Bible, the Pharaoh of the Exodus, the Pharaoh of the time of Moses who held 2 million Jews in in Egypt. Probably he wasn’t. Probably Ramses II lived a hundred years after the Pharaoh of Exodus, but, you see, whoever the Pharaoh of Exodus was, he was just like Ramses II. He was swollen with conceit, enamored with his own glory, and he had incomprehensible pride and he lived for the manifestation of his glory.
When Moses came to Pharaoh by the command of God and he said “Let my people go,” Pharaoh said “No” and Moses wrought miracles by the power of God and he turned the Nile to blood. Frogs came forth out of the waters of Egypt and flooded the land, and lice, the very dirt was transformed to lice which infested the land and flies filled the air throughout Egypt. Cattle became riddled with disease and plague and death. Boils infested the skin of men and animals throughout Egypt and swarms of locusts descended from heaven and hail and lightning thundered down upon Egypt such had never happened before. Darkness filled the land. For three days the sun, the stars, the moon did not give their light, but still Pharaoh hardened his heart through these nine plagues and he said “No.”
So there came the 10th plague. You’ll recall the worst plague possible, the plague of death itself, and the promise of God that the angel of death and the destroyer would sweep over the homes of all the Egyptians and destroy, bring death to the firstborn. No one was immune; from the Pharaoh on his throne to the handmade at the mill. They would all lose their firstborn. They would all die. But you see, the children of Israel would be protected from death by the blood of the lamb because they were instructed by God to choose a lamb without spot or blemish and sacrifice that lamb and take the blood of the lamb and put it on the doorpost and the lintel of their house. And when the angel of death came over, they would be protected from death by the blood of the lamb. That event, of course, is celebrated in Jewish Passover, the greatest of the three Jewish feasts.
All biblical scholars agree that when Jesus Christ is called the Lamb of God, it is a reference back to the Passover. Above all else, He delivers us from death. If you’re a Christian, if you believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, then you see, you have His blood on your doorpost and on the lintel of your home. He’s promised you victory over death. He says “I am the resurrection and the life. You who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and he who lives and believes in me will never die.”
If you’re a Christian, he says to you “Fear not. I am the living one. I died. I’m alive forevermore and because I live, you will live also.” The Lamb of God.
In Revelation, chapter 5, we see that picture in glory where all the angels surround the throne of God and they all give praises to the Lamb and they sing “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and glory and wisdom and wealth and majesty and might.” And we see every creature in heaven and on earth fall down and worship the Lamb, the Lamb of God who alone delivers us from sin and delivers us from death. Let’s close with a word of prayer.