John 1:19-34 Jesus, Our Passover Lamb

0:59Perhaps due to low ratings, it only ran for one season. But I think that the reason that TV shows and documentaries about people claiming to be the Messiah gain traction is because in every generation, you have at least a handful of people around the world who are claiming to be the Christ. Some are deceived. They really believe that they are the Messiah. But many others are intending to deceive other people. In order to become wealthy and well-known, well, friends, as we saw over the past couple of weeks, John the Baptist had a sensational ministry. Thousands of people flocked to him from all over the country. And John could have easily continued to accumulate followers and build his own platform. But he didn't do that because he had a clear understanding of who he was and what he came to do. He understood his identity, as we'll see today. He embraced his role as the way to point people to Jesus, who is the Lamb of God, who came to take away the sin of the world. So let's pick up here in verse 19.

2:17You see, here in verse 19 that the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to John the Baptist to ask about his identity. And as we talked about last week, these were people coming from Jerusalem, coming from Judea, the whole southern kingdom, coming from all of the area around the Jordan to be baptized by him. This is thousands and thousands of people. So if you are a part of what we might call the religious establishment, you can't just kind of turn your head and pretend that this isn't happening. You can't just kind of claim ignorance about this ministry. It couldn't be ignored. John's ministry was so big and influential that it drew attention, and everybody was talking about him. And undoubtedly, many of these people. We're going to the religious leaders, people like the priests who ministered in the temple, people like the Levites who assisted them in that ministry, to ask them what they thought about John. What should they make of him? They needed to be able to give some kind of an answer about this man and his phenomenal ministry. So the Jews sent a delegation, and if you skip down to verse 24, we learn that it was the Pharisees who sent these priests and Levites to question John. Now that brings an important question up: who are the Pharisees? Many of us have heard of them, but most of us don't know a whole lot about them. Well, the Pharisees were one of three prominent societies in ancient Judaism, and being a Pharisee wasn't a job. It wasn't something you did for a living. It was more like being a part of a fraternity. So many scribes were Pharisees, many priests and Levites were Pharisees, but so were many tradesmen, just ordinary people. They were also Pharisees. And that word Pharisees means separated ones.

4:05But unlike the Essenes, which is one of these other groups in ancient Judaism, they didn't withdraw to the desert and live kind of a monastic life. The Pharisees stayed right within society because their goal was to bring reformation from within. They wanted to see people obeying the Jewish law because they believed that disobedience to the law was the prime Reason that the Messiah hadn't come. That's why they were so strict about obeying the law. So the Pharisees send this delegation of priests and Levites from Jerusalem, who are almost certainly Pharisees themselves, to go and ask John about his identity. And that probably seems like a weird question to us, somebody going to John the Baptist and saying, Who are you? Because we read that and we're like, Well, what do you mean? He's John the Baptist. He's a big deal.

4:56But he wasn't at this point. He was just a guy who came out of nowhere to capture the attention of the entire nation. And he's weird. He's dressed like a caveman. He's wearing camel's hair and a leather belt. He's eating locusts. Do you know what a locust is? Have you ever seen those things? They're like big, nasty grasshoppers. But, you know, he's dipping them in wild honey to sort of take the edge off. So the fact that the Pharisees sent this delegation from Jerusalem out to the middle of nowhere to find John and ask who he is tells you a lot about him and his ministry. John was gathering an enormous following and it made the establishment nervous. So what does John say about himself? Look at verse 20.

5:42Verse 20, he confessed and did not deny, but confessed, I am not the Christ. So John the Apostle wants this very clear to his readers. That John the Baptist confessed and did not deny, but confessed. I mean, that's the most redundant. Way you can possibly say that. He confessed, I am not the Christ. He never claimed to be. He never denied that he was not the Christ. So, who was he then? How did this man, who seemingly came out of nowhere and was ministering in the middle of nowhere, suddenly gain such an enormous following? Well, the Pharisees had a couple of theories about who he might be. And the first was Elijah. Now, if you've read 1 and 2 Kings before, you know that Elijah was arguably the greatest Old Testament prophet. He ministered in great power in the Spirit and was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind. And the last prophet of the Old Testament is a man named Malachi. The very last thing that he says before 400 years of silence, God does not say another word to Israel after this. These are Malachi's last words and the last words of the Old Testament. Take a look, Malachi chapter 4. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes, and he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.

7:17So many in Israel expected Elijah himself to show up before the Messiah, preaching a message of repentance, just like John was doing. And Jesus himself said, Said in Matthew chapter 11, that John fulfilled the prophecy that Malachi spoke. He was fulfilling the role of Elijah who is to come. But what did they ask him? When the delegation came, they said, Are you Elijah? The answer is no. No such thing as reincarnation. Elijah did not reincarnate as a man named John. John was simply filling the role that Malachi said that was Elijah's role. So their second theory is that he could be the prophet. Now, who is the prophet? It sounds like something out of the matrix, right?

8:07You're too young for this. It's a movie. There's a guy. I was, you know, telling everyone, I got this tie from my family for Christmas, and I was like, you know, I truly am 40. Don't you like my tie? I like my tie that I got for Christmas. He could be the prophet. So at the end of his ministry, Moses is talking to the people of Israel in the book of Deuteronomy. And Deuteronomy, that word means second law. It's a second retelling of the law. And Moses is trying to reassure people that after he goes, after he dies, God is not going to stop talking to the people. Now, take a look at chapter 18, verse 15, Deuteronomy. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers. It is to him you shall listen.

9:00Now, what God was saying through Moses is that once Moses was gone, God was not just going to stop speaking to the people. He would continue to speak to the people by raising up a prophet like him. And he's just simply saying that in every generation, there was going to be in Israel someone speaking the word of the Lord to the people of God. But of course, Moses also spoke better than he knew when he said, The Lord will raise up for you a prophet, a singular prophet like me. And so by the time the first century rolls around, there is such anticipation that the prophet is going to be the Messiah, that that's what Moses was referring to. There's so much anticipation that later on in the Gospel of John, when Jesus performs miracles, the crowd often says stuff like, Surely this is the prophet who is coming into the world. That's how much anticipation that they had about this prophet. But John says, no, I'm not the prophet that Moses spoke about 1,500 years ago. So now the delegation is probably a little bit impatient. You can sense it in verse 22. Well, who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself? Verse 23.

10:16He said, I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness. Make straight the way of the Lord, as the prophet Isaiah said. So, in answer to their question, he quotes Isaiah. Isaiah, he is the voice of one crying out in the wilderness to make a straight path for the Lord. John is a voice. The leaders were so focused on who John was, on his identity, but John downplayed all of that. He focused on his role, on the reason why he came, the reason why he was sent, to raise his voice to prepare a people for the Lord.

10:56The Pharisees wanted to know who John was, but John just wanted them to know who Jesus was. And that would only happen if they listened to his voice crying out in the wilderness beyond the Jordan. So John doesn't claim to be the Christ or Elijah or the prophet. And in some ways, this was probably a very big disappointment to the Pharisees because a lot of them were eagerly anticipating the coming of the Messiah. They longed for it. And if he wasn't the Christ or Elijah or the prophet, that meant that the Christ wasn't here and he wasn't coming anytime soon. And that was a huge disappointment, I'm sure, to them.

11:37But in other ways, this was probably a big relief to the Pharisees. Because as the rest of the Gospels show, they seemed very content with the status quo. They liked the way things were because people had attributed to them a lot of power and prestige. They had the places of honor at feasts. They were looking at the honor. Up to, they were respected. And if the Christ had come, all of that was going away. I think a lot of times we look down on the Pharisees, we judge them from our position here 2,000 years ago with all the benefit of hindsight and everything else. But friends, we are so similar to the Pharisees. Many of us are very content with the status quo. We don't really want anybody to challenge us, to call into question our worldliness, or our prejudices, or our sin. We like the way that things are.

12:36But this is what John did and what Jesus did after him. He called into question all of those things. John called the Pharisees a brood of vipers. Jesus called them whitewashed tombs. Both John and Jesus called them out for caring more about outward appearances than about the heart, for caring more about the letter of the law than the spirit of the law. So before we move on, I think it's important for us to just pause for a minute and reflect on how much we have in common with the Pharisees. Many of us really do long for Jesus to return. We really do want him to come. We look to him and we worship him. But there is a part of us that really wants things to go on as they are because we like the status quo. We have goals and visions and dreams for our life here on this earth that. That includes gaining certain positions, having power, influence, having money and the things that it can buy. And so we share more in common with the Pharisees than many of us are comfortable to admit. But I think now and over the next year plus, as we look at the Gospel of John, Jesus is really going to challenge us: our preferences, our priorities, our politics. There's going to be a lot of that.

14:00Let's pick up in verse 25. They asked him, Then why are you baptizing if you are neither the Christ nor Elijah nor the prophet? Now, you see, this question is not about identity, it's about authority. Authority was a very important concept in the minds of the Pharisees, but authority is a really important concept to us, too. There was a law professor at the University of Yale for a long time. His name is Arthur Allen Leff. He died about 40 years ago.

14:39And he had this series of papers that he wrote that was trying to answer the question: is morality socially conditioned? Or is there actually a system of morals that applies to all people at all places at all times? And in those papers, he posits this. Question that he calls the grand says who. And he talks about how kids on the playground inherently understand the concept of authority. Because if any kid steps up and says, We're going to play this game, these are the rules. You're cheating. You're out of bounds. Then what are all the other kids going to say to this kid? Says who? Who put you in charge? Who gave you the authority to make those calls? We all understand these things. We're all concerned about authority. Who gives anyone the right to say what is right or wrong? What is good or bad? What is just or evil? Who has the right to say these things? If God does not exist, then all we have are preferences. I don't like that. I do like this.

15:50That's why we're all concerned about authority. So when John is baptizing thousands of people, all of the nation is going to him. Many of these people were men and women who are in good standing in their Jewish synagogue. They're going and getting baptized. They want to know where did he get authority to do this? Because if he's not the Christ, he's not Elijah, he's not the prophet, he wasn't sent by the Pharisees or any recognized rabbi. Who gave him authority to do these things?

16:19Verse 26. John answered them, I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know. Even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie. These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing. John tells the delegation of Pharisees that he's just baptizing with water. His baptism, according to Matthew and Luke, was one of repentance. It was one of preparation for the Messiah. That's all that it was. But John says, There's one standing among you that you don't know, and he's coming after me. I'm not worthy to untie his sandal. You see all of these people, all these people following me? You see what a big ministry I have? The guy that's coming after me, I'm not worthy to stoop down and untie his sandal. Now, dealing with sandals was a job reserved for the lowliest servant. This is the first century, the ancient Middle East. There are no sewer systems, there is no running water. Feet were disgusting. Feet are still disgusting, but feet were definitely disgusting in the first century.

17:42Jesus would later say about John that among those born of women, there was no one greater than him. And yet, John, who had a bigger following than maybe any prophet in Israel's history, he said, I'm not even worthy to stoop down and untie Jesus' sandal. How do we view ourselves? Do we view ourselves as essential to God's kingdom? I think it's easy for us to feel like, you know, when we come to faith in Christ, when we start following Jesus, God got a real A player, a real five-star recruit.

18:25But John, the greatest servant of all time, he said that he was the least. He humbled himself before Jesus. And friends, we must take that same position: one of humility, one of service, one of deference to Jesus. As John will say later in the gospel, he has to increase. I have to decrease. Verse 29. The next day he 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 because he was before me. I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel. And John bore witness. I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, 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 have borne witness that this is the Son of God.

19:44I want to tackle this section a little bit out of order because I think that helps to make most sense of what happens here. In verse 33, John the Baptist says that he did not know who the Messiah was going to be. But God spoke to him and said, He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, he is the Christ. He's the Messiah. Descend and remain. That is a really important concept because the Spirit of God often descended upon people in the Old Covenant, but he didn't remain on them forever. It was a temporary filling. And you see this in several different examples in the Old Testament. Think about Samson, for example. God raised up this man, Samson, to be a judge over Israel. He called him from the womb and stirred up in him the Holy Spirit. But if you know his story, he loved many pagan women, and his heart went astray. In Judges 16:20, we see this sad end. Take a look.

20:50His Philistine wife says, The Philistines are upon you, Samson. And he awoke from his sleep and said, I will go out as at other times and shake myself free. But he did not know that the Lord had left him. The Spirit descended upon Samson, but didn't remain. God raised up Saul to be king over Israel. The Spirit of God rushed upon him, enabling him to prophesy. But after he became king, he started going after all of these other things. He disobeyed the Lord. He failed to carry out God's commands. He offered an unlawful sacrifice. And we find this in 1 Samuel 16:14.

21:35Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a harmful spirit from the Lord tormented him. Saul disobeyed God. He had the kingdom torn from him, and as a result, the Spirit left him and never returned. And in many other cases, the Spirit comes for a time on somebody and then leaves after they've accomplished whatever it was that the Lord wanted to accomplish through them. So when the Lord tells John the Baptist, he on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, that is a really significant thing. This man would truly be the Christ, the Lord's anointed. So look what Matthew records in chapter 3.

22:17And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him. And behold, a voice from heaven said, This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Now, that's some confirmation for you. The Spirit descends like a dove, it rests on Jesus, and a voice from heaven verifies that this is, in fact, God's beloved Son, with whom he is well pleased. So now John knows the identity of the Messiah. As it turns out, it's his cousin, Jesus. And you know, hindsight's 20-20, but he was probably like, you know, that makes sense. He never got in trouble.

23:10So the next day, the day after he has this conversation with the Pharisees, Jesus walks towards John, and you just have to picture the scene. Thousands of people up and down the riverbank, maybe thousands of people in the water, hanging on to every word that John says because the people are sure that he's either the Christ or Elijah or the prophet, unless they heard his conversation from the day before. There's still all this anticipation. Jesus walks up and he says, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

23:50Now, if you're a Gentile, that statement may not mean a lot to you. But almost everyone there was an Israelite. And I want you to think about what would have been running through their minds when he called this man the Lamb of God. They probably thought back to Abraham and Isaac when God commanded him to sacrifice his one and only son as a burnt offering. But right before he was about to offer him up on the altar, God provided a lamb in the thicket to take his place.

24:34They probably thought about the Exodus. On that final night before they left Egypt, what did God command them to do? Take a spotless lamb, sacrifice it, take the blood, and wipe it on the doorposts, so that when the angel of the Lord passed over them, he wouldn't put the firstborn son to death. They probably thought about the Day of Atonement and how, on the Day of Atonement, once a year, the high priest would lay his hands on a spotless lamb. He would confess the sins of the nation, and then they would send the scapegoat out into the wilderness to remind the people that God had separated their sins as far as the east is from the west.

25:20Or maybe they thought about the prophet Isaiah, who said that the suffering servant would be like a lamb led to the slaughter. Who, like a sheep before its shears, is silent. He wouldn't open his mouth in protest. To the Gentiles who are unfamiliar with the Old Testament, that phrase, the Lamb of God, may not have meant very much, but friends, to the Israelites, their minds, their hearts would have been racing. Like the Lamb who took Isaac's place, Jesus takes our place, and He dies the death that we should have died.

26:01Like the Passover Lamb, Jesus' blood covers us so that we don't have to be put to death for our sin. Like the scapegoat, Jesus carries our sins as far as the East is from the West. And as the suffering servant of Isaiah 53, Jesus was led like a lamb to the slaughter. But when he stood before Pontius Pilate, who said to him, Do you not make any defense? He remained silent. He said, Before that time, no one takes my life from me. I willingly lay it down of my own accord. He was silent like a sheep is before the shears, and he went to his death in our place and for our sins.

26:52Friends, Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He is the Lamb. He is not a Lamb. He is the Lamb. The way, the truth, and the life, the one and only spotless sacrifice that can take our place and be acceptable to God. He is the Lamb of God. He was sent from God. He was God Himself. And He came to take away our sins because salvation is of the Lord. We are utterly incapable of saving ourselves. God and God alone can save us.

27:34He is the Lamb of God who takes away sin. He doesn't dismiss it. He doesn't minimize it. He doesn't temporarily cover it. He takes away sin once and for all. And He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. His sacrifice is sufficient for every man and woman, every boy and girl, people from every tribe, tongue, and nation. His sacrifice is sufficient for you, no matter what you have done, no matter how many times you've done it, his sacrifice is sufficient for you.

28:19And so, maybe, like the Pharisees, you believe that God exists, and you've always believed that He would provide a way to be saved. But you didn't know who he was. John says to you this morning, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. John is speaking to you. He wants you to look upon the Lamb of God, Jesus of Nazareth, and to place your faith in him. You cannot take away your own sin. No amount of good works, no amount of religious activity, no amount of trying harder to do better is going to take away your sin. You cannot save yourself no matter how hard you try.

29:14But Jesus can save you because he is the Lamb of God whose perfect life of obedience made him the perfect sacrifice and whose resurrection from the dead proved that God accepted his sacrifice in our place. So take hold of Christ by faith this morning. Don't put it off any longer. Brothers and sisters in Christ, John's ministry looked different from everyone else's of his day and certainly from everyone else's in our day. But the whole purpose of his ministry was to bear witness that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

29:57And if you're a follower of Christ already, you are an ambassador. Ambassador for the Lord. It is through you that God is making his appeal to a lost and dying world that needs a Savior and longs for a Savior. Our job is not to convert anyone. It's not even to convince anyone. It is to faithfully bear witness to Jesus that he can and will save all who trust in him. So I want you to be freed this morning from the crushing weight of feeling like it is upon you to convince others to put their faith in Christ. Your job is just like John's. It is to bear witness that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and to call others to put their hope in him.

30:53Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the picture of faithfulness that we have in John the Baptist, a man who understood his identity, who didn't claim to be somebody that he wasn't, didn't pretend to be somebody that he wasn't. But embraced his role as a voice crying out and pointing people to the Messiah. God, we pray that we would be faithful witnesses and that our friends and family, our neighbors, our coworkers, our classmates would come to faith in Christ through our witness.

31:58I pray that every one of us would see someone come to faith in Christ this spring. I pray that our church and many other churches would be filled up with men and women, boys, and girls who have just come to faith in Christ because we have been faithful to point them to Jesus. God, would you bless our ministry as ambassadors? Would you make us faithful as John was faithful? And would you help us to hope in Jesus, to never take our eyes off him, because he is the Lamb of God who takes away not just the sin of the world, but every one of our sins, past, present, and future.

32:59In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.