Thursday, January 18, 2007
Lamb of God, Love's Pure Light
Why was it essential for John the Baptist to pave the way and enter the world along with Messiah? Repentance must precede salvation. That is the short answer. The Baptist is quintessential to the Salvation. Jesus, Lord of all, is not only the Savior, someone who saves us! Jesus Christ IS salvation itself. He is our High Priest Who offers the sacrifice of payment for sins yet less understood is the fact that He is the Price. John had the insight to call it exactly right! After months of receiving repentant hearts at the river Jordan, John looks up to see the Son of God. But he doesn’t acknowledge that identity…no, John cries out, "Behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!” How many times must we read it and still gloss over that one word: LAMB?
By divine call, John had nailed it! It has become my favorite line in the Bible. The blood shed by countless lambs on the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur; the lambs’ blood marking the doorposts at Passover; the ram, a male sheep, provided to replace Isaac so that Abraham’s son need not die! John looked at the man Jesus, and saw a lamb, perfect, without blemish, Isaiah’s prophetic Lamb (Is. 53). When Jesus first entered into His infamous occupation, He merely picked up where John left off! “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” ~Matthew 4:17
People were accustomed to the message from John. The fact is, John’s ministry is not secondary; it is primary…Jesus said so. Today, we are hardly familiar with such preaching and so many will admit actually resenting the discomfort it brings. It runs the gamut, from squirming in the pew to the harsh response, “We are leaving this church and we won’t be back!” Personally, I know one minister who left instead of the whining “Christians” who were unhappy with his negative preaching…"too dark"! Ministers, deliverers of Truth, keep in mind and ponder in your heart: a people’s response does not lessen the reality of Christ and His message. Sin utterly can not be ignored. We are to face our failures, our wrongs, our apathy and lack of initiative, the readiness to be the sheeple and our fear of acting, thinking, creating like the people God made in His image. That dirty little word: SIN.
Jesus connected the gap between John’s ministry and His own by first calling attention to sin. “Blessed are the poor in spirit”—the soul which is acutely aware of its own sins— “…for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
By divine call, John had nailed it! It has become my favorite line in the Bible. The blood shed by countless lambs on the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur; the lambs’ blood marking the doorposts at Passover; the ram, a male sheep, provided to replace Isaac so that Abraham’s son need not die! John looked at the man Jesus, and saw a lamb, perfect, without blemish, Isaiah’s prophetic Lamb (Is. 53). When Jesus first entered into His infamous occupation, He merely picked up where John left off! “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” ~Matthew 4:17
People were accustomed to the message from John. The fact is, John’s ministry is not secondary; it is primary…Jesus said so. Today, we are hardly familiar with such preaching and so many will admit actually resenting the discomfort it brings. It runs the gamut, from squirming in the pew to the harsh response, “We are leaving this church and we won’t be back!” Personally, I know one minister who left instead of the whining “Christians” who were unhappy with his negative preaching…"too dark"! Ministers, deliverers of Truth, keep in mind and ponder in your heart: a people’s response does not lessen the reality of Christ and His message. Sin utterly can not be ignored. We are to face our failures, our wrongs, our apathy and lack of initiative, the readiness to be the sheeple and our fear of acting, thinking, creating like the people God made in His image. That dirty little word: SIN.
Jesus connected the gap between John’s ministry and His own by first calling attention to sin. “Blessed are the poor in spirit”—the soul which is acutely aware of its own sins— “…for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Labels: Jesus, John the Baptist, lamb, ministry
