Behold the Lamb of God
I heard a story recently about the great evangelist C.H.Spurgeon, “The Prince of Preachers. In 1857, when he was just 24 years old, he was asked to speak at a special service inside the Crystal Palace in London. At that time, it was one of the largest buildings in the world. The enormous glass and steel structure had originally been built for the Great Exhibition of 1854.
There was expected to be an audience of around 24,000 people at the service, and with no microphones or public address systems, Spurgeon was expected to speak to the whole crowd simply with the power of his own voice.
Naturally, he was nervous. Could his voice possibly carry across such a vast space? Before the service, he asked to test the acoustics. He made his way into the pulpit, drew a deep breath, and proclaimed as loudly as he could:
“Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
As the last echoes of his voice faded away, a door at the back of the hall opened and a maintenance man entered from the back. He made his way forward to the front of the pulpit, fell to his knees, and gave his life to Christ.
There was no sermon prepared. Spurgeon had not crafted a message for that moment. This was not about good preaching. It was the Holy Spirit speaking powerfully through the Word of God, piercing a man’s heart with the truth of a single sentence.
A Verse in Four Parts
This great statement is recorded in the Gospel of John ch1v29, where John the Baptist spots Jesus approaching, while he is baptising people in the river Jordan.
In the remainder of the blog post we are going to look at this remarkable verse and look at it from four 4 different perspectives.
‘The Sin of the World’
At first glance, this might not seem like a relevant message for the 21st century—John, a Jewish prophet, speaking to Jewish listeners about a Jewish Messiah two thousand years ago.
But take note of the last word in the verse - world.
This is not a message bound to one nation or one generation. John isn’t just talking about the problems of first-century Judea. He is talking about the world—past, present, and future. This is a universal issue, touching every person of every age.
What is this universal issue?
It’s Sin. Not merely “sins,” the individual wrong things we do, but sin itself—the rejection of God. The Bible teaches that God created the universe and made humanity in His image for relationship with Him. Yet as a result of Adam and Eve’s decision to disobey God, humanity has been impacted by that decision. Their sin has passed to us all. That rejection became the default posture of every human heart.
We still live as though we’re in control, but the reality of our world tells another story; a virus sweeps the globe and shuts down nations, wars erupt and economies shake, a disaster strikes suddenly, and lives are lost in an instant. The truth is, we do not have everything under control.
The Bible says in Romans 6:23: “The wages of sin is death.” Our rejection of God is serious. Its consequence is separation from Him for eternity—a reality the Bible calls Hell. The sin of the world is a problem none of us can escape or solve.
‘Who Takes Away’
Despite our condition John’s words offer hope. There is One who takes away this sin. He removes it, carries it, deals with it once and for all. The debt is not ignored; it is paid, but by who?
‘The Lamb of God’
For John’s audience, the image of the Lamb was filled with meaning. They knew the daily Olat Tamid—morning and evening sacrifices of lambs offered for sin. They remembered the lamb of Pesach, Passover, whose blood on the doorposts spared Israel from death in Egypt. And they would recall Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22, when Abraham assured his son: “God will provide for Himself a lamb.”
In Jesus, all these images converge. He is the lamb that God has provided. Unlike the daily sacrifices at the temple, His sacrifice is not temporary. His blood covers not one household for one night, but all who believe, in every generation. Unlike Isaac, God did not spare His Son but gave Him up for us all.
Jesus, the Lamb of God, lived a perfect, sinless life. His sacrifice is therefore once for all—final, sufficient, complete. His blood is enough.
‘Behold!’
Finally, John begins with a command: Behold! Look! See!
Don’t look to your own strength, to technology, politics, or human solutions. Don’t look within yourself. Look to Jesus.
He died for us, was buried in a rich man’s tomb, and three days later rose again, triumphant over sin and death. Sin no longer has the power to hold those who trust in Him. He takes it away.
A Final Reflection
That one sentence—“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”—was enough to bring a man to his knees in an empty hall in 1857. And it is still enough today.
If you feel the weight of sin—your rejection of God, your self-sufficiency, your guilt—hear the good news: the Lamb of God has come to take it away.
John writes later in one of his letters:
“…if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.” 1 John 1v9
The invitation is simple: Behold Him. Look to Jesus. Confess your sins. Let your eyes rest on the One lifted up for you, whose blood washes sins, whose resurrection brings life.