Journey through John 1:29-34

Good Morning Church Family – Journey Through John

Read John 1:29-34

Devo Thought: The opening chapter of John’s Gospel is a back and forth between who Jesus is and who John the Baptist is. In the last section, we talked about how John knew who he was and how he mattered deeply to God’s plan even though he wasn’t the Messiah. John understood his place in God’s story. Today, we are going to look at the fact that John didn’t just know who he was. He knew exactly who Jesus was. John gives Jesus an identity and then two qualifications for the job. First, he calls him the Lamb of God. By calling him the Lamb of God, John is pointing to the sacrificial work of Jesus. Here at the very beginning of John’s Gospel, we discover the point of the Messiah. In the Jewish mind, the mention of a lamb would have immediately conjured up images of Passover. That great moment in Israelite history when the angel of death passed over the people of Israel because of the blood of the lamb would have jumped into the minds of those listening to John the Baptist. Jesus was this very special lamb of God who could save people from their sin. Why was his able to do this? John gives two qualifications for Jesus’ calling. First, he explains that the Spirit of God descended from heaven, landed on, and rested on him. He had the Spirit of God in a way that no one else did. Second, John recognized that Jesus was the Son of God. This is why Jesus could be the lamb of God. He was qualified to take away the sin of the world because God’s Spirit was with Him and because He was the very Son of God.

Let us thank God for sending Jesus to be the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.