Holiness: The Lamb of God

John 1:29 Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.

Introduction

Here is great good news! The sin of this world is going to be taken away! Can you imagine what this world would be like without any sin? It is going to happen! The Son of God will destroy all the works of the devil.

And here is great good news for every one who will receive the Lamb of God! Not only is the Lamb of God come to take away the sins of the world, but He is come to take away the burden of sin from your life and from mine.

But how was Jesus the Lamb of God? How will He deal with the sin of the world? In what ways does He deal with your and my sin? And what, really, is sin? The word in the text is "hamartia" which is the most common word translated "sin" in the NT, and means "to miss the mark."

Wherever there is sin, there the Lamb will prevail. I cannot tell you the details of how one day the Lamb of God will cleanse this entire world of its murder and cheating and child abuse and war and famine and all that is wrong. But I do know the Book of Revelation (in Rev 6:16) speaks mysteriously of the terrible "Wrath of the Lamb" from which the nations sought to hide in rocks and mountains to avoid; and in Rev. 17:14 we read of the forces of evil warring against and being defeated by the Lamb. We may not know how, but we may be certain that Jesus, the Lamb of God, will cleanse this whole creation from sin.

And, I cannot fathom the depths of God's love that makes it possible, but the Bible tells us a little more about how the Lamb of God can and does take away the sin of individual men and women, boys and girls who simply ask Him! If you have any kind of a sin problem— the Lamb of God can and will take it from you!

I. JESUS is the Lamb of God that TAKES AWAY THE GUILT OF WILFUL COMMITTED TRANSGRESSIONS

Every last one of us has done things in times past of which we have every right to be ashamed! We have turned to our own way! If sin is "hamartia," and "hamartia" is "missing the mark," this kind of sin is missing the mark of righteousness because of deliberately choosing to shoot at evil. It is wrong-doing because of wrong choice. This is the sin of which Paul writes when he says: "The wages of sin is death!"

This is the sin of living for all purposes just as though there is no God; it is living without regard to God or His law or His good will. No real Christian lives in this kind of out-broken, habitual, deliberate, willful rebellion against God. And those who do— and at one time this has included us all— those who do are deserving of death. (Romans 6:23.)

But Jesus came to pay the penalty for our willful transgressions: Our iniquity has been laid on Him (Isaiah 53); and If we come to Him for forgiveness he will not cast us out (John 6:37.) The only willful sin which Jesus cannot forgive is the sin which we will not bring to the blood in confession.

[But this is not the only burden the Lamb of God takes from us: for]

II. JESUS is the Lamb of God that TAKES AWAY THE POWER OF SIN TO MASTER US

It is one thing to be forgiven and be free of guilt. It is quite another thing to be able to quit habitually sinning.

The reason we shoot at the wrong target, deliberately choose evil, is because sin masters us. In John 8:34 Jesus said: "Whoever commits sin is the SLAVE of sin." We may begin to sin wilfully because we choose to sin— but once we are enmeshed in sinning, we cannot extract ourselves from its filthy grasp.

But in the Exodus, when the Passover Lamb was first revealed to the people of faith, God did not simply want His people to be free from Egyptian bondage, toiling as slaves to make bricks without straw; God wanted His people out of Egypt, and free in their own Promised Land! And when we come to God for salvation, by the power, the authority of this Lamb of God, we are free NOT to sin willfully any more!

The power of sin is not broken in a second work of grace we call "entire sanctification." The power is broken in the grace of regeneration. We don't stop the life of sinning when we get sanctified! We stop shooting at the wrong mark, deliberately choosing evil, WHEN WE FIND CHRIST AS SAVIOR!

(Indeed, for most people the testimony is that sin begins losing its grip when real "Holy Spirit conviction" comes! You don't even have to be saved to be sick of sinning, and turning away from sinning! When the Holy Spirit begins to press home the rights of a holy God on your allegiance— when He shows you the depths of your need— sin then begins to become "exceeding sinful" (Romans 7:14.) Christians need to re-learn the lesson that it is possible to focus prayers on lost friends and loved ones until this kind of liberating conviction takes powerful hold in their lives.)

[If this were all that the Lamb of God could do for us until He comes in awesome power to cleanse the whole world of sin, it would be wonderful. But it is NOT all, for:]

III. JESUS is the Lamb of God that TAKES AWAY THE POLLUTION AND STAIN OF SIN

If the power of sin is broken when we are forgiven, until it is possible NOT to sin— still the pollution and divided aims and goals of life remain. Sin is caused ultimately because of corrupt inner springs of motivation. We miss the mark in our actions, and fall under the mastery of sin because there is within us a twist or a bent to unbelief. We may now be shooting at the right target— but when the air clears we see that there are still at least TWO targets out there for us to aim at. There is God's holy, righteous way— and there is OUR own selfish will and way.

The Lamb of God cleanses from indwelling sin, too. The pollution— the double mind, the "bent to sinning" is REMOVED by the INDWELLING FULLNESS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

Peter testified (in Acts 15:9) that on the day of Pentecost, the sanctifying Presence of God "PURIFIED OUR HEARTS BY FAITH!"

And Paul, writing to the Thessalonians prayed that "The very God of peace would SANCTIFY THEM THROUGH AND THROUGH, THAT THEIR WHOLE SPIRIT, SOUL AND BODY BE PRESERVED BLAMELESS TO THE COMING OF OUR LORD"

[All this is pretty straightforward doctrine— and it is good, sound, scriptural. Jesus is the Lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world.]

What a privilege it is to be able to say:

I AM FORGIVEN! I AM WASHED! I AM WALKING IN THE LIGHT! MY HEART IS FOCUSED ON ONE SINGLE PURPOSE!

But can there be anything more? Yes, there is:]

IV. JESUS is the Lamb of God that TAKES AWAY THE CONTAMINATION, THE ROAD-STAINS OF SIN

One of the great blessings which Christians can and must learn is that

  1. they do not need to live in willful sin; and at the same time
  2. it is all right to pray the Lord's Prayer all the way through; i.e., to ask God for forgiveness on our shortcomings.

Looking at this frankly I have to ask: Is there any place for Wesleyans and sanctified people to ask for forgiveness? Can we ever say: "Forgive us our sins?" We are pretty well locked into Wesley's definition of sin as "a willful transgression of a known law of God"— which is a viable and valuable instrument to keep us from being careless with God's known will. But what about the Lord's Prayer as Jesus taught his disciples? We use the Matthew version (opheelima=debts, that owed, error)— but what about Luke's version which uses plain old "hamartia."

I know there is great wisdom in the old Methodist adage that says "If we start calling mistakes (debts, errors) sins, pretty soon we will be calling sins mistakes." But perhaps one of our greatest strengths- genuine freedom from sin— is also misunderstood, and becomes the source of one of our greatest weaknesses: we are afraid to admit we ever come short of the mark of perfection in our Christian walk and our service to God.

I am not trying to make any excuse for willful transgression, or for breaking God's commandments. As Christians we don't willfully transgress God's known laws! But what do we do with our feelings? What do we do when we're "left out" and the feeling stays on and we hold it just a little longer than we should (even though we know we ought to pray immediately about it)? What do we do when we're under pressure and we are irritable with the ones we love the most? DO WE JUST IGNORE IT? Do we call it weakness of the flesh and assume it is automatically forgiven? Well— perhaps in God's mercy it is. But it is still WRONG! And if we simply ignore these spiritual failures they become cumulatively destructive!

We all do come short of God's glory, and we all live in a world that is unfriendly to God's love, and we all are touched by the filth and grime of sin every day. And so we need the cleansing grace of the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world to keep us clean and pure, day by day.

We don't need to carry ANY of the load of sin. So we need to hear it (even though Jesus has said it:) IT IS ALL RIGHT TO ASK FOR FORGIVENESS AS A SANCTIFIED CHRISTIAN!

No, IT IS NOT JUST 'ALL RIGHT' TO PRAY FOR FORGIVENESS EVERY DAY; IT IS MANDATORY! BUT NEVER PERFUNCTORILY, NEVER JUST RITUALLY.

It is an abomination if we presume to keep ourselves clean and unspotted from the world apart from humble dependance on the Lamb of God.

Conclusion

It is your privilege to live clean and pure and holy in this world that is so dirty and stained with sin. John the Baptist points us to Jesus Christ, and he says: BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD WHICH TAKETH AWAY THE SIN OF THE WORLD!