Exodus 29:38-46 John 1:29-51
The Only Way
The coastal area of Namibia is known as the “Skeleton Coast” for good reason. Many have lost their lives along this stretch of land due to the treacherous nature of the sea. The remains of many ships lie scattered along the shoreline from north to south and every story is equally grim. Those who survived the rough seas, faced a lingering death of starvation once on land as they attempted to cross the barren Namib desert in search for help.
The sea has not changed since those days, and it still claims many lives of locals and tourists every year. Unfortunately, I have first hand knowledge of its power and its unpredictability. When we served at an Anglican Church in Swakopmund, Namibia, on Monday afternoons, Louise had a Women’s Bible Study at our home, so I would take our children and the children of other participants to the beach to play and, if the sea was calm, to swim in the freezing cold waters.
On this particular day, the sea was extremely rough and stormy, so we all stayed on the beach playing tag and generally running around. Hanno, my eldest son, got a little too close, and a huge freak wave came roaring up the sandbank and did a pincer movement around him. I immediately ran to him and grabbed his hand thinking I would simply pull him out from what just looked like a lot of foam. But the power of the backwash was far too great and before I knew it, the current had swept us way out beyond the 3- to 4-meter-high waves. I had Hanno on my back, and I was struggling to keep us both afloat while trying to swim back to the shore. I kept getting sucked under by each successive wave.
After about fifteen minutes, I managed to get us in front of a very big wave and, with Hanno and myself kicking furiously, it barrelled us forward into some rocks. At this stage, my strength was failing…my hands were too cold to get a good grip on the rocks…the would-be rescuers couldn’t get to us as there was this seething mass of churching water between us and where they stood on the beach…but one thing kept me going. My son was on my back. I couldn’t give up. I had to get him out.
Black dots appeared before my eyes, and I realized time was running out…I couldn’t keep this up much longer. In a moment of sheer desperation, I grabbed Hanno by the shoulder and threw him over the water towards the group of men on the beach. Apparently, I threw him right over their heads. Amazing what adrenaline can do, no? But once I knew he was safe, I let go. I had saved my son and that was all I wanted to know.
Now, of course I was saved too otherwise I would not be here telling you about our terrifying ordeal…but that’s a story for another time. I was later told by the National Sea Rescue Institute that we were the first in living memory to come out of such a sea alive. Exactly a week later, along the same stretch of coastline, a pair of twin girls were swept away in a similar situation and drowned. So, Hanno and I consider ourselves most fortunate.
But what I want to point out is that the one great driving force behind all my efforts in that sea was my child. It never crossed my mind that I might be putting my own life in danger to save his…my primary instinctive reaction was to save him. But by this action I demonstrated that I was willing to die for my son.
I think this is the same driving force behind our Saviour’s incarnation…his love for us is so great that he was more than willing to give his life for ours. The Scriptures tell us that he was willing to lay down his life for the sheep. John tells us in his first epistle (1 John 4:9) that “in this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent his only begotten son into the world, that we might live through him.” Jesus came to die so that we might live.
We see these three roles (or offices) of Jesus in the passage we read today.
John divided the passage into three periods of time. In verses 29 and 35 and 43 he introduced the events described with the words “the next day”. In each section, he depicted Jesus as a Lamb or a shepherd to be followed, an anointed prophet or teacher to be heeded, and finally as God’s Chosen, the Messiah, the King of Israel. These three offices culminate in verses 50-51 where Jesus is portrayed as the only way or the only link between earth and heaven.
But today, I would like us just to look at the first office…Jesus as the Lamb of God…Jesus in his priestly role.
In the Old Testament, the pure and spotless lamb represented sacrifice and penitence. Every day, two perfect lambs, one in the morning and one in the evening, would be slaughtered and sacrificed as a daily atonement for sin. In our Exodus passage we read, “This is what you are to offer on the altar regularly each day: two lambs a year old. Offer one in the morning and the other at twilight.” This offering was to be continual throughout their generations.
The daily sacrifice was required if God was to have a relationship with Israel. But we know from Scripture that it wasn’t the blood of these offerings which made atonement for sin. Even in the Old Testament we read of God not being pleased with burnt offerings, thousands of rams, or ten thousand rivers of oil (Micha 6:6-7) because these offerings were simply signs and symbols of a far greater reality.
The author of the book of Hebrews tells us “…it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.” Which is perfectly logical when you think about it. How can any other part of creation pay the penalty for human sin? Humans alone are created in the image of God. Humans alone have sinned and have subjected the rest of crartion to frustration. Consequently, humans alone are responsible for their sin.
Yet humans are also trapped in their sin. Paul quoted from Psalm 14 in his letter to the Roman Church. “There is none righteous, no not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all gone out of the way; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one.” Could you make it any clearer than that?
Can we save ourselves? Not in a million years. We are born in sin and as such we are ensnared and entombed in sin.
We need a rescuer…a deliverer…a saviour, but if that saviour is to deal with human sin he would have to be human to begin with and he would also have to be free from sin himself as well. Nothing and no one else could deal with this dilemma.
We cannot for obvious reasons. Every human has their own sin to deal with. Of course, God could, but he may not without violating his own law and thus being himself guilty of injustice. So…what to do…?
Well, what if God were to take on the form of a human…?
This is what theologians call substitutionary atonement…but not like an animal taking the place of a human as that just can’t work as we have already seen. No, this would be a sinless human taking the place of sinful humans. As the author of the book of Hebrews (10:11-14) said, “Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But (and here it comes) when THIS PRIEST ( in other words Jesus) had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. For by one sacrifice (of himself) he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”
Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
In Matthew 1:21, the angel Gabriel revealed to Joseph the name by which he was to call the child whom Mary was carrying and by doing so, he revealed this child’s purpose. “She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” The name “Jesus” means “God saves” or “God delivers”. Jesus came to deliver his people from their slavery to sin by becoming a willing and fitting substitute.
We find a beautiful picture of what this substitution looks like in Genesis 22 where God tested Abraham by demanding the sacrifice of his one and only son, Isaac. Abraham, in spite of all the promises concerning a great nation that was to come forth from his loins, obeyed the command believing that somehow God would still do all he had promised, even if that meant raising Isaac back up from the dead. (I hope that you are catching all these amazing similarities between this event and Jesus.)
But an angel of the Lord stopped Abraham just before he was about to plunge the knife into his son and directed him to a ram caught in a thicket close by. This ram became a substitute for Isaac. The angel of the Lord then repeated the promise that through Abraham’s seed all the nations of the world would be blessed…a reference the New Testament authors picked up on and applied to Jesus. As Abraham demonstrated his love for God by not withholding his only son, so God too demonstrated his love for humanity by not withholding his only son…only Jesus was at once both the son and the substitute ram.
Then we also have the image of the Passover Lamb that died as a substitute instead of the firstborn of Israel in Egypt. The blood of this lamb was daubed on the lintels of the doors of the homes of the Israelites with a sprig of hyssop and the angel of death passed over those houses which were so marked with the blood of the lamb. And inside, the family feasted on the flesh of the lamb…the blood of the lamb and the flesh of the lamb…more images that should ring a few bells.
John pointed to Jesus and informed his disciples that that man walking by was the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world. So many Old Testament images coming together in one short statement. His blood marks and cleanses his people and they feed on him by faith.
It is no coincidence that Jesus was crucified at the very same time as the Passover lambs were being sacrificed in the Temple. It is also interesting to note that when Moses and Elijah spoke to Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration, the word used to describe Jesus’ death is “exodon”…as such the crucifixion was a new Exodus…the Lamb of God would be sacrificed and his blood would cause the angel of death to pass over all those who came under his protection.
Now, I believe the substitutionary death of Jesus has a two-fold emphasis. The fancy theological terms are expiation and propitiation. Some scholars believe that the two terms are diametrically opposed to each other and are, as such, mutually exclusive…but I beg to differ. I think that they complement each other.
Expiation has to do with cleansing…the washing away of sin. John said that Jesus is the Lamb of God that “takes away the sin of the world”. There are a number of Scriptural references to the removal of sins through washing. For instance Paul said that we were washed, we were sanctified, we were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:11)
However, the Scriptures also speak about averting the wrath of God as a just judgement on sin through sacrifice. In John 3:36 we read that whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son does not…instead, the wrath of God remains on him. There is a righteous and justifiable anger of God against sinners. It is the kind of anger you might feel when someone stronger uses, abuses, or injures someone weaker. But in 1 John 4:10 we read: “This is love…not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation or atoning sacrifice for our sin”. Here John shows us that the wrath of God is cancelled by the love of God through the sacrifice of Jesus. Jesus took upon himself the penalty for sin placed on humans after the Fall. Or as Isaiah said in chapter 53 of his book, “He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished.” And later in the same chapter, “He bore the sins of many and made intercession (or stood in the gap for) transgressors/sinners.” Propitiation – appeasing the righteous anger of God.
In Africa, as in other arid parts of the world, during the summers, bush fires can be quite frequent. The early settlers in these countries learned that if they made a smaller fire behind them and then moved onto the already burned areas with their livestock, the approaching larger fire would only come as far as the burnt section and then die down, because there was nothing more to burn. This is a good image of propitiation. Fire cannot burn twice in the same place. What’s burnt is burnt.
If we are to escape the approaching fire, then we need to move on to the land that has already been burned. We need to be in the Lamb of God…we need to be under his shed blood…then the fire cannot touch us.
Therefore, the Lamb of God issues the call: Follow me! It is only those who follow Jesus…who accept his substitutionary sacrifice…who come under his protection…it is only those who are spiritually marked by the blood of Jesus that can be delivered from slavery to sin. Only they will be free from the righteous anger of God against sin…only they will be be able to stand on already burnt ground…the burning anger of God has moved over that land and if we have followed, we are safe.
As John said about Jesus in the book of Revelation, “…you were slain and with your blood you purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation and you have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.”
Behold the Lamb of God…the Lamb who was willing to voluntarily give his life in the place of ours so that we might live together with him for all eternity. I had a very tiny little glimpse of this in may attempt to rescue my son from that raging sea…but by God’s grace, we both were saved in more ways than one.
Unlike Isaac, Jesus was not rescued…even though he could have called on ten legions of angels to rescue him…he did not. He drank the cup of God’s righteous anger until it was completely drained. He died the death we deserve.
But praise God, the story did not end there! On the third day, Jesus was raised from the dead…the first to be resurrected and to stay resurrected…and in his resurrection, God raised us up together with Jesus (as by a staircase, if you will) and seated us in heavenly places with him.
It is no longer necessary to sacrifice a lamb in the mornings and in the evenings. It is no longer necessary to daub the blood of the Passover lamb on the doorposts of our homes. Jesus has once for all entered into the most holy place in heaven with his own blood…and he has obtained for us an eternal redemption. He is the mediator of the New Covenant…he is the only connection between heaven and earth…the stairway, if you will…he is the only way to God.
As we enter the season in which we celebrate the coming of the Lamb, born to take away the sins of the world, let us meditate on the greatness of the Gift of Christmas. In the midst of the merriment and the bows and the tinsel and the lights and the fun, may we be filled to overflowing with the wonder of his love demonstrated so clearly in his life, his ministry, his death, and his resurrection.
Shall we pray?
© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2022
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