When John the Baptist saw Jesus coming unto him he said, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” This was the clear and unmistakable testimony of one who was sent as the Forerunner of the Saviour. It is true that on another occasion John sent two of his disciples to Jesus saying, “Art Thou He that should come or do we look for another?” But here there is no doubt in John’s mind that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.
How did John come to have this realisation that Jesus was indeed the Christ? He gives the answer to this question himself when he says: “And I knew Him not: but He that sent me to baptise with water, the same said unto me, Upon Whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on Him, the same is He which baptiseth with the Holy Ghost.” And he adds, “And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God.” It was at Christ’s baptism at the beginning of Christ’s public ministry in the world that John received this confirmation that Jesus was indeed the Christ. Not only did John have the witness of the Holy Spirit to confirm the Messiahship of Jesus of Nazareth but he had the witness of the Father as well in the voice which came from heaven saying, “This is My Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” The Saviour Himself also bore witness to the same glorious fact of His Messiahship when, in the synagogue in Nazareth, he read from the prophet Isaiah that passage — “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me because He hath anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He hath sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord” — and then declared to the assembled congregation, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.”
It is to this glorious Saviour that we, as poor, needy, lost sinners are directed in the Scriptures of truth — to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. “Neither,” said Peter at Jerusalem, “is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” What ample provision has been made in the Lord Jesus Christ for the needs of the lost. There is in Him what will meet the sinner’s need for time and for eternity if he but look to Him. It is because He is the Lamb of God that He is an all-suitable and all-sufficient Saviour for the chief of sinners. In His sufferings and death He has made an end of sin for ever for all who put their trust in Him. He has rendered perfect obedience unto the divine law and He has satisfied justice and these can have no claim any longer on those who are in Him.
What reason we have to trust in Him who is the only Saviour of sinners! He has finished the work that was given Him to do. He is now the risen, exalted, glorified One at God’s right hand, who ever liveth to make intercession for His people. To Him the Scripture directs us to look. To Him we are invited to come in all our misery and lostness and trust in Him for eternity. What an awful sin unbelief must be when it involves rejection of such a glorious Saviour! What an awful meeting Christ-rejecters will have with the Lord Jesus Christ when He appears in the clouds of heaven at the last day to judge the quick and the dead! May such a meeting not be ours but may we come to know Him as our own personal Saviour through a Spirit-wrought faith in our hearts by which we shall be enabled to look to Him and embrace Him in the gospel of His grace.
Certain it is that none perish that Him trust. So is it also certain that all who have truly come to Him have no regrets that they ever came to Him. They marvel indeed that they remained so long a stranger to Him — such a glorious Saviour — through unbelief. They bemoan the hardness of their heart that kept them so far from Him so long. Having come to Him they prize Him — “Unto you therefore that believe He is precious.” They shelter under the blood of atonement and are heirs of everlasting glory. As long as they are left in this world this is the song that they will be singing in their heart as they taste of His love —
“Whom have I in the heavens high
but Thee O Lord alone?
And in the earth whom I desire
besides Thee there is none.”