The next day John sees Jesus coming to him, and said, Behold the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world.

Behold.

John 1:36 And looking on Jesus as he walked, he said, Behold the Lamb of God!

Genesis 22:7,8 And Isaac spoke to Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he …

Exodus 12:3-13 Speak you to all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth …

Numbers 28:3-10 And you shall say to them, This is the offering made by fire which …

Isaiah 53:7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: …

Acts 8:32 The place of the scripture which he read was this, He was led as …

1 Peter 1:19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish …

Revelation 5:6,8,12,13 And I beheld, and, see, in the middle of the throne and of the four …

Revelation 6:1,16 And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as …

Revelation 7:9,10,14,17 After this I beheld, and, see, a great multitude, which no man could …

Revelation 12:11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of …

Revelation 13:8 And all that dwell on the earth shall worship him…

Revelation 14:1,4,10 And I looked, and, see, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with …

Revelation 15:3 And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song …

Revelation 17:14 These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: …

Revelation 19:7,9 Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to him: for the marriage …

Revelation 21:9,14,22,23,27 And there came to me one of the seven angels which had the seven …

Revelation 22:1-3 And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, …

which.

Isaiah 53:11 He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: …

Hosea 14:2 Take with you words, and turn to the LORD: say to him, Take away …

Matthew 20:28 Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered to, but to minister, …

Acts 13:39 And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which …

1 Corinthians 15:3 For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received, how …

2 Corinthians 5:21 For he has made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might …

Galatians 1:4 Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this …

Galatians 3:13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse …

1 Timothy 2:6 Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.

Titus 2:14 Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, …

Hebrews 1:3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his …

Hebrews 2:17 Why in all things it behooved him to be made like to his brothers…

Hebrews 9:28 So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many…

1 Peter 2:24 Who his own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that …

1 Peter 3:18 For Christ also has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, …

1 John 2:2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but …

1 John 3:5 And you know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin.

1 John 4:10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and …

Revelation 1:5 And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first …

taketh. or, beareth.

Exodus 28:38 And it shall be on Aaron's forehead, that Aaron may bear the iniquity …

Leviticus 10:17 Why have you not eaten the sin offering in the holy place, seeing …

Leviticus 16:21,22 And Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, …

Numbers 18:1,23 And the LORD said to Aaron, You and your sons and your father's house …

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

1:29-36 John saw Jesus coming to him, and pointed him out as the Lamb of God. The paschal lamb, in the shedding and sprinkling of its blood, the roasting and eating of its flesh, and all the other circumstances of the ordinance, represented the salvation of sinners by faith in Christ. And the lambs sacrificed every morning and evening, can only refer to Christ slain as a sacrifice to redeem us to God by his blood. John came as a preacher of repentance, yet he told his followers that they were to look for the pardon of their sins to Jesus only, and to his death. It agrees with God's glory to pardon all who depend on the atoning sacrifice of Christ. He takes away the sin of the world; purchases pardon for all that repent and believe the gospel. This encourages our faith; if Christ takes away the sin of the world, then why not my sin? He bore sin for us, and so bears it from us. God could have taken away sin, by taking away the sinner, as he took away the sin of the old world; but here is a way of doing away sin, yet sparing the sinner, by making his Son sin, that is, a sin-offering, for us. See Jesus taking away sin, and let that cause hatred of sin, and resolutions against it. Let us not hold that fast, which the Lamb of God came to take away. To confirm his testimony concerning Christ, John declares the appearance at his baptism, in which God himself bore witness to him. He saw and bare record that he is the Son of God. This is the end and object of John's testimony, that Jesus was the promised Messiah. John took every opportunity that offered to lead people to Christ.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 29. - On the following day. Next after the day on which the Sanhedrin had heard from John the vindication of his own right to baptize in virtue of the commencement of the Messiah's ministry, which as yet was concealed from all eyes but his own. He [John ] seeth Jesus coming towards him, within reach of observation (certainly not, as Ewald and others have imagined, to be baptized of him, for, as we have seen, the statements of ver. 33 exclude the possibility of such a purpose. The design of Jesus is not stated. The evangelist is here occupied with the testimony of the Baptist to Christ. Enough is said to provide the opportunity for the most wonderful and mysterious utterances of the forerunner. Behold (ἴδε in the singular, although several persons are addressed, is not unusual; see Matthew 10:16 and John 11:3) the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. We should observe, from the later context, that already John had perceived by special signs and Divine inspiration that Jesus was the Son of God, and the veritable Baptizer with the Holy Ghost; that he was before him in dignity, honour, and by pre-existence, although his earthly ministry had been delayed until after John's preparatory work had been done. John had felt that the "confession of sins" made by the guilty multitude, by generations of vipers, was needful, rational, imperative upon them; but that in the case of Jesus this confession was not only superfluous, but a kind of contradiction in terms. The Lord over whom the heavens had opened, and to whom the heavenly name had been given, fulfilling all righteousness by submitting to the baptism of repentance unto the remission of sins, was a profound perplexity to the Baptist. Strange was it that he who would have power to deal with the Holy Ghost even as John had been using water should have been called in any real sense to confess the sins of his own nature or life. John believed that Jesus was the Source of a fiery purity and purifying power, and that according to his own showing he had rejected all proposals which might bring Israel to his feet by assuming the role of their conquering Messiah. He had even treated these suggestions as temptations of the devil. Not to save his physical life from starvation would he use his miraculous energies for his own personal ends. Not to bring the whole Sanhedrin, priesthood, and temple guard, nay, even the Roman governor and court, to his feet, will he utter a word or wave a signal which they could misunderstand. His purpose was to identify himself, Son of God though he be, with the world - to "suffer all, that he might succour all." Because John knew that Jesus was so great he was brought to apprehend the veritable fact and central reality of the Lord's person and work. He saw by a Divine inspiration what Jesus was, and what he was about to do. The simple supposition that Jesus had made John the Baptist his confidant, on his return from the wilderness of temptation and victory, and that we owe the story of the temptation to the facts of Christ's experience which had been communicated to John, do more than any other supposition does to expound the standpoint of John's remarkable exclamation. A library of discussion and exposition has been produced by the words which John uttered on this occasion, and different writers have taken opposite views, which in their origin proceed from the same root. The early Greek interpreters were moving in a true direction when they looked to the celebrated oracle of Isaiah 53 as the primary signification of the great phrase, "The Lamb of God." The image used to portray the suffering Sin-bearer is the "Lamb brought silently to the slaughter," "a Sheep dumb before his shearers." Doubtless the first implication of this comparison arose from the prophet's conception of the patience, gentleness, and submission of the sublime but suffering "Servant of God;" but the fourth, fifth, sixth, and twelfth verses of that chapter are so charged with the sin bearing of the great Victim, the vicarious and propitiatory virtue of his agony unto death, that we cannot separate the one from the other. He who is led as a Lamb to the slaughter bears our sins and suffers pain for us, is wounded on account of our transgressions: "The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all... it pleased the Lord to bruise him," etc. The Servant of God is God's Lamb, appointed and consecrated for the highest work of sacrificial suffering and death. The LXX. has certainly used the verb φέρειν, to bear, where John uses αἴρειν, to take away. Meyer suggests that in the idea of αἄρειν the previous notion of φέρειν is involved and presupposed. The Hebrew formula, נָשָׂא חֵטְא and נָשָׂא עָון, are variously translated by the LXX., but generally in the sense of bearing the consequences of personal guilt or the sin of another (Numbers 14:34; Leviticus 5:17; Leviticus 20:17; Ezekiel 18:19). In Leviticus 10:17 it is distinctly used of the priestly expiation for sin to be effected by Eleazar. Here and elsewhere נָשָׂא is translated in the LXX. by ἀφαιρεῖν, where God as the subject of the verb is described as lifting off sin from the transgressor and by bearing it himself - bearing it away. In several places the LXX. has gone further, translating the word, when God is the subject, by ἀφιεναί, with the idea of forgiveness (Psalm 32:5; Psalm 85:3; Genesis 50:17; Isaiah 33:24). Hence the Baptist, in using the word αἴρειν, had doubtless in his mind the large connotation of the Hebrew word נָשָׂא with the fundamental prerequisite of the taking away, which the oracle of Isaiah had suggested to him. John knew that the taking away of sin involved the twofold process:

(1) the conference of a new spiritual life by the gift and grace of the Holy Spirit; and

(2) such a removal of the consequences and shame and peril of sin as is involved by the bearing of sins in his own Divine personality. Thus he not only perceived from the accompaniments of the baptism that Jesus was the Son of God and the Baptizer with the Holy Ghost, but that, being these, his meek submission and his triumphant repudiation of the temptations of the devil which were based upon the fact of his Divine sonship proved that he was the Divine sin-bearing Lamb of Isaiah's oracle. Many commentators have, however, seen a special reference to the Paschal lamb, with which Christ's work was, without hesitation, compared in later years (1 Corinthians 5:7). There can be no doubt that the Passover lamb was a "sin offering" (Hengstenberg, 'Christ of the Old Testament,' vol. 4:351; Baur, 'Uber die Ursprung und Bedeutung des Passah-Fest,' quoted by Lucke, 1:404). It was God's sacrifice by pre-eminence, and the blood of the lamb was offered to God to make atonement, and it freed Israel from the curse that fell on the firstborn of Egypt. John, the son of a sacrificing priest, the Nazarite, the stern prophet of the wilderness, was familiar with all the ritual and the lessons of that solemn festival; and might look on the Son of God, selected for this sacrifice, as fulfilling in singular and unique fashion the function of the Passover Lamb for the whole world. But John would not be limited by the Paschal associations. Day by day lambs were presented before God as burnt offerings, as expressions of the desire of the offerers to accept absolutely the supreme will of God. Moreover, the lamb of the trespass offering was slain for atonement (Leviticus 4:35; Leviticus 14:11; Numbers 6:12), either when physical defilement excluded the sufferer from temple worship, or when a Nazarite had lost the advantage of his vow by contact with the dead. Even the ceremonial of the great Day of Atonement, though other animal victims were used, suggested the same great thought of propitiatory suffering and death. These various forms of sacrificial worship must have been in the minds of both Isaiah and John. They are the key to Isaiah's prophecy, and this in its turn is the basis of the cry of John. The New Testament apostles and evangelists, whether accurate or not in their exegesis, did repeatedly take this oracle of Isaiah's as descriptive of the work of the Lord, and other early Christian writers treated the chapter as though it were a fragment of their contemporaneous evidence and exposition (Matthew 8:17; 1 Peter 2:22-25; Acts 8:28; Luke 22:37; Revelation 5:6; Revelation 13:8; Romans 10:16; Clement, '1 Ep. ad Cor.,' 16.). John was standing further back, and on an Old Testament platform, but we have, in his knowledge of Isaiah's prophecies, and his familiarity with the sacrificial system of which that oracle foreshadowed the fulfilment, quite enough to account for the burning words in which he condensed the meaning of the ancient sacrifices, and saw them all transcended in the suffering Son of God. The author of 'Ecce Homo,' by identifying the "Lamb of God" with the imagery of Psalm 23, supposed that John saw, in the inward repose and spiritual joyfulness of Jesus, the power he would wield to take away the sin of the world. "He (John) was one of the dogs of the flock of Jehovah, Jesus was one of the Lambs of the good Shepherd." There is no hint whatever of these ideas in the psalm. This curiosity of exegesis has not secured any acceptance. Some difficulty has been felt in the fact that John should have made such progress in New Testament thought; but the experience through which John has passed during his contact with Jesus, the sentiment with which he found the Lord whom he sought coming to his baptism, the agony that he foresaw must follow the contact of such a One with the prejudices and sins of the people, above all, the mode in which our Lord was treating the current expectation of Messiah regarding its eagerly desired manifestations as temptations of the devil, flashed the whole of Isaiah's oracle into sudden splendour. He saw the Lamb already led to slaughter, and his blood upon the very door posts of every house; he saw him lifting, bearing, carrying away, the sin of the world, all impurity, transgression, and shame. His atoning sacrifice is already going on. The sins of mankind fall on the Holy One. He sees him pouring out his soul unto death, and making gentle intercession for his murderers; so in a glorious ecstasy he cries, "BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD!" (see my 'John the Baptist,' ch. 6. § 2, pp. 369-386).

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him,.... Not to be baptized, for he had been baptized before by him. This seems to have been after Christ had been forty days in the wilderness, from whence he now returned, and came to attend on John's ministry; both to do honour to him, and that he might be made manifest by him; and this was the day after John had bore such a testimony concerning him, to the priests and Levites; and which Christ the omniscient God, knew full well, and therefore came at this season, when the minds of the people were prepared by John's testimony, to expect and receive him: one part of the work of Elias, which the Jews assign unto him, and the precise time of his doing it, exactly agree with this account of John the Baptist; they say (c), that his work is

“to bring to them (the Israelites) the good news of the coming of the Redeemer; and this shall be, , "one day", before the coming of the, Messiah; and this is that which is written, "behold I will send you Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord". Malachi 4:5.

For John, the day before Christ Lord, came to him, had signified to the priests and Levites, that the Messiah was already come; and now on the day following, seeing him, pointed as with his finger to him,

and saith, behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world: he calls him a "lamb", either with respect to any lamb in common, for his harmlessness and innocence; for his meekness and humility; for his patience; and for his usefulness, both for food and clothing, in a spiritual sense; as well as for his being to be a sacrifice for the sins of his people: or else with respect to the lambs that were offered in sacrifice, under the legal dispensation; and that either to the passover lamb, or rather to the lambs of the daily sacrifice, that were offered morning and evening; since the account of them best agrees with what is said of this Lamb of God, who was slain in type, in the morning of the world, or from the foundation of the world; and actually in the evening of the world, or in the end of it; and who has a continued virtue to take away the sins of his people, from the beginning, to the end of the world; and their sins, both of the day and night, or which are committed every day: for as they are daily committed, there is need of the daily application of the blood and sacrifice of Christ, to remove them; or of continual looking unto him by faith, whose blood has a continual virtue, to cleanse from all sin: the Jewish doctors say (d), that "the morning daily sacrifice made atonement for the iniquities done in the night; and the evening sacrifice made atonement for the iniquities that were by day:

and in various things they were typical of Christ, as that they were lambs of the first year, which may denote the weakness of the human nature of Christ, which had all the sinless infirmities of it; they, were also without spot, signifying the purity of Christ's human nature, who was holy and harmless, a lamb without spot and blemish; these were offered as a sacrifice, and for the children of Israel only, as Christ has given himself an offering and a sacrifice to God, both in soul and body, for the sins of the mystical Israel of God, the Israel whom God has chosen for himself, whether Jews or Gentiles; for Christ is the propitiation for the sins of both: and these were offered daily, morning and evening; and though Christ was but once offered, otherwise he must have often suffered; yet as he has by one offering put away sin for ever, so there is a perpetual virtue in his sacrifice to take it away, and there is a constant application of it for that purpose; to which may be added, that these lambs were offered with fine flour, oil and wine, for a sweet savour to the Lord; denoting the acceptableness of the sacrifice of Christ to his Father, to whom it is for a sweet smelling savour, Ephesians 5:2. And Christ is styled the Lamb "of God", in allusion to the same, whom the Cabalistic Jews (e) call the secret of the mystery, and , "the Lambs of God"; because God has a special property in him; he is his own Son; and because he is of his providing and appointing, as a sacrifice for sin, and is acceptable to him as such; and to distinguish him from all other lambs; and to give him the preference, since he does that which they could not do, "taketh away the sin of the world": by the "sin of the world", is not meant the sin, or sins of every individual person in the world; for some die in their sins, and their sins go before hand to judgment, and they go into everlasting punishment for them; which could not be, if Christ took them away: rather, the sin which is common to the whole world, namely: original sin; but then it must be observed, that this is not the only sin Christ takes away; for he also takes away actual sins; and the Arabic and Ethiopic versions read in the plural, "the sins of the world"; and also that this he takes away, only with respect the elect; wherefore they are the persons intended by the world, as in John 6:33, whose sin, or sins, Christ takes away: and a peculiar regard seems to be had to the elect among the Gentiles, who are called the world, in distinction from the Jews, as in John 3:16, and the rather, since the lambs of the daily sacrifice, to which the allusion is, were only offered for the sins of the Jews: but John here signifies, that the Lamb of God he pointed at, and which was the antitype of these lambs, not only took away the sins of God's people among the Jews, but the sins of such of them also as were among the Gentiles; and this seems to me to be the true sense of the passage. The phrase "taking away sin", signifies a taking it up, as Christ did; he took it voluntarily upon himself, and became responsible to divine justice for it; and also a bearing and carrying it, for taking it upon himself, he bore it in his own body on the tree, and carried it away, as the scape goat did under the law; and so likewise a taking it quite away: Christ has removed it as far as the east is from the west, out of sight, so as never to be seen any more; he has destroyed, abolished, and made an utter end of it: and this is expressed in the present tense, "taketh away": to denote the continued virtue of Christ's sacrifice to take away sin, and the constant efficacy of his blood to cleanse from it, and the daily application of it to the consciences of his people; and which is owing to the dignity of his person, as the Son of God; and to his continual and powerful mediation and intercession: this must be a great relief to minds afflicted with the continual ebullitions of sin, which is taken away by the Lamb of God, as fast as it rises; and who, for that purpose, are called to "behold", and wonder at, the love and grace of Christ, in taking up, bearing, and taking away sin; and to look to him by faith continually, for everlasting salvation; and love him, and give him the honour of it, and glorify him for it,

(c) R. Abraham ben David in Misn. Ediot, c. 8. sect. 7. (d) R. Menachem, fol. 115. apud Ainsworth, in Exodus 29.39. (e) Raya Mehimna, in Zohar in Lev. fol. 33. 2.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

29. seeth Jesus—fresh, probably, from the scene of the temptation.

coming unto him—as to congenial company (Ac 4:23), and to receive from him His first greeting.

and saith—catching a sublime inspiration at the sight of Him approaching.

the Lamb of God—the one God-ordained, God-gifted sacrificial offering.

that taketh away—taketh up and taketh away. The word signifies both, as does the corresponding Hebrew word. Applied to sin, it means to be chargeable with the guilt of it (Ex 28:38; Le 5:1; Eze 18:20), and to bear it away (as often). In the Levitical victims both ideas met, as they do in Christ, the people's guilt being viewed as transferred to them, avenged in their death, and so borne away by them (Le 4:15; 16:15, 21, 22; and compare Isa 53:6-12; 2Co 5:21).

the sin—The singular number being used to mark the collective burden and all-embracing efficacy.

of the world—not of Israel only, for whom the typical victims were exclusively offered. Wherever there shall live a sinner throughout the wide world, sinking under that burden too heavy for him to bear, he shall find in this "Lamb of God," a shoulder equal to the weight. The right note was struck at the first—balm, doubtless, to Christ's own spirit; nor was ever after, or ever will be, a more glorious utterance