Christ as the Lamb of God is presented as a central theme throughout the Scriptures, beginning with its prophecy in Genesis 22 where Abraham foresaw God's provision of a lamb. This theme is further typified in Exodus 12 with the Passover lamb, which was selected, scrutinized, slain, and served as a substitute for the firstborn. The Lamb is then personified in Isaiah 53, highlighting his silent suffering and submission, and identified in John 1:29 as Jesus, the one who takes away the sin of the world. Finally, the Lamb is glorified in Revelation, depicted as worthy of worship, the object of God's wrath, and the center of the marriage supper, underscoring his ultimate triumph and divine status.
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Now, for our Bible study today, we continue with our main theme, Christ in all the Scriptures. And today we're going to take the title, Christ the Lamb of God. Now, of all the titles advancing the person and work and glories of Christ, This is one with unusual attraction and special interest. Commencing in Genesis and concluding in Revelation, there is a continuous progress in the unfolding of truth related to Christ as the Lamb.
By way of laying a foundation for this study, let me read to you some verses then. from the Holy Scriptures, commencing to read in Genesis chapter two, where we have the first mention of the Lamb. Verse seven of Genesis twenty-two. And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father and said, My father, he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold, the fire and the wood. But where is the lamb for a burnt offering?
And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. So they went both of them together. Then in verse thirteen of that same chapter, And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked. And behold, behind him a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. Now I'll read to you another few verses from the prophecy of Isaiah and chapter This is a well-known verse.
Isaiah chapter fifty-three, verse seven. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter. There is a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. coming from the Old Testament now and moving over into the New Testament. The Gospel according to John chapter one verse twenty nine. The next day John seeeth Jesus coming unto him and says, Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.
Then you come to the final book of the Bible, the book of Revelation. And reading at verse eleven of chapter five, Revelation chapter five, verse eleven, I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the living creatures and the elders, The number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.
And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessings and honour and glory and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever. And the four living creatures said Amen. The four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped him that liveth forever. and ever. I'm sure the Lord will bless to us the reading of these scriptures.
Now it is interesting if you were to take your Bible and read not only the scriptures I have read to you, but other verses from the Bible that tell us things about the Lamb. We shall confine ourselves today to five different portions of Scripture that present to us certain features or characteristics about the Lamb, and all these converging, as it were, on the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I read to you from the book of Genesis chapter twenty-two. It's that familiar passage you learn perhaps when you were children in the Sunday school concerning Abraham and his son Isaac, when God had told Abraham to go to the place that he would tell him of and there he was to make the offering. But as they are ascending that mountain path, going up to Mount Moriah, Isaac looks around and being very perceptive.
He says, now we've got the wood and we've got the fire and we're going to make the sacrifice. But he says to his father, where is the lamb for a burnt offering? It seems that Isaac was conversant enough with worship. and with the presentation of a sacrifice to God that he knew it would require something to offer on the altar. At that moment he didn't know that it was expected that he would be the sacrifice. He said, Where is the lamb for the burnt offering?
Abraham, in giving his answer to his son, made a very terse statement. It says, God shall provide himself a lamb. Now, I suggest to you that here we have the lamb prophesied. Abraham makes this prophecy. Whether he understood the full implication of it or not is a very moot question. Perhaps Abraham only thought of the immediate need, and if there was a need there and then, he had confidence in the fact that God would provide that need, which he did.
But on the other hand, is it possible that Abraham had some kind of premonition here that He was prophesying of something that would take place in days to come, that there would be a Lamb, and that Lamb would be provided not only by God, but would be God Himself manifest in the flesh. God will provide Himself a Lamb. And that Lamb was provided, for when the vital moment came, and the voice of God was heard saying, Abraham, Abraham.
And when Abraham turned and looked, he saw a ram caught by its horns in the thicket. There was God's provision. Now, in reading down through that passage relative to Abraham and Isaac and the offering of that lamb, you must take note of the purpose of God. What was the purpose of God? In that particular chapter, he was testing Abraham's faith. But the purpose of God leads to the provision of God.
It's very interesting to notice that he called it the place Jehovah Jireh. God will provide. There was the provision of God. And when the vital time came, God's Lamb was there. And the first picture you have of the Lamb is that of one that was caught by its horns in the thicket. In plain words, it was crowned with thorns. And from that place, Abraham took the ram and offered it upon the altar to God.
Also in that same passage you have the promises of God. Abraham's faith did not fail. He was faithful and he offered to God that which God provided and that which God requested. He laid his Son on the altar, perfectly true, But the Lamb of God's providing became the substitute for Isaac. And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah Jireh, as it is said to this day in the Mount of the Lord, it shall be seen.
And God provided for Abraham. And God made promises to Abraham. By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because there is done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed, as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore, thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies. And in thy seed Shall all nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice.
So there, first of all, we have the Lamb prophesied. God shall provide himself a Lamb. The next great scripture that deals with the thought of the Lamb is found in the book of Exodus chapter twelve. Now that chapter is dealing with what is commonly referred to as the Passover, the time when the calendar was changed. And here we have the lamb typified. At that time they were to take a lamb.
Now remember this lamb was selected. It was chosen out from amongst the others. It wasn't just any lamb. It was chosen out. And you know, when I come to the New Testament, I discover that when references made to the Lord Jesus Christ as the lamb, Peter tells us we have been redeemed, not with such corruptible things as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb, without blemish and without spot. And he goes on to tell us that this Lamb was foreordained from before the foundation of the world.
He was chosen out to be the Lamb of Calvary, the Lamb of God. And so the Lamb was first selected. And we have this typified back in the book of Exodus. But after that lamb was chosen out, selected on the tenth day, it was kept up for four days, and during those four days it was set aside, and it was being watched. In plain words, the lamb was being scrutinized in order to make sure that it was fit to be a sacrifice offered to God.
Any old lamb wouldn't do. When the Lord Jesus Christ came to this earth, He lived in almost seclusion for thirty years. But at the end of that thirty years, His Father declared from heaven above, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. That was God's verdict on the silent years that the Lord spent up in the town of Nazareth in the hills of Galilee. The Father's eye was upon him. He watched his every move. His ear could listen to his every word, and having scrutinized him, having watched him, he gave his verdict, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
But not only did his Father watch him, After he entered out into his public ministry, others watched him, especially those who were opposed to him, his enemies. But at the end they had to declare there was no fault in him. Even Pilate, the man who judged him, said he found no fault in him. Then again Judas, who betrayed him, said, I have betrayed him. the innocent blood. The man who stood at the cross and was responsible for his crucifixion, that centurion said, Surely this was a righteous man, truly the Son of God.
One of the men that died on the crosses with him on Calvary said, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And turning to the other man, he said, This man hath done nothing amiss. So whether it was the verdict of Judas, or the verdict of Pilate, or the verdict of the dying thief, they all spoke concerning the fact there was no sin in him. Peter, One of his followers said, "'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.'
Yes, he was the Lamb selected, chosen out before the foundation of the world, scrutinized in every detail during his lifetime here, but that Lamb had to be slain. On the fourteen day of that month the Lamb was taken. The Lamb was slain, and the blood was sprinkled on the doorposts of the houses where the people were. It was the night of the Passover. You see, my friend, it typifies this fact, that the Lord Jesus Christ may have come from the glory and became a man amongst men.
He may have humbled himself, but remember, It was absolutely essential that he should die on Calvary's cross. That was no afterthought with God. That was in the eternal purposes of God. That lamb had to be slain. So the slaying of the lamb was very important. But remember that lamb was a substitute. Just as the lamb was a substitute on Mount Moriah, When Abraham laid the lamb on the altar and Isaac was taken from the altar, the lamb became the substitute for Isaac.
In Exodus chapter twelve, the lamb was the substitute for the firstborn in every house. And so therefore the one who was the firstborn could look upon that lamb and say, That lamb is dying for me. He died in the place of the firstborn. The Lamb was a substitute. So therefore we see the Lamb typified in Exodus chapter twelve. It was selected, scrutinized, slain, and became the substitute for another. Oh, how true to the picture when you turn that attention to the New Testament, the Lord Jesus Christ selected by God the Father, scrutinized by those on earth, slain on Calvary's cross, there as a substitute for the sinner.
And you could stand at the cross and use the words of the great Apostle Paul and say, The Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. But then when you look at this scripture in Isaiah fifty three, you've moved now into the prophetic scriptures. And here we find the lamb personified. In this verse it is obvious that the lamb must be a person, because it distinctly says he is led as a lamb to the slaughter.
Read down through Isaiah fifty-three, and it is obvious that this is a great prophetic chapter speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ. You can prove that conclusively by comparing it with what we have in the Acts of the Apostles chapter eight. When you find Philip the Evangelist riding in the chariot with the Ethiopian They were reading at this very scripture, Isaiah fifty-three. And the Ethiopian said to Philip the Evangelist, Now, of whom was the prophet speaking?
Was he referring this to himself, or was he speaking of some other person? And Philip the Evangelist began at the same scripture and preached unto him, Jesus, showing conclusively that what was written in Isaiah fifty-three was concerning this coming one, the Lord Jesus Christ. So we have the Lamb personified. He is a person. Note the silence of the Lamb. He opened not his mouth. Note the submission of the Lamb.
He is led as a lamb. Notice the sufferings of the lamb. He is led to the slaughter. Isn't it remarkable what the Lord Jesus Christ was taken before his accusers? They marveled that he opened not his mouth. He never spoke in his own defense. Notice his submission. He allowed them to come in the garden And there they took him captive. When he could have called legions of angels from heaven above, they could have overthrown his enemies. But he was led as a lamb.
They led him silently to the judgment hall. Then notice the sufferings of the lamb. When he suffered in the judgment hall, they crowned him with thorns. They smote him with their hands. And then they led him out to nail him to a Roman cross, left him there to language. And the Lamb is personified. He is led as a Lamb. And these things you learn from the Old Testament. The Lamb was prophesied, Genesis twenty-two. The Lamb was typified, Exodus twelve.
The Lamb is personified, Isaiah fifty-three. Then you ask again, where shall we find him? Where is he? When you turn then to the New Testament and you find Christ in person, and here in John chapter one, verse twenty-nine, the Lamb is identified. One day while John the Baptist was preaching, down by the banks of Jordan, And the Lord Jesus Christ came on the scene. John was able, as it were, to point to him, and he says, Behold, Luke and see, look, there is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.
Here the person of the Lamb is identified. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God's providing. Our way back in Genesis twenty-two, Abraham said, God will provide himself a lamb. John the Baptist said, There he is. Behold him, the lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world. Look to the lamb. He came to deal with the world's greatest problem, and that was sin. The purpose and power of the Lamb is seen in this.
He was capable of taking away the sin of the world. But when you come to the book of the Revelation, remember here now we have the Lamb glorified. In the last book of the Bible, the Lamb is mentioned about twenty-eight times and sets forth the wonderful glories of Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God. In chapter five, there is set before us the worthiness of the Lamb, when those great heavenly choruses are heard ascribing all the praise and the glories to the Lamb that was sitting upon the throne.
There is the worship of the Lamb in that same chapter. At the close of the chapter they fall down and they worship Him. But when you turn the page to chapter six, you discover there at the opening of the seals at the time of judgment, there is the wrath of the Lamb, when men trembled, thinking that the great day of his wrath had come. But when you turn to Revelation chapter nineteen, there's a great wedding scene, there's the marriage of the Lamb, and you're introduced to the Lamb's wife, who has made herself ready.
Ah, my friend, the Lord Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God. Behold the Lamb with glory crowned. To him all praise is given. No place too high for him is found. No place too high in heaven. He is the worthy one. We have the Lamb prophesied. The Lamb typified. The Lamb personified. The Lamb identified. And thank God we have the Lamb glorified. My friend, do you know him? John said, Behold, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.