John 1:17-51 "The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world"

Continuing in our examination of the Gospel of John from a presupposition that God will actually accomplish what He set out to do: the Restoration of ALL. We are specifically setting out verses which either refers to this or the converse side. Read the whole chapter to maintain context.

17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. This will be examined more later. Jesus said he did not come to abolish the law, but to fufill it. In looking at the actions of Jesus in the chapters to come we will see he often behaved contrary to the law of Moses. If we are to ask WWJD? we must note that He did not honor the law of Moses very much. Jesus brings both grace and truth. Grace means unmerited, unconditional favor. That's a hard truth for the legalistic folks.

29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! This one just blows me away. Here we have John the Baptist, the one sent ahead to make way for a new order between God and man, and he is proclaiming that Jesus takes away the sin of the world. There are no qualifiers here, no specifying that just those who believe will be saved. Indeed, the whole world becomes sinless, which to me indicates that not just humankind is brought into restoration, but all the earth---all of creation. The term Lamb of God is important. I don't truly understand the whole sacrifice thing; I suspect that in Old Testament times the sacrifice process was simply a type and shadow of the sacrifice God Himself would make by and through His Son Jesus. If we simply looked to John's proclamation, we would be done here: Jesus took away the sin of the world. Amazing.

To Be Continued...