"Behold the Lamb of God"

"Adoration of the Mystic Lamb", Jan van Eyck, central panel, detail  (circa 1426–1432)

²⁹ The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. ³⁰ This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me: for he was before me. ³¹ And I knew him not: but that he should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water. ³² And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him. ³³ And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. ³⁴ And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God. ³⁵ Again the next day after John stood, and two of his disciples; ³⁶ And looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God! (John 1:29-36 KJV)

The words that we read at the beginning of v. 35 ("Again the next day ...") emphasize that this is the third day since John the Baptist was introduced to us and, faced with the insistent questions of the "Jews", he declared to be only the "voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord", the voice of the forerunner and announcer of the Messiah. The second day John "sees Jesus coming unto him" and addressing his disciples, he said, "Behold the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world", he who "baptizes in the Holy Spirit ... the Son of God". The following day, meeting Jesus again, turning to his disciples, he says again: "Behold the Lamb of God!" This insisted reference to Jesus, on the part of John the Baptist, as "the Lamb of God", who even "takes away the sin of the world" is not accidental. It is hard to think that John the Baptist does not refer (or at least the author of the Gospel does not attribute to him a reference) to the sacrificial role of Jesus. Isaiah 53 can be heard here, and in particular "... he was like a lamb led to the slaughterhouse ... he shall bear their iniquities" (Is 53:7,11). But how would John the Baptist, who repeatedly declares, regarding Jesus, "I did not know him" (Jn 1:31,33), recognize in him the "suffering servant" destined for the atoning sacrifice? It is possible to think that, once again, John the Baptist had in mind another poem on the "Suffering Servant", in which it is said, "I have put my spirit upon him" (Is 42:1, see also Is 61:1-2, which Jesus applies to himself in the synagogue of Nazareth - Lk 4:18-19). And indeed John says:

And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me: "Upon whom you shall see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizes with the Holy Spirit." (Jn 1:33)

It has also been suggested that, if the Greek text of the Gospel of John is, at least in part, the translation from an original Aramaic, then "lamb of God" could be the literal translation of talyâ d'alâhâ, in which talyâ can mean not only "lamb", but also "son" and "servant" ^#. In short, the expression may contain a "stratification" of multiple meanings. We could have here, on the part of John the Baptist (or of the author of the Gospel) a kind of play on words, which would allude not only to Jesus as "lamb of God" (spotless, that is the perfect sacrificial victim), but also as "son of God" (at least in the sense of his messianic dignity) and "servant of God", in the same sense in which Isaiah uses this expression (Is 42, 49, 50, 52-53), and likewise the Apostle Paul (Phil 2:7-8): the perfect, even slave-like obedience of the Son of God to God, the Father Almighty.

^# The Aramaic origin of the Fourth Gospel, C.F. Burney, 1922, p. 107. Before proposing the “Aramaic solution”, Burney suggests also that the expression "lamb of God" may harken back to Genesis 22, and, in particular to the phrase, “God will provide himself a lamb ...” (Gen 22:8)