“Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”
– John 1:29
If you’ve grown up in a church, or even been part of one for not too long, you must be familiar with this verse.
Not just because it’s in the Bible, but also because it’s in so many worship songs that we sing.
These words were said by John the Baptist – the one whose purpose was to prepare the way for Jesus and to point to Him.
John the Baptist looked at Jesus coming toward him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
And that is an awesome thing to behold. Because John is saying that this Lamb, this Jesus, is going to rid us of our sins. He is going to take them far far away, and we won’t be slaves to our sins anymore.
That is really good news.
Unfortunately, that is where we stop.
Unfortunately, many of us are satisfied with just that part of the news. We are content that Jesus is here to take our sins away.
We think that’s all John cared about, and that’s all that John announced.
Fortunately, though, John didn’t stop there. He had more to say.
Verse 33 – “And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’”
John says that Jesus is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.
He will fill us with the Holy Spirit.
What does that have to do with the Lamb of God taking our sins away?
Well you see, it is not sufficient that the bad is taken out of us.
To experience the fullness of salvation, we need to be filled with the good.
We need to be filled with God.
Many Christians live in the place of having their sins taken away, but not being filled with the Holy Spirit.
And this leads to many Christians being miserable.
Because they can’t enjoy the sins they used to enjoy anymore; and they don’t live in the joy that the Spirit offers.
Matthew 12:43-45 says “When an evil spirit leaves a person, it goes into the desert, seeking rest but finding none. Then it says, ‘I will return to the person I came from.’ So it returns and finds its former home empty, swept, and in order. Then the spirit finds seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they all enter the person and live there. And so that person is worse off than before. That will be the experience of this evil generation.”
If we are not filled with the Holy Spirit, all we end up being are ‘empty homes, swept and in order’, which may sound pretty good, but in reality, are just dry breeding grounds for more evil.
We need the bad taken out and the good put in.
We need the Lamb of God who takes away our sins, and who baptizes us in the Holy Spirit.
And it is not enough that this happens just once. The Bible tells us to ‘go on being filled’ with the Holy Spirit.
May that be our prayer today, and every day.
“Father, fill us with your Holy Spirit, in Jesus’ name, Amen”
