A Twilight Musing

As a part of John the Baptist’s heralding the ministry of Jesus, he twice refers to Him as “the Lamb of God” (see Jn. 1:29-37).  Although John was the first to use that appellation, it echoes a reference to the Messiah in Isaiah 53:7: “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.”  The relevance of this passage to the message about Jesus is highlighted by the Apostle Philip’s being called by the Holy Spirit to preach to an Ethiopian court official (Acts 8:26ff).  As the man rode in a chariot in the desert, he was reading from Isaiah 53.  After he hitches a ride with the Ethiopian and discovers what he is reading, we are told that Philip “opened his mouth, and beginning with this scripture he told him the good news about Jesus” (Acts 8:35).  Later on in the New Testament, Paul refers to Christ as “our Passover lamb” (I Cor. 5;7), reminding us that the Lord’s Supper was instituted in the midst of a Passover feast (Lk. 22:14ff), in which a sacrificial lamb is eaten.  So as we partake of the Body of Christ in the Communion, it is appropriate to consider the implications of Jesus being presented as “the Lamb of God.”

The lamb image applied to Jesus necessarily denotes a sacrificial lamb, a substitute for the death of someone.  In the original Passover, the blood of the slain lamb was put on the doorposts as an indication that the angel of death should “pass over” the members of that household (see Ex. 12:1-13).  We appropriate that kind of protecting blood in drinking of the cup of the Communion, “the new covenant in my blood” (Lk. 22:20) as Jesus describes it.  And as the participants in the Passover ate the flesh of the lamb that had been sacrificed, so those who ingest the bread of the Lord’s Supper are receiving Christ’s sacrificed body to their spiritual benefit.

Jesus as the Lamb of God figures prominently in the book of Revelation.  The image occurs first in chapter 5, verse 6, where we see “a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain,” and only He is found worthy to break the seals on the book of God’s judgments on the wicked world.  The living creatures around God’s throne then sing a hymn of praise (v. 9ff):

“Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.”

Jesus is the ultimate sacrificial Lamb, and His death is efficacious not for just a household or a family, but for “every tribe and language and people.”  Moreover, it is “once for all” (Heb. 7:27), effective for all time as well as for all people.

Finally, we see the Lamb of God taking His place with God the Father as His servants are represented as His bride (Rev. 21:1-4), with whom He and the Father will dwell forever in an existence lighted by the presence of the “the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb” (Rev. 21:22).  So in participating in the Lord’s Supper, we are invited not only to remember that the Lamb of God was slain for our deliverance, but to look ahead to fulfillment of the promise that we will be eternally with the Lamb in His glory.

Dr. Elton Higgs was a faculty member in the English department of the University of Michigan-Dearborn from 1965-2001. Having retired from UM-D as Prof. of English in 2001, he now lives with his wife in Jackson, MI. He has published scholarly articles on Chaucer, Langland, the Pearl Poet, Shakespeare, and Milton. Recently, Dr. Higgs has self-published a collection of his poetry called Probing Eyes: Poems of a Lifetime, 1959-2019, as well as a book inspired by The Screwtape Letters, called The Ichabod Letters, available as an e-book from Moral Apologetics. (Ed.: Dr. Higgs was the most important mentor during undergrad for the creator of this website, and his influence was inestimable.