What does it mean to say, “Jesus is the Lamb of God”? - Sacrifice - TouchPoints

John 1:29The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

Just as a lamb’s blood brought about forgiveness in the Old Testament, so the blood of Jesus, through his death on the cross, takes away the sins of the world.

Hebrews 9:11-12So Christ has now become the High Priest over all the good things that have come. . . . With his own blood—not the blood of goats and calves—he entered the Most Holy Place once for all time and secured our redemption forever.

The sacrifice of Christ’s shed blood replaced once and for all the blood of lambs and bulls. The book of Hebrews points out that Jesus served many roles simultaneously on our behalf: priest, sacrifice, powerful redeemer, emancipator, and ransom.

1 Peter 1:18-19You know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And it was not paid with mere gold or silver, which lose their value. It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God.

The death of Christ, confirmed by his shed blood, was the precious price paid for our salvation. The economic language doesn’t mean a price paid to a third party, such as Satan, but a price paid within the infinite character of God to settle the debt against God’s holiness and righteousness incurred by our sin through God’s own willingness to sacrifice his Son on our behalf. An infinite debt could only be settled by an infinite payment.