John 1:29

τῇ ἐπαύριον, the first instance of John's accurate definition of time. Cf. 35, 43, John 2:1. The deputation had withdrawn, but the usual crowd attracted by John would be present. “The inquiries made from Jerusalem would naturally create fresh expectation among John's disciples. At this crisis,” etc. (Westcott). βλέπει τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἐρχόμενον πρὸς αὐτόν. Jesus had quite recently returned from the retirement in the wilderness, and naturally sought John's company. Around John He is more likely to find receptive spirits than elsewhere. And it gave His herald an opportunity to proclaim Him, ἴδε ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ θεοῦ ὁ αἴρων τὴν αμαρτίαν τοῦ κόσμου. The article indicates that a person who could thus be designated had been expected; or it may merely be introductory to the further definition of the succeeding clause. τοῦ θεοῦ, provided by God; cf. “bread of God,” John 6:33; also Romans 8:32. It is impossible to suppose with the author of Ecce Homo that by this title “the lamb of God” the Baptist merely meant to designate Jesus as a man “full of gentleness who could patiently bear the ills to which He would be subjected” (cf. Aristoph., Pax, 935). The second clause forbids this interpretation. He is a lamb αἴρων τὴν ἁμαρτίαν, and there is only one way in which a lamb can take away sin, and that is by sacrifice. The expression might suggest the picture of the suffering servant of the Lord in Isaiah 53, “led as a lamb to the slaughter,” but unless the Baptist had previously been speaking of this part of Scripture, it is doubtful whether those who heard him speak would think of it. In Isaiah it is as a symbol of patient endurance the lamb is introduced; here it is as the symbol of sacrifice. It is needless to discuss whether the paschal lamb or the lamb of daily sacrifice was in the Baptist's thoughts. He used “the lamb” as the symbol of sacrifice in general. Here, he says, is the reality of which all animal sacrifice was the symbol. ὁ αἴρων, the present participle, indicating the chief characteristic of the lamb. αἴρω has three meanings: (1) to raise or lift up, John 8:59, ἦραν λίθους; (2) to bear or carry, Matthew 16:24, ἀράτω τὸν σταυρὸν αὑτοῦ; (3) to remove or take away, John 20:1, of the stone ἠρμένον from the sepulchre; and 1 John 3:5, ἵνα τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἄρῃ, that He might take away sins. In the LXX φέρειν, not αἴρειν, is regularly used to express the “bearing” of sin (see Leviticus, passim). In 1 Samuel 15:25 Saul beseeches Samuel in the words ἆρον τὸ ἁμάρτημά μου, which obviously means “remove” (not “bear”) my sin. So in 1 Samuel 25:28. But a lamb can remove sin only by sacrificially bearing it, so that here αἴρειν includes and implies φέρειν. τοῦ κόσμου, cf. 1 John 2:2, αὐτὸς ἱλασμός ἐστὶ … περὶ ὅλου τοῦ κόσμου, and especially Philo's assertion quoted by Wetstein that some sacrifices were ὑπὲρ ἅπαντος ἀνθρώπων γένους.

In this verse Holtzmann finds two marks of late date. (1) The Baptist was markedly a man of his own people, whose eye never ranged beyond a Jewish horizon; yet here he is represented as from the first perceiving that the work of Jesus was valid for all men. And (2) the allusion to the sacrificial efficacy of Christ's death could not have been made till after that event. Strauss stated this difficulty with his usual lucidity. “So foreign to the current opinion at least was this notion of the Messiah that the disciples of Jesus, during the whole period of their intercourse with Him, could not reconcile themselves to it; and when His death had actually taken place their trust in Him as the Messiah was utterly confounded.” Yet Strauss himself admits that “a penetrating mind like that of the Baptist might, even before the death of Jesus, gather from the O.T. phrases and types the notion of a suffering Messiah, and that his obscure hints on the subject might not be comprehended by his disciples and contemporaries”. The solution is probably to be found in the intercourse of John with Jesus, and especially after His return from the Temptation. These men must have talked long and earnestly on the work of the Messiah; and even though after his imprisonment John seems to have had other thoughts about the Messiah, that is not inconsistent with his making this statement under the direct influence of Jesus. We must also consider that John's own relation to the Messianic King must have greatly stimulated his thought; and his desire to respond to the cravings he stirred in the people must have led him to consider what the Messiah must be and do.