Lamb of God
The title "Lamb of God" gathers four streams of scripture into a single name for Jesus. It is the cry of John the Baptist on the bank of the Jordan, the figure of Isaiah's silent sufferer "led to the slaughter," the meaning of the Passover lamb whose blood marked the doorposts in Egypt, and the figure that finally stands slain yet alive on the throne in John's vision. The title is applied in only one direction — Christ — and concentrates in John 1 and Revelation. Read together with the older lamb-imagery of Passover, the suffering servant, and the scapegoat, the title reaches all the way back into the law and forward into the city where Yahweh and the Lamb are the temple.
The Baptist's Declaration
The title is given to Jesus on the second of two consecutive days at the Jordan, by John the Baptist, who has just denied being the Christ, Elijah, or the prophet (John 1:20-21) and identified himself as "the voice of one crying in the wilderness" (John 1:23). The next day he sees Jesus approaching and says, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29). The same word is repeated the following day to two of his own disciples: "and he looked on Jesus as he walked, and says, Look, the Lamb of God!" (John 1:36). The two disciples follow Jesus on the strength of that declaration alone.
The Baptist's words tie the title to a function: this Lamb "takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). The expression makes the lamb-figure a sin-bearer, not merely an emblem of innocence — and the object is named as the sin "of the world."
The Lamb Led to Slaughter
Isaiah's fourth servant song supplies the prophetic pattern that the Baptist's cry presupposes. The servant is "despised, and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief" (Isa 53:3). His suffering is borne in another's place: "Surely he has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, struck of God, and afflicted" (Isa 53:4); "But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was on him; and with his stripes we are healed" (Isa 53:5). The flock-figure is then turned around. The straying ones are the people, and the burden falls on a single one: "All of us like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Isa 53:6) — the same construction that the law applied to the live goat over whose head Aaron confessed "all the iniquities of the sons of Israel, and all their transgressions, even all their sins" (Lev 16:21).
The lamb-figure is named explicitly in the next verse: "He was oppressed, yet when he was afflicted he didn't open his mouth; as a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before its shearers is mute, so he didn't open his mouth" (Isa 53:7). Silence under affliction is part of the picture; the silence is itself a feature of the sacrificial animal in the sanctuary. The chapter ends with the offering language explicit: "he poured out his soul to death" (Isa 53:12).
The Passover Lamb
Behind both Isaiah and John lies the Passover. The instruction in Egypt was that "in the tenth [day] of this month they will take to them every man a lamb, according to their fathers' houses, a lamb for a household" (Ex 12:3); the lamb's qualification is that it "will be without blemish, a male a year old: you⁺ will take it from the sheep, or from the goats" (Ex 12:5). Moses summarized the ritual when he relayed the command to the elders: "Draw out, and you⁺ take lambs according to your⁺ families, and kill the Passover" (Ex 12:21). The night-rite itself fixed the lamb to the deliverance from the destroyer: "And thus you⁺ will eat it: with your⁺ loins girded, your⁺ sandals on your⁺ feet, and your⁺ staff in your⁺ hand; and you⁺ will eat it in a hurry: it [is] Yahweh's Passover" (Ex 12:11). The same feast continued into the gospels — Mark places the crucifixion week against its calendar: "And on the first day of unleavened bread, when they sacrificed the Passover" (Mark 14:12).
Paul reads the feast Christologically. Writing to Corinth on a question of leaven and discipline, he draws the line from the rite to Christ: "Purge out the old leaven, that you⁺ may be a new lump, even as you⁺ are unleavened. For our Passover also has been sacrificed, [even] Christ" (1 Cor 5:7). Peter takes up the qualification of the Passover animal — without blemish — and applies it to Christ's blood: the readers were redeemed "with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, [even the blood] of Christ" (1 Pet 1:19). The lamb of Exodus 12 is the one whose blood marks the door against destruction; the New Testament writers say that the same function is now carried by Jesus.
The Slain Lamb on the Throne
Revelation makes "the Lamb" a settled name for Christ in the heavenly throne room. The figure first enters as a paradox: "And I saw among the throne and of the four living creatures, and among the elders, a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, having seven horns, and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, being sent forth into all the earth" (Rev 5:6). The seal-opener of the next chapter is the same figure: "And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals" (Rev 6:1). The wrath of the day of seals is named the wrath of this Lamb: the kings of the earth and the strong and the slaves and the free hide themselves and "say to the mountains and to the rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb" (Rev 6:16).
The vision then turns to a vast multitude in white. They stand "before the throne and before the Lamb, arrayed in white robes, and palms in their hands" (Rev 7:9), and they cry, "Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb" (Rev 7:10). One of the elders identifies them as those who "come out of the great tribulation, and they washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb" (Rev 7:14). The same Lamb is then made shepherd: "for the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and will guide them to fountains of waters of life: and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes" (Rev 7:17). The image gathers the streams: the slain animal is the redeemer, his blood washes the multitude white, and he leads the redeemed as shepherd.
The middle chapters of Revelation keep the title in view. The accuser is overcome "because of the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony" (Rev 12:11). The book of life belongs "to the Lamb that has been slain" (Rev 13:8) and is named for him: "the Lamb's Book of Life" (Rev 21:27). The hundred and forty-four thousand stand on Mount Zion "with [him]" — "the Lamb standing on the mount Zion" (Rev 14:1) — and "follow the Lamb wherever he may go. These were purchased from among men, [to be] the first fruits to God and to the Lamb" (Rev 14:4). The redeemed sing two songs as one: "the song of Moses the slave of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are your works, Yahweh, the God of hosts" (Rev 15:3) — Moses' song over the sea of Exodus 15 fused with the Lamb's. When the kings of the earth war against him, "the Lamb will overcome them, for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings; and they who are with him are called and chosen and faithful" (Rev 17:14).
The Marriage of the Lamb
The figure that began as a sacrificial animal ends as a bridegroom. The redeemed are summoned to rejoice "for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his wife has made herself ready" (Rev 19:7); the angel commands the seer to write, "Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he says to me, These are true words of God" (Rev 19:9). One of the seven angels who had the seven last plagues then says to John, "Come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb" (Rev 21:9). The bride turns out to be the new Jerusalem: a city whose wall has "twelve foundations, and on them twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb" (Rev 21:14).
God and the Lamb
The closing vision speaks of God and the Lamb as the city's center. The temple is no separate building: "And I saw no temple in her: for Yahweh, the God of hosts, and the Lamb, are her temple" (Rev 21:22). The light is no separate luminary: the city "has no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine on her: for the glory of God lightened her, and her lamp [is] the Lamb" (Rev 21:23). The river runs from a single throne — "a river of water of life, bright as crystal, that proceeds out of the throne of God and of the Lamb" (Rev 22:1) — and the throne itself is named the same way at the end: "And there will be no curse anymore: and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in her: and his slaves will serve him" (Rev 22:3). The title that began at the Jordan with "Look, the Lamb of God" closes the canon at the throne in the city, with God and the Lamb sharing temple, lamp, throne, and worship.