Feeling Sheepish: Clarifying What John the Baptist Meant by ‘Lamb of God’ in John 1:29, 36.
Few images of Christ have endured
and endeared themselves to the forefront of Christian imagination as has the
Lamb of God. It encapsulates in
itself—often in association with Isaiah 53—both the notion of Christ’s atoning
sacrifice for sin, and the wonderful paradox of God’s power expressed through
weakness. Given its nature as a classic
amongst the Christian’s symbolic repertoire, it will no doubt come as a
surprise to many that the exact nature and meaning of John the Baptist’s
proclamation regarding Jesus is debated by innumerable commentators. In fact there are no less than nine generally
argued positions.[1] This
essay intends to demonstrate, after reviewing several of the interpretive
options, that the most plausible interpretation is Christ represented both as
the ultimate Passover Lamb and as the Messiah of Israel. In so arguing, it will also be suggested that
though they will be considered complementary to one another rather than
irreconcilable, a distinction must be made between what John the Baptist meant
by the proclamation (Messiah of Israel), and how John the Evangelist uses it
(Ultimate Passover Lamb) in the course of his Gospel presentation.
I.
The Text: John 1:29-36.
John 1:29
π ThØv e˙pau/rion ble÷pei to\n ∆Ihsouvn e˙rco/menon pro\ß aujto\n kai« le÷gei:
i¶de oJ aÓmno\ß touv qeouv oJ ai¶rwn th\n aJmarti÷an touv ko/smou.
1:30
ou∞to/ß e˙stin uJpe«r ou∞ e˙gw» ei•pon: ojpi÷sw mou e¶rcetai aÓnh\r o§ß
e¶mprosqe÷n mou ge÷gonen, o¢ti prw◊to/ß mou h™n.
1:31
kaÓgw» oujk hØ¡dein aujto/n, aÓll∆ iºna fanerwqhØv twˆ◊ ∆Israh\l dia» touvto
h™lqon e˙gw» e˙n u¢dati bapti÷zwn.
1:32 Kai«
e˙martu/rhsen ∆Iwa¿nnhß le÷gwn o¢ti teqe÷amai to\ pneuvma katabai√non wJß
peristera»n e˙x oujranouv kai« e¶meinen e˙p∆ aujto/n.
1:33
kaÓgw» oujk hØ¡dein aujto/n, aÓll∆ oJ pe÷myaß me bapti÷zein e˙n u¢dati
e˙kei√no/ß moi ei•pen: e˙f∆ o§n a·n i¶dhØß to\ pneuvma katabai√non kai« me÷non
e˙p∆ aujto/n, ou∞to/ß e˙stin oJ bapti÷zwn e˙n pneu/mati aJgi÷wˆ.
1:34
kaÓgw» e˚w¿raka kai« memartu/rhka o¢ti ou∞to/ß e˙stin oJ ui˚o\ß touv qeouv.
1:35 π ThØv
e˙pau/rion pa¿lin ei˚sth/kei oJ ∆Iwa¿nnhß kai« e˙k tw◊n maqhtw◊n aujtouv du/o
1:36 kai« e˙mble÷yaß twˆ◊ ∆Ihsouv
peripatouvnti le÷gei: i¶de oJ aÓmno\ß touv qeouv.
Translation: The next day [John the Baptist] saw Jesus coming
toward him and he said: “Behold! The Lamb
of God who takes away the sin of the world!
He is the one about which I said ‘After me comes a man who is greater
than me, because he was before me. And I
did not know him, but in order that he my be revealed to Israel, for this
reason I myself baptize with water.’
Then John testified, saying ‘I saw the spirit descending as a dove out
of heaven and remain upon him. And I did
not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water, that one said to
me ‘upon whomever you might see the spirit descend and remain upon him, this
one is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. And I saw and witnessed that he is the Son of
God.’ The next day again John had stood
with two of his disciples, and looking intently at Jesus while he was walking,
said “Behold the Lamb of God!”
II. Counting Sheep
The reasons behind
the cacophony of interpretations will become clear as we go along, but some
basic qualms give fury to the ink spilled in the name of a solution and can be
stated up front: the first is that while the traditional view regards Isaiah 53:7
as the intended context (LXX: καὶ αὐτὸς διὰ τὸ κεκακῶσθαι οὐκ ἀνοίγει
τὸ στόμα ὡς πρόβατον ἐπὶ σφαγὴν ἤχθη
καὶ ὡς ἀμνὸς ἐναντίον τοῦ κείροντος
αὐτὸν ἄφωνος οὕτως οὐκ ἀνοίγει τὸ στόμα αὐτοῦ),[2]
others remark to the contrary that there is no single, immediately clear
precedent for John the Baptist’s proclamation.
Isaiah 53 serves as a context only from a post Calvary, post-Easter
vantage point, and as such many argue that it does not seem plausible that this
is what the Baptist could have meant by the expression. D. Brent Sandy remarks for example:
“Understandng the Baptist’s remarks retrospectively—that is, from a
post-passion vantage and the OT alone as the interpretive context is
insufficient and misleading.”[3] And this is especially so, Sandy goes on to
say, because “John…could not recognize a suffering messiah, and did not,
according to his inquiry from prison.”[4] Indeed as Skinner points out John would have
been unique if he had understood
Isaiah 53 to be relevant pre-Calvary as “there is little evidence, if any, that
before the first century these passages were thought of as referring to the
messiah.”[5] Thus an alternative interpretation is
sought.
Others, however,
maintain that the Suffering Servant context is the only legitimate one, but
when coupled with the necessity of a post-passion vantage point the statement
is simply viewed as unhistorical, a figmentary device of the Evangelist’s pen.[6] We will not here deal with this extreme
conclusion as it is largely speculative, with no supporting manuscript
evidence. Nonetheless there seems to be
a general consensus that we must be careful to distinguish the words of John
the Baptist from the significance (however legitimate) that they have for the
Evangelist and his audience.[7]
What then are some
of the proposed alternates for context?
Because of space limitations we will not deal with them all
equally. For example some can be glossed
over quickly. Edwyn Hoskyns identifies the saying of the Baptist with the Tamid, or the daily ritual outlined in
Mosaic Law (Ex. 29:38-42) in which a lamb is sacrificed in the tabernacle.[8] He writes: The faith of the apostles is
authorized by the original and primary witness of John, who declared Jesus to
be the property of God…—a lamb without blemish was offered daily, both morning
and evening.”[9] While this is obviously a compelling
theological connection, again it is one that is only made obvious in the light
of the cross and resurrection. In fact
even John the Evangelist does not make this connection to the Exodus passage
explicit in his narrative, making this interpretation unlikely (however much
our own post-Easter context may be given auxiliary theological richness from
such a connection).
Unlikely as well
is a connection to the “gentle lamb” of Jeremiah 19, or the scapegoats of
Leviticus 16.[10] The former because—whatever affinity or
symbolic correspondence it might have—the image of the lamb is conveying a
prophet’s vulnerability in the face of conspiracy, not a figure who will take
away sins; while the latter fails because the figure of substitution is a goat,
not a lamb. While Sandy notes that the
figures of the ram, the sheep, and the lamb do not have clear distinctions as
far as their symbolic representative capacity, the same is not true for goats.[11] But it seems difficult to argue that “Lamb of
God” would conjure attention to the Leviticus passage when at most it only has
the concept of substitution as a similarity.
Going further one could point to passages regarding the guilt offering
in Leviticus 14:12-13 and Numbers 6:11-12.
Both passages involve amnos in
the LXX, the same term used by the Baptist.
However as D.A. Carson points out, the problem with this idea of the
Baptist referring to the guilt offering concept is that the sacrifice was more
often a bull or a goat than a lamb, as is alluded to in Hebrews.[12] And as for Isaiah 53:7, we have already noted
a few of the remarks brought against it, but Skinner gives a helpful and
balanced summary:
In Christian theology the lamb led to the slaughter presents
a profound picture of Christ as the Servant of God, but in the Fourth Gospel
this connection is questionable [for John the Baptist]. This view then suffers
from three weaknesses. First, there was no concept in Hebraic thought of a
suffering Messiah. Second, no Jewish exegetes before the late second century
understood or interpreted the text in this way. Third, this view claims to have
theological correspondence to Christ's death, which was not primarily in view
at this point in the Gospel of John. While this view may find symbolic
expression in the exposition of John 1:29 and 36, from an interpretive
standpoint it must be rejected as the primary notion behind the
title "the Lamb of God."[13]
We
might add to this (to make it actually three points, as Skinner’s first and
second point appear to be saying the same thing) that Isaiah 53 itself does not
seem to be making the equation of the lamb with a sacrificial animal. Rather as Sandy notes the term Isaiah uses
for slaughter is one associated with food, not sacrifice.[14] Thus the additional phrase of John the
Baptist “The Lamb of God who takes away
the sins of the world,” does not seem to reference Isaiah. The point of the
lamb image in Isaiah is not intersecting the metaphor of the lamb with a
sacrificial animal, but is portraying silent submission in the face of death:
This
does not deny the vicarious emphasis of this messianic song. The idea of a
guilt offering is clearly present in the passage (Isa 53:10), and the reference
to a lamb in v. 7 cannot be completely divorced from the wider sacrificial
context. Significantly, the song concludes with the victory of the servant (v.
12), yet that conclusion does not include the lamb motif. And though
"lamb" is a meaningful simile for "servant," the comparison
here is in the context of the servant's silence when subject to abuse. Isaiah
does not link the servant to a sacrificial lamb.[15]
Before we turn our attention to more
probable suggestions, there is another interpretive option that has been taken
with Isaiah 53 which we must briefly mention.
This view contends that there was an original Aramaic source for
John—thus behind ho amnos tou theou lay
an ambiguous Aramaic phrase that can mean “servant of God,” but also “boy,” or
“lamb.”[16] So the argument runs, the term then became
mistranslated in John by amnos rather
than the more proper pais. However, though inventive, there is little to
commend this interpretation. For one we
know of no such Aramaic original in any form, fragmentary or otherwise. And nothing in the Gospel itself seems to
suggest something like this occurred.
More than this, there are severe lexical problems. Carson makes the very astute point that this
view “presupposes that whoever put this Aramaic expression into Greek somehow
avoided a perfectly common and obvious expression ‘servant of the Lord’ in
order to produce a new and rather strange expression ‘the lamb of God.’”[17] Thus it seems we are still left with the
question of what exactly John the Baptist meant.
III.
King Sheep
Another
possibility is proposed by C.H. Dodd, who considers “Lamb of God” to be the
equivalent of “King of Israel.”[18] Dodd is certainly not dogmatic about this
view, and part of his argument is unconvincing.
He identifies John’s proclamation of ho
amnos tou theou with the conquering arnion
in Revelation. This is peculiar
because part of the impetus to search for the meaning of “Lamb of God” seems to
come from the idea that what we now take to be part of its significance—the
theme of sacrifice however it is specifically construed—could not have occurred
until post-Easter understanding. By
replacing the concept of sacrifice with that of the conquering arnion in Revelation, however, Dodd
replaces one problem with the identical problem—seeing as Revelation is
generally understood to have been written after the Gospel of John. More convincing is Dodd’s survey of the
conquering Lamb image as used in inter-testamental literature. Some of the more prominent texts include 1
Enoch 90:6-19, Testament of Joseph 19:8-12, and Testament of Benjamin 3:8,[19]
indicating that there was an apocalyptic expectation of a conquering messiah
represented via the image of a lamb.
While Dodd wants to argue that this is the concept intended by the
Evangelist as well,[20]
this seems highly unlikely as there seems to be little narrative room for a
conquering Messiah, especially given the Gospel’s emphasis on the suffering
messiah and the necessity of his “being lifted up.” Moreover Dodd does not explain what it would
then mean to “take away the sins of the world.”
All is perhaps not
lost on portions of this interpretation, however. We must remind ourselves first of a possible
distinction (though not contradiction) in the meaning John the Baptist would
have affirmed in ho amnos tou theou,
and the eventual meaning it took for John the Evangelist in the narrative
structure of his Gospel.[21] It is possible therefore that something like
an apocalyptic conquering messiah was meant by the Baptist, while John the
Evangelist nuances it further by his own understanding of who Christ is. This is in fact the thesis put forward by
Skinner in a recent essay: “If the ‘Lamb of God’ is a pronouncement by John the
Baptist recorded in the narrative for the sake of ironic emphasis—a common
Johannine technique—then a proper interpretation of the title would yield two
meanings, one historical, and one theological.”[22] Which is to say Skinner takes a position
similar to the one being argued in this essay, that John the Baptist understood
his declaration in terms of a conquering messiah, while John the Evangelist
retains this for ironic effect: indeed we have a conquering messiah, but of a
different sort. One who conquers
precisely by being sacrificed.
Part of the appeal of
Skinner’s interpretation is that the double historical-theological meanings
play into the Johannine use of double entendre (born from above/anew;
glorified/lifted up upon the cross).
Skinner then understands “who takes away the sins of the world” to be
double in meaning as well:
When John the Baptist declared,
"Behold, the Lamb of God," he was referring to Jesus as the
conquering Messiah, who was poised to bring swift judgment like that meted out
in the images from his own eschatological preaching. Then the Evangelist
capitalized on this genuine pronouncement, investing it with greater
theological meaning. Since the Johannine Jesus is the sin-bearing Messiah, the
Evangelist framed the Baptist's pronouncement in such a way that it produced a
double meaning. This is largely
accomplished through the combination of the sacrificial Passover image with the
qualifying phrase in verse 20….This means the Lamb of God contains something of
a double-entendre, which is consistent with John the Evangelist investing
speaking character’s words with added post-resurrection significance.[23]
Skinner
is not alone. Sandy has a similar
judgment that “takes away the sin of the world” need not initially be invested
with its full Christian significance, for “It was widely associated with
messianic expectations [that] the messiah would remove from his kingdom the
sinners and their sinful deeds.”[24] Where Dodd argues that this is the
Evangelist’s meaning as well, Skinner is right to point out that this does not
take seriously the literary style of John the Evangelist and his use of irony
and double-meaning (not to mention the clear motif of a suffering, atoning
messiah in the Gospel), and also, we might add, unfairly freezes terms into
their pure historical scope without investigating the significance they are
invested with through their literary final-form. And Sandy, though more reserved in his
judgment and not pressing the theme of irony, would agree: “It is hard to
imagine that ‘Lamb’ could be restricted for the Evangelist or his readers to
what the Baptist meant…It is likely that John the Evangelist enriched the Lamb
of God statement with a complex collage of symbolism.”[25] At this point Sandy’s tentativeness is a bit
lame, as there hardly seems to be any “probability” about the Evangelist
modifying this proposal of the Baptist (it seems beyond doubt that if what has
been argued here is what the Baptist meant, then surely the Gospel of John
expands this), but his conclusion appears right on.
IV.
Conclusion:
Separating The Sheep from…Other Sheep.
Despite the popularity of the image
in Christian consciousness today, there is an undeniable vein of ambiguity that
runs through the Baptist’s declaration in the opening of John’s gospel. We have here argued along with Skinner that
part of this ambiguity resides in a historical-theological distinction that is
combined in a quite elegant manner by John the Evangelist’s use of double-entedre
and irony into a single expression.
Thus, as we argued, it seems the Baptist, in using the image Lamb of
God, one who “takes away the sins of the world,” what is most likely meant was
a conquering, apocalyptic messiah who will purge the world. This is then enlarged in scope by the
Evangelist who understands the nuanced meaning of the term and begins to
associate it in his Gospel with the Passover, atonement, and the paradoxical
victory of sacrifice. It is no
coincidence, for example, that the Last Supper takes place in the same time
frame as Passover. Thus our thesis at
the beginning stands: if one abides a distinction between what the Baptist
originally meant, and how the Evangelist expands it, the Lamb of God is both a
picture of the conquering messiah, and an
atonement for the sins of the world. It
seems that this not only demonstrates how Christ both fulfilled and in some sense subverted popular Messianic expectations, but by way of synthesis
this particular example of the complexity in the referent “Lamb of God” seems
to demonstrate that the opinion that John is writing theology, not history, is
completely untrue. John has elegantly
combined both a historically situated
perspective, and through the trope of
irony, allowed this historical vantage point to be expanded upon and stretched
through double-entendre, “parascoping” John the Baptist’s historical expression
through the contours of John the Evangelist’s nuanced theological
narrative. History and theology are here
inextricably and brilliantly combined looking at John’s gospel through the lens
of the Lamb of God, and we are clued in now in a much deeper way, how there is
in Christ’s sacrifice on the cross a true combination of victory in sacrifice: the triumphant messiah
truly is the Lamb silently led to slaughter in Isaiah 53.
[1] See the helpful summary by Christopher W. Skinner,
“Another Look at the Lamb of God,” Bibliotheca
Sacra 161 (Jan-Mar 2004): 89-104.
[2] For example,
F.F. Bruce, The Gospel of John:
Introduction, Exposition, and Notes (Grand Rapids: Eerdman’s 1983), 52-53.
[3] D. Brent Sandy, “John the Baptist’s ‘Lamb of God’
Affirmation in its Canonical and Apocalyptic Milieu,” JETS 34/4 (December, 1991): 447.
[5] Skinner, “Another Look,” 96.
[6] Rudolph Schnackenburg The Gospel According to St. John: Introduction and Commentary on
Chapters 1-4 (Freiberg, Herder & Herder, 1968), 300-301.
[7] E.W. Burrows, “Did John the Baptist Call Jesus ‘The
Lamb of God?’” Expository Times 85/8
(May 1974), 249.
[8] Edwyn Clement Hoskyns, The Fourth Gospel, ed. Francis Noel Davey (London: Faber and Faber,
1977), 176.
[10] C.f. the critical remarks of Skinner, “Another Look,”
91-92.
[11] Sandy “Lamb of God,” 452.
[12] D.A. Carson, The
Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 149.
[13] Skinner, “Another Look,” 96.
[14] Sandy, “Lamb of God,” 450.
[16] C.f. the summary of the history of this interpretation
in Schuyler Brown, “From Burney to Black: The Fourth Gospel and the Aramaic
Question,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly, (1964): 323-339.
[17] Carson, The
Gospel According to John, 149.
[18] C.H. Dodd, The
Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
1968), 235-236.
[22] Skinner, “Lamb of God,” 102.
[24] Sandy, “Lamb of God,” 455.
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