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should be in the Holy—Spirit (cf. Matt. 3:11; Acts 1:5). The Christ was already in their midst but they were so blind that they did not recognize Him (v. 26; cf. vs. 10, llj^ch. 8:19; 16:3). Happy is the man who really knows the Christ (John 17:3), but the world even today knows Him not (1 John 3:1). Wednesday, April 5. John 1:29-31. Notice the precision with which John the Baptist marks the time at which these things occurred. He is able to do this because he himself was an eye-witness. John the Baptist first testifies that Jesus was the “ Lamb o f God.” The reference is beyond question to the sacrificial lambs, the atoning sacrifices o f the Old Testa ment (cf. Gen. 22:7, 8 ; Ex. 12:3; Num. 28:3, 10 ; Isa. 53:7). As the Lamb o f God, Jesus would take away the sin o f the world. The thought here is not deliverance from sin’s power, but atonement and deliverance from sin’s guilt. Jesus is the Deliverer from sin’s power and presence as well as sin’s guilt (Matt. 1:21; Heb. 7:25; Jude 24), but this is not the thought here. Where taking away o f sin is spoken o f in connec tion with atoning blood it always refers to the removal o f the guilt o f sin (cf. Lev, 16:30; 17:11; 14:19, 31; Jer. 33:8; Ps.. 51:7; Rev. 1:5; 7:14;- Heb. 9:22, 23; Eph. 1:7; Rom. 3:25; 5 :9 ; Matt. 26:28). As the Lamb o f God in atoning sacrifice, Jesus made propitiation for sin (1. John 2 :2 ; Matt. 20 :28; 2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 3:13), and on the ground o f this'propitiation sin is taken away, i. e., removed from the sinner as far as the east is from the west (Ps. 103:12; cf. Lev. 16:21, 22). God dealt in mercy with men before Christ’s time because Jesus was “The Lamb slain from the foundation o f the world” (Rev. 13:8). The death o f Christ was in God’s sight an eternal fact.' But while the death o f Christ avails in this way for all men, believers and unbelievers, it fully avails only for those who accept it. In other words, Jesus “ is the Saviour o f all men, especially of those that believe” (1 Tim. 4:10). There need
know God as Jesus Christ interprets Him to us (cf. 1 John 5:20; John 14:9; 12:45; 17:3; Matt. 11:27). Tuesday, April 4. John 1:19-28. The ministry o f John the Baptist had aroused great excitement. People were in expectation. All men were reasoning con cerning John, whether haply, by any chance, he were the Christ (Luke 3:15); This gave rise to a committee being sent from Jerusalem to investigate. There were two persons for whom the people were looking as preparatory to the coming o f Christ, Elijah, as prophesied by Malachi (Mai. 4 :5 ), and the “ Prophet like unto Moses” (Deut. 18:15-18). John frankly confessed that he was not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet predicted by Moses. There was a sense in which John was Elijah (Matt. 11:14; 17:10-13), i. e., he came in the spirit and power o f Elijah (Luke 1 :17) ; but Elijah in the sense in which the question was asked, a real re-in- carnation o f the Prophet Elijah, he was not. How unlike the real John the Bap tist was to those who in our day claim to be his successor. There is the utmost humility in the way in which John states his position, he speaks o f himself only as “a voice crying in the wilderness,” - apply ing to himself the prophecy o f Isaiah (Isa. 40:3-5), which so clearly set forth John the Baptist’s mission. A voice is something to be heard, not seen, and that was all John wished, to be heard not seen, to be heai;d not about himself, but about- another greater than he, the latchet o f whose shoe he was not worthy to unloose. As John had denied that he was the Christ, or Eli jah, or “that prophet,” the priests and Levites made bold to question his authority for baptizing. In a similar way they made bold to question our Lord’s own authority at a later day (Matt. 21:23) and later still the authority o f the Apostles to preach (Acts 5;28). In his answer John again displays his humility. His own baptism, he says, was in water, and was nothing to the baptism o f the Coming One, which
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