ESOCS Devotional 31 May 2025 – Jesus is the Lamb of God
MEMORY VERSE: “The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” John 1:29
TEXT: JOHN 1:15-33
Then the Ziphites came up to Saul at Gibeah, saying, “Is David not hiding with us in strongholds in the woods, in the hill of Hachilah, which is on the south of Jeshimon? 20 Now therefore, O king, come down according to all the desire of your soul to come down; and our part shall be to deliver him into the king’s hand.”
21 And Saul said, “Blessed are you of the Lord, for you have compassion on me. 22 Please go and find out for sure, and see the place where his hideout is, and who has seen him there. For I am told he is very crafty. 23 See therefore, and take knowledge of all the lurking places where he hides; and come back to me with certainty, and I will go with you. And it shall be, if he is in the land, that I will search for him throughout all the clans of Judah.”
24 So they arose and went to Ziph before Saul. But David and his men were in the Wilderness of Maon, in the plain on the south of Jeshimon. 25 When Saul and his men went to seek him, they told David. Therefore he went down to the rock, and stayed in the Wilderness of Maon. And when Saul heard that, he pursued David in the Wilderness of Maon. 26 Then Saul went on one side of the mountain, and David and his men on the other side of the mountain. So David made haste to get away from Saul, for Saul and his men were encircling David and his men to take them.
27 But a messenger came to Saul, saying, “Hurry and come, for the Philistines have invaded the land!” 28 Therefore Saul returned from pursuing David, and went against the Philistines; so they called that place the Rock of Escape. 29 Then David went up from there and dwelt in strongholds at En Gedi.
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The Israelites would understand the concept of the lamb more than any other nation of the world, particularly the Old Testament Israel. The lamb was used to atone for their sins. People who sinned brought a lamb that would be used to replace them. They confessed their sins on the lamb, meaning the lamb took over their sins. Since the wages of sin is death, the lamb was killed instead of the sinner, for atonement. The Bible says, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.” (Lev. 17:1).
God, our loving Father, who would rather have man alive than dead, knowing that man is prone to sin, provided the system described above to help man live in order to have an opportunity to repent and live a good life. He used this system to foreshadow a more permanent solution over sin, which He will undertake for man. Our Lord Jesus was that Lamb of God that took away the sin of the world. In John 3:16, the scripture says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” This scripture was fulfilled through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ on the Cross at Calvary.
The way the lambs in the Old Testament took away sin is the same way the Blood of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ took away our sin on the Cross. The difference is that the Old Testament lamb was a shadow pointing to Jesus. It was temporary and could not deal with the problem of sin in the soul. However, that of Jesus was eternal, the real solution and able to purge our souls of sins unto holy living if we believe in Him. Hebrew 9:12-14 says, “Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”
Let us place high value on the Blood that washed away our sins; and respect it through simple obedience to God’s word and remain clean and free from sinfulness, for that was the reason our Lord died a gruesome death and experienced excruciating pain on our behalf.
CHALLENGES
- Do you acknowledge and receive Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God that took away your sins?
PRAYER POINT
- Father, thank you for your love expressed towards us in Christ Jesus through His death for us.
FURTHER READING: 1 Samuel 22:1-10, 22:11-23; John 1:1-14
ESOCS Devotional 31 May 2025
