Charles Ellicott Commentary John 1:29

"On the morrow he seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold, the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world!" — John 1:29 (ASV)

The next day.—We pass on to the witness of John on the second day, when he sees Jesus coming to him, probably on the return from the Temptation. Forty days had passed since they met before, and since John knew at the baptism that Jesus was the Messiah. These days were for the One a period of loneliness, temptation, and victory.

They must have been for the other a time of quickened energy, profound thought, and earnest study of what the prophets foretold the Messiah's coming would be.

Prominent among those prophecies, which every Rabbi of that day interpreted concerning the Messiah, were Isaiah 52:13; Isaiah 53:12. We know that on the previous day the fortieth chapter of Isaiah was quoted (John 1:23), and that this prophet was therefore in the speaker’s thoughts.

Side by side with these thoughts was the daily, continuing tale of grief, sorrow, and sin from those who came to be baptised. How often must such words have come to his mind as: “He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows,” “He was wounded for our transgressions,” “He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter,” “He bare the sin of many”!

The Messiah, then, was the servant of Jehovah, the true Paschal Lamb of Isaiah’s thought. While his heart burns with this living truth that all people needed, and that one heart alone knew, that same Form is seen advancing. It bears indeed no halo of glory, but it bears marks of the agonising contest and yet the calm of accomplished victory.

“He hath no form nor comeliness,” “no beauty that we should desire Him.” John looks at Him as He is coming, sees there living, walking in their midst, the bearer of the world’s sin and sorrow; and utters words of a depth and breadth of meaning fuller than any that have ever come from human lips: “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.”

The margin gives “beareth” as an alternative rendering for “taketh away,” and this union exactly expresses the force of the original. He is always taking away sin, but He does this by bearing the burden Himself. (Compare to 1 John 3:5.) A reference to the words of Isaiah 53:4, mentioned above, fully establishes this. The Baptist probably used the very word of the prophet. However, the Evangelist, in recording this for Greek readers, does not use the word of the Septuagint as St. Peter does (1 Peter 2:24, “bare our sin in His own body”), but re-translates and chooses the wider word which includes both meanings.