This article is from Issue 8, Called to be Witnesses
By C. H. Spurgeon
“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)
The ancient prophets were called seers; and you and I, beloved, must see Christ, or else we cannot bear witness to him. As the prophets saw Christ by faith, and as John actually looked upon him, and then bore witness to him, so must you and I see him, — not necessarily with these eyes, but with the eyes of our spirit, with the eyes of our mind and heart, we must see Jesus before we can rightly speak of him.
First, I am going to describe the messenger, — John the Baptist, or anyone else who is like him; then, secondly, I hope to talk about the message: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world;” and then, thirdly, I must say a little upon the reception of this message, telling what they do who really hear and believe the messenger of God.
THE MESSENGER
SEEING JESUS
“The next day John sees Jesus coming unto him.”
To be His herald and witness, John must see Jesus, and he must see Jesus coming to him. Have you seen Jesus? If not, what can you say when people ask “What is He like? Who is He that we should believe in Him?”
You must look unto Him before you can speak of Him; and, the more steadfastly you gaze upon His person, the better will you be able to bear your witness concerning Him. You will speak more surely and confidently of God if you can testify concerning that which your heart knows to be true, because you have perceived and enjoyed it yourself.
Let not any of us go and talk to our Sunday-school class, or preach from the pulpit, or write a letter about our Lord, until we have had a fresh glimpse of Him. It is wonderful how nimbly the pen or the tongue moves when the eye has just feasted itself upon Christ. When you have just come forth from communion and fellowship with the Lord Jesus, all your garments will smell of myrrh, and aloes and your words will have some of the precious savour clinging to them.
So again I say that we must see Christ or else we cannot be witnesses to Him; therefore, let us fix our hearts, and our thoughts so completely upon Christ that, when we cry to others, “Behold the Lamb of God,” it will be because we have just beheld Him ourselves.
If you say to the people, “Behold Christ,” yet all the while your eye is turned toward yourself, and you are wondering whether you will get through the sermon, whether you will have a fine delivery at the end, and what the congregation will think when you have done, that will be like saying, “Behold!” while you yourself are looking round the other way.
If you do not behold Christ, neither will they. Our inward thought, and conviction, and belief must be in accordance with our outward speech, or else we shall belie ourselves, and our message will be ill delivered, and will fall without power upon our hearers.
POINTING TO JESUS
“Behold the Lamb of God.”
Next, the messenger calls upon others to see Jesus. He calls them away from seeing other things, and bids them look, and “behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” He does not say, “Look to the priest; look to the altar; look to the sacraments; look to yourself; come, confess your sins and I will give you absolution.” No! For ever and ever no! The priests of Antichrist do that, but the servants of Christ cry, “Behold the Lamb of God.”
Our great difficulty is to get men’s eyes off themselves, off their works, off their forms and ceremonies, off mere creed-religion, and to get them to look at the living Christ.
Jesus only is the one hope of sinners. Some are looking at their repentance; some to feelings, some fix their gaze on their own faith, but if you cannot keep your eye on Christ, then away with it all. Our business is to get men off from anything and from everything, however good it is, that they may look alone to Christ Jesus, the Lamb of God.
GUIDING OTHERS TO JESUS
“He must increase, but I must decrease.”
Thirdly, the mark of a true witness is that he leads his own disciples to Jesus. It was a beautiful trait in the character of John the Baptist that he was so ready to pass on to Christ his own disciples; he did not want to keep them merely to swell the number of his own followers, but only kept them with him until he could point them to his Master.
When we try to win souls, if we find that people have confidence in us and affection for us, let us use that, not to attach them to ourselves but with the earnest desire to pass them on to Christ, that they may become disciples of the Saviour for themselves, and grow up from being babes who have to be nursed to become strong men in Christ Jesus.
Without a single atom of regret, he said, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” And it must be the same with you. Dear brothers and sisters, when serving Christ, do not seek also to serve yourself in a sneaking kind of way. It is easily done; under the appearance of glorifying Christ, you may really be extolling yourself.
You may even seek to win souls with the view of having the credit of doing it; and if you do, you will spoil the whole work.
THE MESSAGE
“Behold the Lamb of God.”
We are to set Christ forth as the object of faith. We are to say to men, “Behold the Lamb of God.” Is that all the sinner has to do? Yes, behold him. As every bitten one who looked at the brazen serpent lived, so every sick soul that looks to Christ shall live, and live for ever. Blessed is the messenger who tells it out boldly, and plainly, in the name of Jesus, saying on Christ’s behalf, “Look unto him, and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth. Look and live.”
“Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”
Where did He take it? I will tell you: “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.” He took the sin of all believers away so completely that it sank into the bottom of the sea; God has cast it behind his back, and it shall not be mentioned against them any more for ever, and those who believe in Jesus are washed white as snow, and clothed in His righteousness.
“The Lord hath made to meet upon him the iniquity of us all.” So says the prophet; but what says the apostle? “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree.” I know of no way by which sin can be taken off us except by laying it on him who was our Surety and our Substitute. This is what the true messenger has to tell, that Jesus bore the sin of his people, and that he took it right away.
Also we must preach Christ as coming. It is a blessed thing that the prophets saw Him as coming. They differed from us in this respect, that we can look back to His first coming, as they looked forward to it, and we can also look onward to His coming a second time.
Oh, for open eyes, and expectant hearts, and earnest tongues, to see, and long for, and tell of our coming Lord! This is the way the faithful witness preaches Him to the people.
THE TRUE RECEPTION OF THE MESSAGE
FOLLOWING JESUS
“And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.”
They did behold the Lamb of God; and believing in Him, they followed Him; and if you have really believed in Christ you will call Him Master and Lord; He will be your Leader and Commander; and you will willingly follow where He leads, and cheerfully do what He commands.
ABIDING WITH JESUS
The two disciples followed Jesus, and “they said unto him, Master, where dwellest thou? He saith unto them, Come and see. They came and saw where he dwelt, and abode with him that day.”
I do not know where He dwelt; I am sure that it was not a very luxurious mansion, and, in after days, He had nowhere to lay His head. But as soon as ever these men had looked to Him, and followed Him, they wanted to live with Him. Oh, that is the highest joy of a Christian, to live with Christ!
I am afraid that some of God’s people fail to realise this blessed living with Christ. They get a little joy, and they seem very pleased with it, but in a little time they lose it. Why is that? Because they rejoiced merely in their own joy; and when a man does that, he will soon lose it.
BRINGING OTHERS TO JESUS
They said to their kinsfolk and acquaintance, “We have found the Messiah!” Ah! You have never truly found Jesus if you do not tell others about Him. If a child, in his rambles were to find honey, and his siblings were all around, he would cry out all of them would soon be plunging their hands into the honey too. It is the instinct of true children of God to desire to fetch in others to taste and see that the Lord is good, to share, in the bliss unspeakable which is already their own.
Taken from Life on the Altar Publication
Issue 8 Spring 2023
LIFE ON THE ALTAR 