What is the significance of John calling Jesus the “Lamb of God”?
The wilderness tabernacle stood at the center of Israelite worship for hundreds of years. And as long as Israel remained faithful to God, they looked upon this sacred edifice as the place of salvation, the place of atonement between God and His people. The supernatural manifestations that accompanied the dedication of the structure (see Exod. 40:34, 35) had riveted such impressions deep into the psyche of those who witnessed them. The signal demonstration of God’s attendance at the temple’s dedication gave no hint, however, of the structure’s turbulent future. Completely destroyed by the Babylonian army, it later was rebuilt, though not up to the standard of its previous splendor. This, however, was the temple Jesus knew, the one that felt His footsteps. And as Jesus died upon a cross outside Jerusalem one Friday afternoon two thousand years ago, it was in the inner sanctum of this very temple that the curtain mysteriously ripped in two, from top to bottom (Matt. 27:51). “It was the ho
