How Jesus Changes Things (John 1:35-42)

John the Baptist, the forerunner sent by God to announce the coming of Jesus as the Messiah, is standing with Andrew and probably with John, two of his disciples. They had become John’s followers as he served God in the important way of making spiritual preparation, through the means of the preaching of personal repentance, for the arrival of the Messiah, which meant that these disciples were expecting the Messiah to appear in the near future, and no doubt they were excited about what would happen then. On the previous day, John had also pointed to Jesus with a similar but longer description of Jesus as the Lamb of God who was taking away the sin of the world, which is a picture suggesting that Jesus was focussed on a specific task as the Saviour.

What ideas would have gone through the mind of the Baptist’s disciples when they heard this title of Jesus? That will be the first detail that we will think about, the description of Jesus as the Lamb of God. Then we will consider the discovery that the two disciples made about Jesus when they spent some time with him, then we will note the delight that Andrew had when speaking to his brother Simon about Jesus, and finally the difference that Jesus makes to a person, no matter who they are.

The description of Jesus (v. 35)

When John made this description of Jesus as the lamb of God, he was referring to sacrifices that took place at the Jewish temple in line with Old Testament levitical requirements. We don’t know which of the Old Testament references to a lamb that John had in mind. He could have referred to the Passover lamb, which recalled the deliverance of Israel from Egypt at the Exodus, or it could refer to the lambs offered in various sacrifices at the temple as part of its ongoing worship activities. While we cannot say which one John had in mind, we can identify several features from all of the references to lambs as sacrifices that indicate the appropriateness and suitability of the title for describing Jesus in his work of procuring salvation. What are those features? We can regard them as perfection, possession, provision and payment.

The idea of perfection arises from the levitical requirement that the lambs for sacrifice had to be flawless, without defect, without any spot, no matter how minute, on their skin. And flawlessness is an astonishing and constant feature of the person of Jesus the Messiah. He was different from all other humans in that he was sinless at all times. Throughout his life, he had never had a wrong thought, never said a wrong word, and never did a wrong action. This is a unique claim that the Bible makes about Jesus, and if he had not been so, he could not have been a suitable sacrifice on behalf of sinners. The Saviour had to be a sinless sacrifice.

Possession is seen in the little word ‘of’. In the Old Testament, God made prophecies about the coming of the Messiah and often as he did so he used the possessive pronoun ‘my’. Think of Isaiah 42:1: ‘Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight.’ There are other similar titles of Jesus indicating that initially and primarily he belongs to God the Father. Jesus is the servant of the Lord who was given a seemingly impossible task to fulfil, which was to deal with human sin by carrying it away out of the sight of God. As a sinless servant, he constantly pleased his Father, as was made clear when the Father spoke from heaven about him when he was baptised at the onset of his public ministry.

Connected to that idea of possession of God is that of provision by God. Although Jesus belonged to God, indeed was one of the Godhead, he was also given by God to help us in our need of salvation as sinners. We see this aspect in the best-known verse in the Bible: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life’ (John 3:16). He is the greatest gift, the best gift, that the heavenly Father could give to us as sinners in order for us to experience his salvation. And he can be ours by faith when we trust in him in a personal way.

The fourth word that comes to mind in connection with the title ‘Lamb of God’ is the term payment, in the sense of paying our debts to God that we owed to God as the One we had sinned against innumerable times. Sin has made us bankrupt, and we have no resources that we can offer to the Lord to make up the deficit which is incalculable. How can we be set free from this debt of not pleasing God? The astonishing answer is that Jesus has paid the debt when he suffered God’s wrath on the cross.

The discovery of the disciples

The two disciples of John make an immediate decision which was to go walking after Jesus, stepping into the unknown we could say, because initially they did not know very much about him or even where he lived. Of course, John is pointing to the commencement of a new relationship because in those days a disciple was an individual who literally followed his teacher, listening to his instructions and explanations, as he followed behind the rabbi. Would-be disciples would wait until the teacher spoke to them first, and then they would find out if he wanted them to continue as his disciples. Moreover, his words would indicate to them how close he wanted them to come to him.

So what kind of teacher was Jesus? We can see that he spoke with clarity when he asked the two disciples what they wanted from him; he was straight to the point in his communicating with them. It was a probing question for them that he asked, yet a welcoming one to them, marked by a confidence in himself that he already had the answer to all their desires. They knew that he had welcomed them when he allowed them to address him as Rabbi. And when they replied that they wanted to know where he was staying, he then spoke with certainty when he said that they would discover what they wanted to know from and about him.  This is a beautiful window into the welcoming heart of the Saviour – we see him, in Matthew Henry’s words, taking ‘early cognizance of the first motions of a soul towards him, and the first step taken in the way to heaven.’ And he still looks on such motions today with loving interest.

John and Andrew then followed Jesus to where he was staying and spent the evening there. We are not informed where this happened, and maybe it did not have a name that could be used to indicate the location. We may say to ourselves that the invitation was clear for those disciples, but we may wonder how we can find out what kind of person Jesus is since he is not living now in an earthly location. What would be the equivalent for us of spending an evening with Jesus? The answer is that we can meet him in the accounts in the Gospels, in the living Word of God. In them, we have the opportunity of seeing him on numerous occasions and in a wide variety of ways revealed his mercy, his grace, and his kindness to sinners.

The delight of the disciples

Our priorities often indicate what delights us, the aims that stir our interests. Andrew was affected by what he had seen in Jesus and immediately decided that he must tell his brother Peter about what, or who, he had found during that visit. In this verse, we have an example of the use of the Greek verb eureka that Archimedes used in the famous incident when he discovered while having a bath how to  could measure the mass of an object by the amount of water it replaced, and ran down the street shouting to one and all, ‘I have found it, I have found it.’ In Andrew’s case, the cry was ‘We have found the Messiah.’ John may never have heard of Archimedes, but whether he did or not, he was describing a far greater discovery.

There was something new and different about Andrew that led to his brother Peter quickly following him to Jesus. They had been looking for the Messiah together, which was why they had identified with John the Baptist as their leader and teacher. It was a time of national fulfilment, we could say, when the Messiah promised to Israel appeared, although the nation as a whole did not see the significance of his arrival. Yet as far as Andrew was concerned, he knew that Jesus was the one who would fulfil all the prophecies made about the Messiah in the Old Testament. And the immediate effect was that he wanted others to discover the same Jesus for themselves.

Often when a person finds something valuable, they want to keep it to themselves. But when someone discovers who Jesus is, they want others to come and know him for themselves. Jesus is the only treasure that makes us rich as we share him with others. We lose nothing by sharing him with others.

The difference that Jesus makes

When the text says that Jesus looked at Peter, the word for ‘looked’ is the same word that is used in verse 36 when John told his disciples to behold Jesus. The verb points to a steady, fixed look, an act of focused consideration and anticipation. The commentator Bengel put it, ‘having gazed earnestly at him.’ This was a look of real intent on Jesus’ part, and we are often told in the Gospels that Jesus looked in such a way at individuals before calling them into his service as his disciples.

Jesus, in a simple, straightforward but intriguing way, told Peter that he knew about his current identity as Simon the son of John, but also informed him that his character had to be changed, and he did this by saying he would make a rock, indicated in his new name. We can see from later references to Peter in the Gospels why and how Jesus did this. Often Peter was outspoken, self-confident, and rash in his words, even to Jesus, and even at times when he also revealed that he had received spiritual illumination from God about who Jesus is. Yet the fact is that Jesus loved Peter and interceded for him.

All of us have features in our hearts that need changing. In fact, we need to become a new creation. And Jesus can do it for anyone on whom and in whom he works. Perhaps you are conscious of such areas in your life or maybe you are not aware of them yet. The good news is that Jesus, even as he changed the character of Peter, is also able to change whatever character a person has who comes to him as a sinner needing salvation.