Christian symbols

The Lamb in Christianity

Christ our Passover

The lamb is one of the tenderest and most important symbols of the Christian faith. When John the Baptist saw Jesus, he cried, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. In that title the whole story of Scripture comes together: the Passover lamb whose blood spared Israel, the lambs offered in the temple, and the promise of one who would bear the sins of many. The lamb speaks of innocence, of sacrifice freely given, and of the gentle Savior who lays down his life for his flock.

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 (KJV)

The lamb in the Old Testament

Long before the coming of Christ, the lamb stood at the center of Israel's worship. On the night Israel was delivered from Egypt, each household killed a lamb and marked its doorposts with the blood, and the angel of death passed over those homes. This was the Passover, remembered every year, and its lamb had to be without blemish, a perfect life given so that others might live.

The prophets deepened the image. Isaiah foretold a suffering servant who would be led as a lamb to the slaughter, silent before his shearers, who would bear the sins of many. So when the New Testament calls Jesus the Lamb, it is gathering up centuries of longing and pointing to their fulfillment.

Behold the Lamb of God

John the Baptist gave Jesus the name that would echo through the church. Seeing him approach, John said, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. He was saying that this man was the true and final sacrifice, the one all the temple lambs had pointed toward.

The Gospels underline it. Jesus was condemned and crucified at the season of Passover, and the New Testament calls him our Passover, sacrificed for us. As the Passover lamb spared Israel from death, so the death of Christ, Christians confess, delivers all who trust him. The lamb is a picture of willing, innocent sacrifice, for he was oppressed and afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth.

The Lamb upon the throne

The Book of Revelation lifts the symbol to its height. There the apostle John sees a Lamb standing as though it had been slain, and yet alive and reigning at the center of heaven, worshiped by every creature with the cry, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain. The wounds remain, but now they are marks of victory.

This is the great reversal at the heart of the faith. The one who was killed as a lamb is enthroned as Lord. Revelation speaks of the marriage supper of the Lamb and of the Lamb who will be the light of the holy city. In Christian art the Lamb is often shown standing with a banner of victory, the Agnus Dei, the Lamb of God who conquers by having been slain.

The lamb that God provides

One of the oldest threads in the whole Bible is the promise that God himself will provide the lamb. When Abraham climbed the mountain with his son Isaac and the boy asked where the lamb for the offering was, Abraham answered that God would provide himself a lamb. It is a moment full of foreshadowing, and the church has long read in it a hint of the sacrifice God would one day make his own.

This is the wonder at the center of the symbol. In every other religion of the ancient world, human beings brought their offerings up to God to win his favor. In the gospel, God comes down and provides the offering himself. The Lamb of God is not a gift we give to God but a gift God gives to us. He does not demand the sacrifice from us; he supplies it in his own Son.

That is why the lamb is such a gentle rebuke to every religion of earning and fear. It says that we cannot make ourselves acceptable by our own efforts, but that we do not have to, because the sacrifice has already been made. The debt is paid. The lamb without blemish has been offered, once for all, and there remains nothing to add.

The lamb also calls the believer to a certain kind of life. The One who was gentle as a lamb calls his followers to gentleness, to lay down their rights as he laid down his, to overcome not by force but by sacrificial love. The flock of the Lamb is meant to look like its Shepherd. And its hope is sure, for the Lamb who was slain is alive, and leads his own to living fountains of waters, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.

The Lamb in worship through the ages

From very early times the church has kept the image of the Lamb at the heart of its worship. In many traditions the words drawn from John the Baptist are sung or spoken before the bread and cup: Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, have mercy on us, grant us peace. In that ancient prayer the worshiper looks straight to the sacrifice of Christ and asks for the mercy it won.

Christian art has loved the Lamb no less. The Lamb of God is often shown standing and bearing a banner of victory, sometimes with blood flowing into a cup, joining the sacrifice of the cross to the meal of the Supper. In the great vision of Revelation the whole of heaven is gathered around the Lamb, and artists have tried for centuries to capture that scene of all creation at worship.

The symbol also shaped the calendar of faith. Because Jesus died at Passover, the season of the Passover lamb, the church came to keep his death and resurrection at that same time each year, so that the memory of the true Lamb is renewed annually in the highest feast of the Christian year.

In all these ways the Lamb keeps one truth always before the eyes of the church: that its life rests not on its own goodness but on a sacrifice made once for all. Every generation is called to look again to the Lamb of God, to receive the mercy he purchased, and to join the song that will never end, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain.

In this the lamb remains the tenderest summary of the gospel. It tells the anxious soul that it need not climb up to God with offerings of its own, for God has come down and provided the offering himself. The innocent has been given for the guilty, once for all, and the love that led the Lamb to the slaughter is the same love that now reigns from the throne. To trust the Lamb of God is to rest in a mercy already purchased and a victory already won.

How the lamb points to Christ

The lamb points to Christ more directly than almost any other symbol, for it is a name Scripture gives him. It tells the whole gospel in a single image: that God provided the sacrifice himself, that the innocent gave his life for the guilty, and that the gentleness of a lamb, not the force of a lion, is how God overcame the world.

To call Jesus the Lamb is to say that his death was not a defeat but an offering, freely made out of love. And it is to look forward, for the church waits for the day when the Lamb who was slain will wipe away every tear. The lamb is at once the story of the cross and the hope of glory.

A note across traditions: these symbols are shared by Christians everywhere as ways to point to Christ, never as objects of worship, for worship belongs to God alone. Where a symbol grew out of a later tradition or legend rather than the Bible, this page says so plainly. In every tradition there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, and every sign the church uses is meant to lead the heart to him.

Related: Bread and wine · The Good Shepherd · Who is Jesus? · All Christian symbols