The choice belongs entirely to God. He chose the people of Israel not for any
merits of their own but simply because He chose to love them. He chose a people who needed Him, a people
who were nothing at all, slaves in Egypt.
He chose them before that, He chose them when He chose their patriarch,
Abraham, a man of whom we know nothing before Yahweh chose him. We know nothing of his merits, we know only
that God chose him as the one through whom He would build a nation, this holy
nation, this treasured possession.
Because of the great love of God for them, their future was secure, all
they had to do was obey Him. They have,
however, the knowledge of Him that He will forgive them if they confess their
sins, and that He is faithful and His covenant everlasting. So do we.
John was promised a particular sign, saw the sign, and
believed the sign. From that point he no
longer spoke of the one to come, but rather pointed to Jesus and said, there is
the one I was telling you about. The
Lamb of God is, however, a term you wouldn't necessarily expect based on John's
proclamation of the one who was to come.
It isn't particularly a term anyone was familiar with or used with
Messiah. The lamb is certainly not
ordinarily thought of as a fearsome animal or associated with judgment. The lion of Judah might be a more appropriate
idea. What did John know about Jesus'
mission? Did he have any idea that the
Lamb of God was to be slain as the ultimate Passover lamb?
Faith and knowledge go hand in hand. Faith actually begets knowledge. When we walk in faith, believing the truth we
know, we begin to gain additional knowledge that is based in faithfully
receiving the truth of God. Faith and
knowledge are partners in our journey.
We must always walk in light of truth received in order to gain more
wisdom and knowledge. Paul says that elders
in the church must be those who hold fast to the truth and are able to instruct
others and defend the faith. In the
garden, Adam had two responsibilities, to keep the garden and to guard it. He was to maintain what God had already done
but also to protect it from enemies. We
have the same responsibility with respect to God's Word. We are to keep it and serve it by our
obedience to it but we are also to be prepared to defend it against the attacks
that often sound very familiar, "Did God really say?"
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