4. John 1:35-51 Jesus Calls His First Disciples

 

Vs 35-36: The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.
VS 41: He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ).
VS 45-46: Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.

John the Baptist describes Jesus for the second time as “The Lamb of God”. In the first instance he added the phrase, “who takes away the sins of the world. As Rev. Park pointed out in the previous SOAP, John’s understanding comes from Isaiah’s promise that God’s future servant would suffer as a sacrifice for his people who had turned away and rebelled against God.
 
“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.” Isaiah 53:6-7
 
I am amazed at how quickly these men who encountered Jesus came to believe that he was God’s promised Messiah and how readily they followed him.
 
The recurring theme in this passage is that those who believed in Jesus wanted others to encounter him as well and made it their mission to bring people to Jesus.

Dear Jesus, thank you for allowing my sin to be laid upon you. I don’t deserve your love and grace, but I am so grateful that I didn’t have to be deserving to receive it. Help me to care enough about others to do what I can to persuade them to “come and see” so they will believe and receive your love and grace as well.