Behold the Lamb of God Who Takes Away the Sin of the World and the Cleansing of the Temple

John the Baptist's announcement concerning the Lamb of God, in John 1, came in the midst of a culture of sacrifice and ritual; a culture heavily invested in the perpetual sense of guilt before God and the continual need to appease God. In John, chapter 2, Jesus overthrows money-changer's tables and drives out the merchants of sacrifice along with all their animals. His accusation of making "my Father's house a house of merchandise" has to do with the culture and economy of sin.

Man has a problem of sin, but it is more than committing certain prohibited deeds. The root of man's problem lies in having the wrong head, feeding on the wrong food, and listening to the wrong teacher. Man was created to be a living being, but they reside in death. No amount of sacrifice and ritual can touch the foundation of the problem, neither can it provide any sort of remedy. After the sacrifice and ritual, I am still in the same condition I was in before hand.

The lamb of God deals with the root problem. Instead of "living" in death, this lamb can restore us to the state of living beings. Instead of feeding on dust (the serpent's rations), this lamb feeds his people on the word proceeding from the mouth of God, the breath that made man a living being in the beginning. Instead of leaving people to be taught by the serpent, this lamb is come to teach his people the will of the Father and enable them to accomplish that will. Instead of having the serpent as our head, this lamb bruises the serpent's head. We now can have the lamb as our head instead of the serpent.