The next day, he saw Jesus coming to him, and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
John spoke of ’sin,’ not sins (cf. 1 John 1:9), by which he meant the totality of the world’s sin rather than a number of individual acts. [Note: Morris, p. 130.] John seems to have had the common understanding of Messiah that his contemporaries did. This was that He would be a political liberator for Israel (cf. Matthew 11:2-3; Luke 7:19). However, he understood, as most of his contemporaries did not, that the scope of Jesus’ ministry would be spiritual and universal. He would take away the sin of the world, not just the Jews. [Note: See Christopher W. Skinner, "Another Look at ’the Lamb of God’," Bibliotheca Sacra 161:641 (January-March 2004):89-104, for a review of nine views of the referent behind the "Lamb."] 