Why is Jesus called “the Lamb of God”?

The faithful in this world, together with those in heaven, cherish this particular title. John the Baptist and forerunner calls Him “the Lamb of God” (John 1:29, 36), as does St. Peter (1 Pet. 1:19), and the title is found twenty-eight times in the book of Revelation. The Apostolic Churches frequently use this title in their liturgies and worship. This title reminds us that the Passover Lamb was a type of Christ, who fulfilled our passing over from slavery to the freedom of the glory of the children of God. The apostle Paul says, “For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us” (1 Cor. 5:7).

The scholar Origen says, “what must we understand, and of what magnitude, about the Lamb of God who was sacrificed that he might take away the sin, not of a few, but of the whole world (cf. John 1:29), for which also he has suffered? For if ‘anyone sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the just, and he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world’ (1 John 2:1–2) since ‘he is the Savior of all men, especially of the faithful’ (cf. 1 Tim. 4:10). It is he who ‘blotted out the handwriting against us’ with his own blood and removed it from our midst, that no traces even of the sins which have been expunged might be found, and ‘having fastened it to the cross,’ who ‘after he had despoiled the principalities and powers, exposed them boldly after he had triumphed over

738 St. Cyril of Alexandria, That Christ is One (LFHCC 47:312) amended.

739 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on John 4.3 (NPNF I/14:18).

them ‘in the cross’ (cf. Col. 2:14–15). We are taught, therefore, to be of good cheer when we are afflicted in the world. We learn that the reason for being of good cheer is this: the world has been conquered (cf. John 16:33) and, of course, subjected to him who conquered it. For this reason, all the nations, set free from those who formerly controlled them, serve him, because ‘he delivered the poor from the mighty’ through his own passion, ‘and the needy who had no helper’ (Cf. Ps. 71:12).”⁷⁴⁰

He also says, “For the death of Christ has made the powers which war against the human race ineffectual, and, by an ineffable power, has brought the life in sin in each believer to an end.”⁷⁴¹