"When John the Baptist, pointing the people to Jesus, who was coming unto him, exclaimed, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world," (John 1:29) he opened at once the great theme of the wreck and rescue of mankind.
The world's first and fatal malady is sin.
All its sufferings and sorrows, its woes and disappointments
and wrongs, its corruptions and evil passions, - pride, hatred, envy, and revenge, - its thorns, malaria, mildew, and desert wastes, its fairest and dearest hopes blighted and buried in the mold and darkness and terror of the tomb, - all these find their origin, nourishment, and support in this one root of bitterness, this upas tree of sin.
The world is wrecked and ruined so long as the virus of this deadly evil courses in the veins of men. The only remedy, then is the removal of sin.
Q: But who is sufficient for this mighty task?
Q: What means are adequate for its accomplishment?
Men cannot do it; angels cannot do it;
A: there is only One of exaltation so high, of merit so great, of power so mighty, as to be able to reach down an arm of strength, and lift from humanity the awful burden; only one name under heaven, given among men, whereby they must be saved, - the exalted Being to whom John pointed, - the Lamb of God, the divine and only begotten Son of the Everlasting Father." Uriah Smith
