John the Baptist describes Jesus as pre-existent with God. This is an important component in John the Apostle’s argument against heretical doctrines of his time that suggested that Jesus was other than divine (an angel, or a man that God adopted for a period of time and then left). In his Gospel account, epistles and the Revelation, John emphasizes the divine nature of Jesus, that He was God in the flesh. This is key to our theological understanding.
When John says, “I knew nothing about who He was,” he means, “I did not know He was Messiah.” John was Jesus’ cousin; thus, it is likely that they knew each other as boys. But even Jesus’ siblings did not understand who He was, though they grew up with Him. The revelation God gives to John—that Jesus is the Lamb of God—means that Jesus is the uniquely worthy sacrifice that will be tasked with taking sin away from us.
In the Mosaic covenant, the shedding of lamb’s blood made atonement for us with God. But that atonement was temporary. However, with Jesus, the atonement becomes permanent.
Jesus is our expiation, our offering of reparation for the sin that condemned us. Jesus repaired the breach caused by our sin. More than expiation, Jesus is the propitiation for our sin.
Propitiation is different from expiation. Expiation repairs the breach caused by sin, but propitiation pays the price and makes restitution to the one that is offended by our sin, and that is God.
Our sin debt involves an offender and an offended. Man is the offender, and God is the Offended. It requires more than the repair of the breach, but it demands that restitution be made to the One that we have offended.
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