Many Christians immediately think of this phrase in terms of the theory of substitutionary atonement that goes back to Anselm of Canterbury (11th century) that goes like this: God's justice has been violated by human sin and must be satisfied by a human being. Jesus, being both human and divine, then dies in our place in order to satisfy divine justice. In this way of thinking, sacrifices are made to satisfy God's judgment, but ordinary lambs have only temporary and limited value. Jesus as the Lamb of God has infinite value to take away the sin of the world.
The problem with this way of thinking is that none of the five kinds of sacrifice discussed in the Hebrew Bible is substitutionary. Christian Eberhard summarizes research in The Sacrifice of Jesus that shows that Israelites and early Judaism understood sacrifice as finite humans approaching to an infinite God. The point of a sacrifice is not that the animal is substituted for a human being, but relationship. The primary word for sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible is qorban, which comes from the verb to mean "to come close" ("offering" in Lev 1:2; see the verbal form translated "draw near" in Exodus 16:9). Grain sacrifices are the most common kind of sacrifice Israelites offered (e.g. Lev 2:1). When we think of "sacrifice," we shouldn't think of the death of an animal as primary, but a relationship between two unequal parties around food--the kind of relationship people have when they meet to have a meal together.
If the first problem is a misunderstanding about sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible, the second problem is the two parts of the phrase "Lamb of God" and "takes away the sin of the world." How do these two parts fit together? Traditional solutions include: the Passover lamb (Exodus 12:21-28), the suffering Servant (Isaiah 53:5-12), the scapegoat (Leviticus 16:6-10), Isaac’s substitute (Genesis 22:1-14), the daily offerings in the temple (Exod 29:38-46), the sin offering (Leviticus 4:32-35), and even the apocalyptic Lamb who buys back saints with his blood and is victorious over the kings of the earth (Revelation 5:9; 17:14). Not all of these solutions focus on lambs; for example, the scapegoats are goats; the daily sacrifice and sin offering have the option of a lamb, but are usually a bull or goat. The suffering Servant is compared to a lamb (Isa 53:7) but is never referred to as "the Lamb of God" and does not "take away the sin of the world" but suffers because of our iniquity.
The best solution is to see that the evangelist John has fused the Passover Lamb with a view of Sin as a cosmic power that captivates humanity. John especially portrays Jesus as the Passover Lamb: (1) he is crucified at the time when the Passover Lambs were slaughtered (John 19:14); (2) he was given wine to drink on hyssop, and hyssop was used to smear the Passover Lamb's blood on the doorposts (Jn 19:29; Exod 12:22); (3) John highlights that Jesus' legs were not broken, just as the Passover Lamb may not have any bones broken (Jn 19:36; Exod 12:46). Jesus is portrayed as the Passover Lamb, the one whose blood protects the household from the angel of death and the one who opens the way out of slavery and into freedom.
The twin focus on protection from death and way out of slavery seems to be the connection with sin. In John, Sin is cosmic power that enslaves humanity and brings death. Jesus says, "Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. (Jn 8:34). Just prior, Jesus is teaching in the treasure of the temple and he describes his audience as "in Sin", as if it is a location or sphere of power that leads to death (Jn 8:21). Just as Jesus dwells with his disciples in a life-giving relationship (Jn 15:5; see Jn 1:38-39), sin dwells in those who self-righteously claim they can see (Jn 9:41). For John, "take away" can mean "move from one place to another" or figuratively "destroy" (for example, the Roman Empire may "destroy (lit. take away) both our holy place and our nation" (Jn 11:48; see also 1 John 3:5).
Therefore, we should understand the identification "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" to mean, "Jesus is the one who will function as a kind of one-and-for-all-time Passover Lamb that brings rescue from the slavery of sin and protects us from and destroys its death-dealing power." We could further explicate the focus on the blood of Jesus as the protective agent, just as the Passover Lamb, but we've done enough for one blog post!
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