“If it was Paul who revealed that Christ gave Himself a ransom ‘for all’ (1 Tim. 2:6) as opposed to the “many” in Israel (Matt. 20:28), how do we explain John 1:29?”

“…John seeth Jesus…and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”

John was a prophet (Luke 7:28), and the prophets didn’t always understand their own prophecies (1 Pet. 1:11), especially when it came to “the sufferings of Christ.” God knew that this would probably trouble the prophets, so He comforted them by explaining that “not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things” that they prophesied (v. 12).

We know that no one who heard John make his statement understood that Christ would die for the sins of the world, for some of the 12 heard it, but didn’t understand it (Luke 18:31-34). Not even Satan understood it (1 Cor. 2:7,8), or else he wouldn’t have instigated Judas to betray the Lord (Luke 22:3,4).

So the ransom Christ made for all men might have been prophesied in John 1:29, but it wasn’t “testified” until the “due time” came for Paul to be “ordained a preacher and an apostle” (1 Tim. 2:6,7).

To the Reader:

Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:

"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."

To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.

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