The Lamb of God

John the Baptist introduces Jesus as ‘the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world’ (Jn 1:29).  Later, a link is made between Jesus and the lamb sacrificed at Passover.  This amounts to John’s endorsement of the penal substitution categories found in Ex 12.

Deliverance from God’s wrath

In Num 21:4-9, the Lord rescues his people from a punishment he himself had imposed.  John 3:14-18 has a clear echo of this.  Jesus’ death saves us from God’s wrath and condemnation.  Jn 5:24; 8:21,24 confirm that death is the penalty for sin, and Jn 6:50-58; 8:51 demonstrate that deliverances is through the death of Jesus.

Salvation by substitution

According to Jn 11:47-52, Jesus dies as our substitute.  So important is this to John that he repeats it in Jn 18:14.  Note the use of the preposition hyper (‘for’ – ‘in the place of’).

The same preposition is used in Jn 6:51, where Jesus says that he will give his flesh for (hyper) the life of the world.  Jesus dies, and as a consequence others, who would have died, live.

Again, in Jn 10:11, the good shepherd lays down his life for (hyper) the sheep.

Summary

John presents belief in Jesus’ death as the means by which we can be saved from God’s wrath and condemnation.  Without him we perish.  How is this salvation possible?  Caiaphas’ prophecy that Jesus would did ‘for [hyper] the scattered children of God’ (John 11:52) in its context teaches clearly that Jesus’ death was substitutionary, and John 6:51 and John 10:11 suggest the same thing.

To ‘perish’ in John is to suffer the punishment for sin under God’s just condemnation.  It is penal.  Jesus perished in the place of his people, that they might live.  This is penal substitution.