The Beauty of the Word, The Glory of the Scriptures

There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.”  John 3:1, 2 NKJV

Nicodemus was a man in search of answers, but it’s not clear that the answers Jesus had for him were necessarily what he expected.  In my last blog, we unpacked the well-known passage “For God so loved the world…”  Did you know that Nicodemus was the audience of that beautiful passage?  Nicodemus was a teacher of the law, and as such, should have been held to a higher standard of scriptural understanding than the common man.  And as such, Jesus gave him a glimpse of truths within the Scriptures that few others could have understood.   While from the full passage we see that even Nicodemus had trouble following the Lord’s concepts, we have been given the insight of the “whole story” as it played out through Christ himself.  So let’s take a look at another of the pictures that Jesus related to Nicodemus.

Jesus answered and said to him,  …

“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”   John 3:10a, 14, 15 NKJV

Interesting.  Did you catch the fact that this passage immediately precedes the famous verse we discussed last time – John 3:16?  Many casual readers let their eyes pass over John 3: 14 and 15 and move right to the well-known verse.  But in doing so, they skip over an amazing story that ties the Scriptures together!  So what is this “serpent” that Moses lifted up in wilderness?  And why was it lifted up?  And what on earth does any of this have to do with Jesus and eternal life?  Well, to answer these questions, we must go back and make a visit to the wilderness.  Moses and the Israelites have left Egypt, and are wandering through the wilderness, on their journey to the Promised land.  We’ll pick up the story in Numbers 21…

Then they journeyed from Mount Hor by the Way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the soul of the people became very discouraged on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread.” So the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died.

Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you; pray to the LORD that He take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.  Num 21:4-9 NKJV

Wow!  This is a really strange story…  Let’s take a very high level view of what’s happening here:

1. The people cry out in anger and discouragement against Moses and against God.
2. They complain about the bread He has provided for their sustenance.
3. God sends serpents into the camp in response to their outcry.
4. Many people die from the serpents’ bites.
5. The people repent and ask Moses to pray for them.  Moses does so.
6. God tells Moses to make a bronze serpent, fix it to a pole, and lift it up for the people to look upon.
7. When the people look upon the bronze serpent, they are healed – and live.

There are many incredible truths packed into this passage, but today we will focus only on the serpents.

When we think about serpents, many of us immediately think back to that serpent in the Garden of Eden (the first mention).  Remember?

Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”  Gen 3:1 NKJV

You know the story – Eve was seduced by the serpent’s words and ate of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil.  Adam followed her and did likewise.  And all humanity has paid the price since.  So the serpent has become a figure of sin and rebellion since that pivotal time at the dawn of our history.  And Satan, the crafty serpent, is known as the embodiment of sin and evil.

What do we know about the result of sin?  Paul, in his letter to the Romans tells us that the result of sin is death:

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Rom 6:23 NKJV

So is it any wonder that when the people of God rebelled and sinned in the wilderness, forsaking His life-giving food (another amazing story, but I’ll leave that to you for now!), that the result was death through the bite of serpents?  Ok, that may seem a little crazy to our human minds, but at least it makes sense.  But what do we make of the bronze serpent on the pole?  Well, to the people of the time, it probably meant nothing, other than if you get bit, you better look at the serpent on the pole!  It is likely that the people did not understand what they were seeing.  But God has given us the insight to understand.

Why did Christ come to the Earth?  Very simply – to give His life as a sacrifice for our sin.  But what He did on the cross goes well beyond that.  Let’s look at what Paul has to say in his second letter to the Corinthian church:

For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.  2 Cor 5:21 NKJV

Did you catch that?  Christ did not only DIE for our sins, he BECAME SIN!  Jesus became sin?  Yes!  Why? So that you and I can become the RIGHTEOUSNESS of GOD!  Think about that for a few moments…

What did Jesus do on the cross?  He became sin, and allowed Himself to be put to death!  Let me say that again – He became sin and allowed himself to be put to death – death on a cross!  In other words, Jesus became like the fiery serpent (embodying sin), and was lifted up on a pole so that ALL that look upon Him for their salvation (whoever believes in Him) should not perish but have eternal life!  Jesus, then, was the “antitype” or “final fulfillment” of  the serpent on the pole that the people looked to so that they would not die for their sin and rebellion!  Wow – what an incredible picture!  Selah…

There is an unfortunate side story that goes with this lesson…  Later on in their history, the Israelites began to worship the serpent on the pole.  They allowed themselves to fall into worship of the IMAGE rather than the REAL and LIVING God.  For this reason, righteous Hezekiah had to destroy the pole.  (See Second Kings, 18:1-4)  Is it possible that some of us may fall into that same trap?  Worshipping the cross rather than the Creator?

By the way – do you know what the symbol for modern medicine is?  It looks like this (in the original design):

The symbol of modern medicine...

and our symbol of Spiritual healing?

Our Savior on the Cross

My thanks to the illustrators!

God’s blessings to you in your studies!

YouJi