The Bronze Serpent (2)

Background Information

Do you remember the Exodus story? By the time of the beginning of Numbers, that was only a year or two ago. God has provided miraculously for them in many ways and at different times. RECAP the Exodus story

Israel now has a journey to make to get to the land of Canaan, which God promised to Abraham 400 years earlier.

Israel has this problem, however. The problem can look like it’s particular to them, and it’s something we read now and “this is just ridiculous.” The problem, of course, is rebellion. Israel had a chronic rebellion problem.

Grumbling against their leaders, complaining about how much better it was when they were still in Egypt, and complaining about food and drink—not even to mention disobeying God’s instructions! This kind of rebellion can look very silly to us—when will they learn?! How can they have seen God move in the way that they did, and still not shut up and trust in Him? Surely they were a special kind of stupid!

In fact, they weren’t. You see, Israel didn’t suffer from a special kind fo problem. they had the same problem that everyone has or has had. Israel was dead in their sins. There was nothing anomolous about Israel’s state except for the anomoly in all human beings: that wretched state of sinfulness into which all of us were born. Sure, Israel was stubborn and ungrateful. So are all people. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you about the sorry state of people without God. You can see it all over the news. If we are honest, we see more of it than we would always like to admit, in the mirror!

Today’s Passage

Today’s passage is one instance in a what is a litany of human rebellions, starting with our father Adam and persisting bodly to this day. Ever since our first aprents ate that fruit, no human being has been able to live under God’s rule. In fact, under their own power no one has even wanted to. Six times Israel has already rebelled in the book of Numbers. Six times!

They complained about misfortunes in ch. 11,

they complained about having no meat, but only manna, in ch. 11,

Aaron and Miriam—Moses’ own siblings—complain about Moses’ leadership,

then the spies sent into Canaan disocurage the people in Ch. 13, and the people grumbled against Aaron and Moses and said that they would rather have died in Egypt.

The people then try to enter the land despite God’s prohibition in Ch. 14,

and Korah and his men rebelled against Moses in Ch. 16.

And then, the people as a whole rebell again against Moses and Aaron in Ch. 16,

and Moses disobeys God in Ch. 20.

And the nation of Israel was not without discipline or correction during this time. God sent fire, God sent a plague, God sent leprosy, God bars a whole generation from ever entering his promised land, God lets Israel be defeated in battle, God swallowed up whole families into the earth and sent fire to consume 250 more men, God sent another plague, and Moses himself is barred from entering the promised land.

It is after all these things that we finally find our passage. But, this time, Israel isn’t just complaining about Moses or water or Egypt. This time their comlaints are a grumbling directly at God: Num 21:4-5 “From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient 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 we loathe this worthless food.”” Do you know what this worthless food was? It was manna!

God does what He did before: He executes judgment on the people. He sends fiery serpents among the people. The word “fiery” possibly refers to the burning feeling people got from the bites. The snakes but people and many people died from it. Don’t miss this: it is these days very popular once again to deny that God executes judgment on people. Talk about why sin incurs judgment and how problematic forgiveness is. As in the previous judgments in Numbers, it is very clear that these death of men and women were orchestarted by God. God killed them. It is God who has been transgressed against, and it is God who brings retribution.

As God’s judgments often do, however, the deadly snakes brought Israel in repentance, and they pleaded with Moses, and Moses interceded for them. Moses asked God for mercy, and God gives him unusual instructions. Moses was to make an image of the very snakes that were killing people and mount it up on a pole. Anyone who was bitten had only to look at this bronze or copper snake, and they would survive. That’s it! The story ends as quickly as it begins.

But for us, there is more to this story than first meets the eye. We learn in the Gospel of John that the bronze serpent has a far greater meaning that just Israel’s snake infestation. We read ths in John 3:14-15

John 3:14–15 ESV

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

Jesus says these words to a confused Pharisee named Nicodemus, which is another story entirely. Nicodemus doesn’t understand how someone can be born again, even though he himself is one of Israel’s spiritual leaders. Jesus keeps at it with him, though, and tells him that the bronze serpent was a symbol of Jesus himself. Today we call these symbols “types.”

These types are everywhere (don’t think “kinds”: but like it is used in “archetype” or “prototype”), and you can even get multiple “types” of Jesys in the same OT story. In fact, in this numbers story we can see several. Not only is Jesus symbolised by the snake, but Moses himself is a type of Jesus—he is the intercessor for God’s people. The manna about which the people comlain is a type of Jesus—just as it is bread from heaven, Jesus teaches that he is the true heavenly bread. The water which flows from the rock is claimed directly in the NT to be Christ. Don’t think these are stretches of my imagination, this is how the NT protrays them, and it is part of what Jesus meant when he said that Israel’s scriptures testify about himself.

Coming back to the bronze snake, let us observe a few things.

Firstly, it is odd, you may think, that Jesus is symbolised by a snake. Of all the animals God could have chosen, why a snake? Surely it would have been more Christ-like if a pride of lions savaged the camp, and if Moses made a bronze lion? What if Moses lifted up an image of a sacrifical lamb? Isn’t the snake a symbol of evil? Isn’t the snake in the garden how we got into this mess in the first place? And what’s more, snakes are unclean in the very law God gave to Israel! Yes—all these things are true. But let me remind you of what it is that Christ did for us when he took on human flesh.

Romans 8:3–4 ESV

For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Galatians 3:13 ESV

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—

Do you see now why it was the picture of a snake that Moses was instructed to make? You see, this story is not just another one of Israel’s rebellions in the desert between Egypt and Canaan. It is not just about a temporary healing for people bitten by some snakes that God sends. This is a picture of Christ’s crucifixion. Christ is symbolised by this picture of sin, this image of a snake, because Christ himself took on the sin of the world and became cursed by God. The snakes were God’s judgment on the people, and the only way they escaped His wrath as by looking at an image of that very judgment. Likewise, the way to escape the final judgment of God for our sins is to look at God’s final judgment on Christ. God provided the means of escape from the snakes He Himself sent, and He has provided once and for all the atoning sacrifce to free people from his judgment under the law. It is by looking at God’s judgment in th person fo Christ that we escape that very judgment. This isn’t cosmic child abuse by the Father, it is the self-substitution of God the Son, who will Himself judge the world.

So, when Chris tells Nicodemus that he will be lited up, he isn’t talking about his ascension to heaven or being seated at the right hand of the Father. it doesn’t just refer to his exaltation. That is what other epsitles mean when they use this verb “lifted up,” but in the Gospel of John it always refers to Christ’s death. John sees Christ’s crucifixion as his exaltation. Christ knew exactly how he was going to die, because that’s what he came here to do. Christ came to bear the curse of law in our stead.

How can looking to Christ save us? If looking at the image of the snake was a type of Christ, how does that correspond? All the Israelites had to do was look at this serpent. Just look! You might say, don’t we have to do much more than looking to Christ? Understand what simplicity of faith it takes to be reocnciled to God. All He bids you to do is to look! Look at Christ! I don’t say that you don’t need faith; it is with faith’s eyes that you must look at him. All of what is means to be a disciple of Christ, all it means to be a Christian, comes from first looking at him, and him crucified. Behold the crucified Christ.

Do not think that you have passed on from looking to him, only because you have been reoncicled to him already. Praise God if you have already been transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of His Son, but don’t think that you have passed on from looking to him. Do you not daily feel the hindrances of the flesh? as Paul says in Gal 3:3 “Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?”

It will never stop being necessary to look to Christ! Look to him! Look to him! He will forever be our life.

For some of you these will be tired old words. Sure, look to Christ. Whatever that means, right? Well, if this is where our life is, you had better find out what it means. Do not look with your fleshly eyes, because you will not find him. Christ is now seated at the Father’s right hand, and you will not see him with your eyes until he returns. you must find him by God’s Spirit, who makes Christ known to us. Consider our Lord’s death, cleave to Him. Think on his words and believe in him. The very soldiers who crucified Jesus saw his death and proclaimed, “Surely this man was the Son fo God.” If God can being these men to a knowledge of the truth, he can draw you to Himself. Jesus Christ is still where you find relief from your sins. Do you ever feel weighed down by them? Do you ever despair over them? Look to Christ, and find relief from your sin. Two criminals hung on cross next to Christ. Both saw him, but only one looked to Christ as he was, and that one found a rest that the other never would.

This is the Story of God’s redemption. You have aready heard me quote the Scriptures to you form several books. I turn now, to finish, to the prophet Isaiah. See with what consistency all the men of God write concerning our salvation. Hear how the Spirit testifies to Jesus. I will read to you now Isaiah 52:13-53, and as I do, would you look to Christ?

Isaiah 52:13–Isaiah 53 ESV

Behold, my servant shall act wisely; he shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted. As many were astonished at you— his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind— so shall he sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths because of him, for that which has not been told them they see, and that which they have not heard they understand. Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.