The Fiery Serpent and Christ
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The Fiery Serpent and Jesus
The Fiery Serpent and Jesus
Bible is a book full of stories that all tell one giant story. Each book in this bible tell the story of what is called redemptive History. We looked at sin and the Fall of Man in Genesis chapter three and when we looked at we see that God gave a promise of a redeemer who would come. The rest of the Old Testament is the story that leads up to the redeemer who would come.
In the beginning of the Bible we see the story of God creating this amazing place for Himself to fellowship with His creation. This is God’s heart and purpose behind creating the world.
Sin is what separates us from that fellowship. Sin is what got Adam and Eve expelled from the garden of Eden. Sin is what keeps us from life.
John says
In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
In Jesus Christ is life, and apart for God there is no life. God is author of Life, so when we live a life apart for God we live in death, and the outcome is spiritual death- An Eternity away from God.
The Story of the Bible is one of God restoring our relationship with Him. Sending an agent to act on our behalf so we can know and fellowship with Him.
Our story is one that paints this very picture. This story takes place after God has used Moses to free His people from slavery in Egypt- think the pyramids and how much work it would’ve took to build those. Well this is the slavery that the Israelites were in. No they are are wandering in the desert because they keep complain about God not taking care of them, and they end up missing out of being able to enter this awesome land that God had for them.
If you God what would you do? Here they are once again in our story complaining:
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.” Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. And 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. And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.
In our story the Israelites faced a huge problem because of their sin. God had sent them wandering in the wilderness because they didn’t trust Him, and here they are again not trusting God.
In fact they complain and accuse God of leading they there to die.
My question for you today is how does this story have anything to do with Jesus? How does it point to Jesus? and why would Jesus use this very story to point to Himself?
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.
Our sins make us very much like the Israelites. As much as we hate to admit we distrust God at times, we break His commands and all this is sin. Sin leads to death- for the Israelites is was snakes in a desert- For us it is eternal separation for God.
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
We are have this problem called sin, and just the like the snakes in the story sin has venom that poisons us and leave us to dyeing.
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
What was it that the Israelites had to look up at? They very thing that was causing them to die- the snake.
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.
The snake was cause them death, our sins cause us death.
When Christ was raised up on the cross He didn’t just die for my sins, but Christ died on that cross as our sins.
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
thus taking upon Himself the very venom of sin which is dead. When we look to the cross we see Christ our savior bearing our sins, our death, our curse. The very thing that was killing us was raised up and we look to the cross and just like in the story we find God’s grace.
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”—
Gal
We were cursed, yet Christ took that curse. The story of serpents points to the time when Christ would hang on the cross for our sins, and a time when we can look to that cross and find God’s grace.
“Turn to me and be saved,
all the ends of the earth!
For I am God, and there is no other.
The Israelites faced a huge problem because of their sin. God sent snakes to punish Israel, but anyone who was bitten could look at the bronze snake on the pole and live.
Because our sin, we face a huge problem: we are separated from God. We deserve to die, but anyone who looks to jesus on the cross and trust in Him will live forever with God.
The Preacher’s Notebook: The Collected Quotes, Illustrations, and Prayers of John Stott Two Stories of Salvation by Faith
A young man said to his father, “Father, I want to become a Christian. What must I do about it?” And his father, being a wise man, answered, “Son, there is nothing for you to do. You have only to kneel down and say ‘thank you.’ ”