The Gospel of the Bronze Serpent

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I heard a preacher say one time to his congregation that God made you and He loves you so much that if he had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it. I’m just guessing here, but do you know whose picture would not be on it? Snakes.

I can’t say that God hates them because he made them. But when the Bible talks about snakes, it does not use glowing terminology. And I understand why, because they’re not on my fridge either.

I don’t even like having them in our back pasture, let alone on our fridge. But when the Bible describes snakes, you know, or uses snakes, it’s not in a positive way. Jesus told the Pharisees they were acting like a den of snakes.

Now, I’ve seen, thankfully not in person, but I’ve seen a den of snakes. Some of you saw that video that went around on social media about a year ago where a man dropped his GoPro in a den of rattlesnakes. I don’t know how he got it back, but I looked at that and thought that is the last place on earth I want to be.

And to be called that tells you how Jesus thought of the Pharisees. Then in Psalms, God is describing people who lie and deceive and hurt other people, and He talks about their tongues being as sharp as serpents, and a viper’s venom is under their tongues. And then, of course, you go back to Genesis 3 and you see the role that a serpent played in the fall of mankind, at least in being used by Satan for that purpose.

Positive references to snakes are few and far between, but there is one instance, and that’s why it makes it so puzzling to us the first time we hear it. There is one reference in Scripture where Jesus compares Himself to a snake in a good way, and that’s what we’re going to look at this morning. Looking at this story from the book of Numbers chapter 21, if you haven’t already turned there with me, from Numbers chapter 21, there’s this story that is told about snakes and about how a statue of a snake is built in order to rescue Israel.

And Jesus compares Himself to this. And this morning we’re going to talk about that, what I’ve called the gospel of the bronze serpent, which even as I came up with that name, I thought that sounds like a novel that my kids would be really into. Right?

He’s sitting here going, he’s not wrong. This bronze serpent is one of the instances in the Old Testament where we see God using something that happened in real life to the Israelites, not just to deal with their situation then, but also to point to Jesus who was coming. That’s what we’ve been studying all through this series.

So we’re in Numbers chapter 21 this morning, and once you find it, if you’ll stand with me as we read together from God’s Word, and if you can’t find Numbers 21 or you don’t have your Bible with you, it will be on the screen behind me this morning. Start in verse 1, and here’s what it says. When the Canaanite, the king of Arad, who lived in the Negev, heard that Israel was coming by the way of Atharim.

Then he fought against Israel and took some of them captive. So Israel made a vow to the Lord and said, if you will indeed deliver this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities. The Lord heard the voice of Israel and delivered up the Canaanites.

Then they utterly destroyed them and their cities. Thus the name of the place was called Hormah. Then they set out from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom, and the people became impatient because of the journey.

Now, I just want to say for a moment, when it says here that they came in and they wiped out the Canaanites, these were not just innocent Canaanites minding their own business. These were people who were attacking Israel, who were threatening them, and the Israelites were frightened because of what they were being forced to deal with and called out to God and said, if you’ll take care of this for us, we’ll do what you’ve said, which they should have done what God But if you’ll take care, they were asking God to take care of this situation for them, and He did. And as a result, God gave them victory over the Israelites, sorry, over the Canaanites.

But then when they had to go around Edom, which was another country that threatened them, they became impatient. That’s what we’ve seen the last two weeks, is them becoming impatient. Verse 5 says, then the people spoke against God and Moses, familiar saying here, 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 miserable food. The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people so that many people of Israel died. So the people came to Moses and said, We have sinned, because we have spoken against the Lord and you.

Intercede with the Lord, that he may remove the serpents from us. And Moses interceded for the people. Then the Lord said to Moses, make a fiery serpent and set it on a standard, and it shall come about that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live.

And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard, and it came about that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived. And you may be seated. One thing that I have never seen before in all the times that I have studied this passage and all the times that I’ve preached this passage, something that I’ve never seen before this week.

And I’m not saying no one has ever seen it before because that’s a red flag, right? I’m saying it’s right there and I’ve never seen it before. In verse 5, it says, there is no food and water.

This is their complaint. There is no food and water, and we loathe this miserable food. Okay, so you see where I’m going with this.

They’re mad that there’s no food, and they hate the food. They’re so mad, they’re not even making sense. They’re just complaining about everything, because God has provided them food.

God has provided them water. Over the last two weeks, we saw how God provided them manna in the wilderness, how God provided them water. And I don’t know about you, but the manna sounds pretty good.

Sounds a lot better than anything we’re going to get in a drive-thru later today. I mean, you just have to go and sweep it up off the ground, and it tastes like wafers with honey, and apparently it’s light and flaky, and you can do all sorts of things with it. It sounds wonderful.

But they were sick of it, and they were ungrateful because God should have put out some different things for them to try. And saying there’s no water when we know God provided water anytime they needed it, anytime they asked for it. But they always come back to this statement, well, you’ve just led us out of Egypt here into the wilderness to die.

Anytime they. . .

I have one child who’s a little bit dramatic, who asked the other day, can I have a snack? And Charla said, no, we’re going to be eating dinner in about 30 minutes. And this child looked at Charla, all seriousness, even made tears come down, and said, so you’re just going to let me starve and die?

And my lovely wife looked at that child and said, yes, that’s exactly what I said. Now go play. They’re being just a little bit dramatic.

God has always taken care of them, But every time something mildly inconvenient comes up, their response is, well, you just left us out here in the wilderness to die. Honestly, I don’t know how God had as much patience with them as He did, but I’m glad He did because He has the same patience with us. But here we get to a point where God’s patience is running out.

It’s not completely gone, as we’ll see, because He doesn’t just let them be destroyed, but God is getting to that point where he’s just had enough. And so there’s a moment of judgment. There’s a moment of bringing their attention back.

It’s kind of a spanking to get their attention. And it’s pretty miraculous even the way it happens. God’s judgment against Israel was miraculous here, but so was His grace.

He had heard their prayers, as we saw in verses 1 through 3, and then when they got mad about the route that they had to take, and it was taken so much longer, and it was hot and they were tired and they’re not happy with the snacks he packed. And they’re just mad about all of it. They complained bitterly.

And we read this and we think, what’s the big deal? They’re just complaining. But keep in mind this God who heard their prayers in Egypt, who took care of everything.

So they didn’t have to do anything. Just get up, take what you’ve got with you, get up and go. I’m going to do all the work of setting you free.

When I open up the sea, you just walk through it. When I provide the food, you just go pick it up. When I make the water come out of the rock, you just lap it up.

He was going to take care of everything. He was going to provide for them. This God who had shown himself to be nothing but faithful, at every turn, they looked at him and said, you’ve brought us out here in the wilderness to die.

They are not just complaining about their circumstances, but they are slandering God’s character, saying that this God who had done all these things for them, this God who had proven himself faithful time and time again, was the kind of God who would get his kicks by just working out this plan of getting their hopes up and then bringing them out in the wilderness just to die. And that’s why God reacts so strongly to this, because it’s not just complaining, it’s slandering him and saying, that’s the kind of God he is. Like, he’s evil enough to do that, and they’re doubting his provision.

And so God disciplined them with this sudden outbreak of snake bites. Now, snake bites happen when you’re out in the wilderness. They can happen.

There’s snakes all over the place. But this was like an invasion of these snakes. I don’t like them.

I don’t hang out with them. But the one thing I’ve learned about snakes is that most of them want to get away from us. I’ll be out working in our yard and come across one.

It’s usually this same coach whip that I’ve dealt with for about three years. And he and I will surprise each other. And usually I’ll yell.

And if I’ve got my phone, I’ll call Charlotte. Because she can tell if they are venomous or not. And we’ll just have a standoff.

And the second I try to look away for a second, he’s trying to slither off someplace. He does not want to attack me. He wants to get away from me.

That’s how snakes are, unless you really back them into a corner. So for these snakes to come into their camp and kind of chase them down, this is not normal behavior. This is by the power of God something happening that does not happen otherwise, of God saying, I’m going to do this to get your attention.

And some of the people died. Now for us, that sounds kind of harsh, but then again, it’s not even recorded everything that God had been dealing with with these people day in and day out. It doesn’t say everybody died.

It says some of them died. And it may be that these were the ringleaders, the ones who complained the worst, and were trying to get everybody stirred up against God. We don’t know.

But he disciplined them with this outbreak of snake bite that’s hard for us to picture because this just isn’t the way things normally happen. And when we get to verse 7, the people start to repent, I’ll bet. Because if God tells me to do something and I ignore Him and I complain against Him and suddenly my house is being invaded by snakes that are chasing me down, you better believe I’m going to be calling out to God.

And so they called out to God. It caused them to wake up and repent, and they call out to God and we get to verses 8 and 9 and God offers them this reprieve that they don’t deserve. God offers this showing of grace that they did not deserve.

Because again, keep in mind, this was not an isolated incident. The entire time they’ve been out there, God has been taking care of them and then every time something else comes up, it’s like, God, what have you done for us lately. If you loved us, if you weren’t so evil, you’d be taking care of this.

And God finally got to that point of having enough. Why would God afflict them with snakes? We just have to look at what they were accusing Him of.

And I think the reason it was the snakes this time is to prove a point to Israel. What were they accusing Him of? Well, you brought us out here to die in the wilderness, and suddenly these venomous, terrifying snakes come into their camp and start attacking them, I think that’s God’s way of saying, if I wanted to kill you in the wilderness, this is what it would look like.

And then why would God relent? Because He’s showing them, I did not bring you out here just to kill you in the wilderness. If He brought them out there to kill them in the wilderness, He would have just let the snakes go and not given them any remedy, not given them any hope, just let the snakes do their work.

But destroying them in the wilderness was not His plan. And so He told Moses, I want you to make a bronze serpent. This was an unusual command because God had already told them not to make images, not to make statues of living creatures.

So he knew they, especially because of the influences around them of the other countries, they were going to have the tendency to want to bow down to these things and worship them. And eventually, by the way, years and years down the road, they did start to worship this thing. But God gave Moses this unusual command to make a bronze serpent and put it up on a pole.

And so anybody that was bitten by a snake, you look at that serpent, and the snake bite will be healed. and you’ll be saved. Now, Jesus in John chapter 3, when he’s talking to Nicodemus, talks about this story.

Just about everybody is familiar with John 3. 16, but what we’re less familiar with are the verses that come right before that, which are about the bronze serpent. And Jesus tells Nicodemus, I’m just like the bronze serpent.

You can look at the bronze serpent as an example of what I’m coming to do. And so if we look at it, we see that Jesus did for us spiritually what the bronze serpent did for Israel physically. Let’s look at a few of the parallels between the two this morning.

We see Israel was afflicted by snake bite. That’s their problem. At that moment, it’s not the hunger, it’s not the thirst, it’s not we’re lost and wandering, we’re hot and tired.

Their big problem was the snake bite. That’s the immediate thing they’ve got to deal with. That was their biggest problem in the moment.

Mankind is afflicted by sin. Israel had an affliction. We have an affliction.

But even at that, even as we’re talking about a physical snake bite, the snake bite was representative of sin. Because why did they get the snake bite in the first place? Because they’re turning against God.

The snake bites were a response to the people’s unbelief of their rejection of God. And folks, our sin has at its root the rejection of God. Sin is anything we think, say, do, or don’t do that displeases God.

And if God’s nature, who God is, is the standard of right and wrong, then when we choose something else, when we choose sin, it is a rejection of God’s nature and who God is. If, for example, honesty is right and lying is wrong because God is truthful by nature, He is truth, then for us to say I’m going to lie is not just a choice to do something, it’s a rejection of this standard that comes from God’s nature. And so they were afflicted with physical snakebite, which reflected their spiritual problem and our spiritual problem, which is a rejection of God.

Then when we get to the bronze serpent, God said, here, there’s going to be a remedy. The serpent represented Israel’s affliction, and Jesus bore mankind’s affliction. God could have given Israel any picture that He wanted to.

God could have given Israel any command. Hey, take three loaves of manna and call me in the morning, and your snake bite will be healed. He could have done that if he wanted to.

Instead, God took the very thing that they were suffering from, which was the snake bite. And he said, I want you to put a physical picture of that affliction up on the pole and raise it up where everybody can see it. And folks, that’s the same thing that was done for us.

Because if their affliction was snake bite and the snake was put up on the pole, our affliction was sin. And the Bible says that Jesus took our sin on himself. So when He was crucified, when He was raised up on that cross, our sin was up there with Him, and He bore the responsibility for it when He was nailed to the cross.

So in both cases, we have the thing that afflicts us being raised up in front of us. And in both cases, the Bible emphasizes whether it’s Moses talking about what was supposed to be done or Jesus talking about what was going to happen to Him, there’s this significance of being lifted up. the serpent was lifted up on the pole and Jesus was lifted up on the cross.

Now, the point of this is visibility. That’s the whole reason to lift up the serpent on the pole, was to make it visible where everybody could see it. And then Jesus was raised up on the cross.

Now, that doesn’t mean he was 15 feet up in the air, but he was raised up to where he’d be more visible. And what this meant is because that serpent was raised up on the pole, Israel could not ignore their sin. Even those who hadn’t been bit by the snakes yet couldn’t ignore the sin because the very thing they had the problem with is right up there for everybody to see.

Sometimes God will take the sin that troubles us and confront us with it in such a way that we can’t ignore it. This lifting up was for visibility, But part of the reason it needed to be visible was this was a confrontation. This was God confronting the people about their sin.

That same thing happened at the cross. They didn’t understand it at the time. Jesus even said, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

But we look back at it now and we understand that the cross confronts us with our sin. The cross confronts us with the gravity of our sin, that it is a big deal. The cross confronts us with the ugliness of our sin. You see, we want to categorize sin as it’s a little thing, it’s a big thing.

Oh, I’m not as guilty as that guy over there. Folks, all of it is a big deal. My sin, your sin, their sin, it’s all a big deal because Jesus had to die for all of it. There was no sin so little that Jesus said, oh, that’s.

. . No, he took it all on himself and paid the ultimate price.

And when we look back and we see the cross, we recognize there’s an enormous price that was paid because our sin is a big deal. And our sin is ugly. And our sin is offensive to God. And we look back at how horrific the cross is, and we’re confronted.

We’re confronted by how far we fall short. Just like that serpent on the pole confronted Israel with the reality of what they’ve done. as believers the cross confronts us and reminds us of the price that Jesus paid so that we will be repentant when there’s sin so that we we will appreciate what he’s done for us so that we will want to live for him but also as the gospel is proclaimed from pulpits like this one or when you proclaim the gospel by sharing it with people you know and love that message of the cross continues to confront us over our sin.

And Jesus is lifted up and it says, this is what sin does. This is what sin costs. And it makes it so we can’t ignore it.

Israel looked to the serpent for physical healing, and mankind looks to Jesus for spiritual healing. Now, understand what’s going on here. There’s nothing magical about the serpent statue.

And I think that’s where Israel got it twisted, and years later started to worship the thing. But there was nothing magic about the statue, that the statue had power that healed them. Yes, there’s this physical response on Israel’s part where they have to look at the statue, but what’s really going on here is faith, which we’ll talk about here in a moment.

Looking at the serpent was the only way out. God only made one way to deal with these snake bites. God didn’t say I’m going to send somebody else to offer some other ways for you I’m sorry I just realized my notes up there are wrong mankind looks to Jesus for spiritual healing is what it should say I mean we can look to Jesus for physical healing too but he’s dealing with the spiritual problem of sin so they would look to the serpent for this physical healing of what ailed them and we do the same to Jesus and looking to the serpent required faith looking to Jesus requires faith.

This is where it’s important that there’s no mystical power that that serpent had. When they looked to that serpent, they were believing what God said He was going to do. And normally, when I read things like this, I want to confirm them with a couple of different people because there’s so much stuff that gets taken out of context, and one person says it, and then another person repeats it, and suddenly it kind of grows as a legend.

I could not find somebody to corroborate this, so research it for yourself. Take it for what it’s worth. But I read where one ancient Jewish commentator was explaining this story and said that there was a legend at that time that if somebody was bitten by a snake, coming into contact with bronze in any way would cause them to die immediately.

And if that’s the case, then these people were walking around in the wilderness thinking that what God was asking them to do would kill them, if that’s the case. And so if that’s the case, they’re being faced with a choice. Do we believe what we’ve always been told?

Do we believe what we think is right, or do we believe God? Even if you take that legend out, to my knowledge, there’s no evidence, no medical evidence, certainly no medical evidence at that time that bronze heals snake bites, especially looking at bronze. And so at the very least, they’re left with a question of, this isn’t going to do anything, but God said.

And they have a choice to make, whether to believe God or not. For them to look to the serpent required faith, required believing what God said. And in the same way today, we want to twist and shape the gospel into something else that we feel like we’ve got to add something.

Surely, I’ve got to do something. Surely, I’ve got to make this right. When God says we’re supposed to look to Jesus, meaning trust in Him as our Savior, trust in Him as the payment for our sins, look to Him in that regard and believe.

Putting faith in Jesus, Just doing that runs counter to everything our human nature tells us, that surely I’ve got to do something to accomplish this, that both of them required faith. And the serpent was the only remedy for Israel from God’s judgment, and Jesus is the only remedy for mankind from God’s judgment. If the snake bite was a judgment, there was only one way to be healed.

There was only one way to escape, and that was to look to the bronze serpent that he commanded them to build. Folks, we are in the same boat when it comes to our sin. God has made one remedy.

God has made one way out, one way of escape. And he was nailed to the cross, bearing responsibility for my sins and yours. And he shed his blood and died there as the only payment that would set us free.

There’s only one way to escape the judgment. There’s no alternative. There’s no plan B.

And again, I say this all the time, but it has never not been true. The world looks at that and says it’s so harsh and so narrow-minded to say there’s only one way. Folks, I didn’t come up with it.

I’m just telling you what God said. But I can tell you this, it’s one way more than what I deserved. If I consider that my sin is a rejection of God, did I deserve even one way to avoid the judgment for that?

No, I did not. So for him even to make one way is not harsh. It’s incredibly gracious.

And we see this serpent that Jesus compared himself to brought temporary life, but he brings eternal life. Now, each of those people who was healed from the snake bite, they eventually went on to die. Just not that day and not from that cause, but eventually they all died.

But the healing that Jesus brings is eternal, and it’s spiritual, and the life is everlasting. It doesn’t mean that you and I won’t die, that we won’t die physically, but it means we won’t die spiritually. There’s a part of us that lives forever, and that part of us that lives forever gets to live in the presence of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit for all eternity, rather than being separated from them.

And these are some of the things that Jesus was trying to get Nicodemus to understand. As he pointed to that Old Testament picture that Nicodemus would have been familiar with, and said, just like the bronze serpent was raised up, so the Son of Man must be raised up. He says in John 3, 14 and 15, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.

And then verse 16, on the basis of that, says, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. What Jesus wanted Nicodemus to understand, and what you and I need to understand, is that those afflicted by sin must look to Jesus and live. That’s why he compared himself to that bronze serpent, so that we would understand that sin is deadly, and sin has a penalty, and sin will destroy us, and there’s only one way to avoid the judgment of God.

and that’s that what afflicted us was put up on that cross, was put on Jesus’s shoulders, and he bore responsibility for it, and he was lifted up and nailed to that cross, and he shed his blood, and he died to pay for all of our sins in full. And the only thing you and I have to do as a result is believe that he paid for our sins, believe that he rose again to prove it, and ask him for that forgiveness. And he’s promised it.

He promises it to you today because he’s already paid for it. it’s just there waiting to be received. And this morning, if you recognize that you’ve sinned as we all have, and you understand, I feel separated from God.

I don’t feel like I have a relationship with God, or I don’t feel like I know God. There’s a reason for that. Our sin separates us from Him.

But this morning, if you believe Jesus died to pay for it, and believe that He rose again, you can ask for that forgiveness, and you’ll have it.