Christ had been speaking to Nicodemus about the imperative necessity of the new birth. By nature man is dead in trespasses and sins, and in order to obtain life he must be born again. The new birth is the impartation of Divine life, eternal life, but for this to be bestowed on men, the Son of man must be lifted up. Life could come only out of death. The sacrificial work of Christ is the basis of the Spirit's operations and the ground of God's gift of eternal life. Observe that Christ here speaks of the lifting up of the Son of man, for atonement could be made only by One in the nature of him who sinned, and only as Man was God's Son capable of taking upon Him the penalty resting on the sinner. No doubt there was a specific reason why Christ should here refer to His sacrificial death as a lifting up. The Jews were looking for a Messiah who should be lifted up, but elevated in a manner altogether different from what the Lord here mentions. They expected Him to be elevated to the throne of David, but before this He must be lifted up upon the Cross of shame, enduring the judgment of God upon His people's sin. To illustrate the character, the meaning, and the purpose of His death, the Lord here refers to the well-known incident in Israel's wilderness wanderings which is recorded in Numbers 21. Israel was murmuring against the Lord, and He sent fiery serpents among the people, which bit them so that some of the people died and many others were sorely wounded from their poisonous bites. In consequence, they confessed they had sinned, and cried unto Moses for relief. He, in turn, cried unto God, and the Lord bade him make a serpent of brass, fix it on a pole, and tell the bitten Israelites to look to it in faith and they should be healed. All of this was a striking foreshadowing of Christ being lifted up on the Cross in order that He might save, through the look of faith, those who were dying from sin. The type is a remarkable one and worthy of our closest study.
A serpent was a most appropriate figure of that deadly and destructive power, the origin of which the Scriptures teach us to trace to the Serpent, whose seed sinners are declared to be. The poison of the serpent's bite, which vitiates the entire system of its victim, and from the fatal effects of which there was no deliverance, save that which God provided, strikingly exhibited the awful nature and consequences of sin. The remedy which God provided was the exhibition of the destroyer destroyed. Why was not one of the actual serpents spiked by Moses to the pole? Ah, that would have marred the type: that would have pictured judgment executed on the sinner himself; and, worse still, would have misrepresented our sinless Substitute. In the type chosen there was the likeness of a serpent, not an actual serpent, but a piece of brass made like one. So, the One who is the sinner's Saviour was sent in the likeness of sin's flesh (Rom 8:3, Gk.), and God made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him (2 Cor 5:21).
But how could a serpent fitly typify the Holy One of God? This is the very last thing of all we had supposed could, with any propriety, be a figure of Him. True, the serpent did not, could not, typify Him in His essential character, and perfect life. The brazen serpent only foreshadowed Christ as He was lifted up. The lifting up manifestly pointed to the Cross. What was the serpent? It was the reminder and emblem of the curse. It was through the agency of that old Serpent, the Devil, that our first parents were seduced, and brought under the curse of a Holy God. And on the cross, dear reader, the holy One of God, incarnate, was made a curse for us. We would not dare make such an assertion, did not Scripture itself expressly affirm it. In Gal 3:13 we are told, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. There was no flaw, then, in the type. The foreshadowing was perfect. A serpent was the only thing in all nature which could accurately prefigure the crucified Saviour made a curse for us.
But why a serpent of brass? That only brings out once more accuracy of the type. Brass speaks of two things. In the symbolism of Scripture brass is the emblem of Divine judgment. The brazen altar illustrates this truth, for on it the animals were slain, and upon it descended the consuming fire from heaven. Again; in Deut 28, the Lord declared unto Israel, that if they would not hearken unto His voice and do His commandments (v. 15), that His curse should be upon them (v. 16), and as a part of the Divine judgment with which they should be visited, He warned them, Thy heaven that is above thy head shall be brass (v. 23). Once more, in Rev. 1, where Christ is seen as Judge, inspecting the seven churches we are told, His feet were like fine brass (v. 15). The serpent, then, spoke of the curse which sin entailed; the brass told of God's judgment falling on the One made sin for us. But there is another thought suggested by the brass. Brass is harder than iron, or silver or gold. It told, then, of Christ's mighty strength, which was able to endure the awful judgment which fell upon Him - a mere creature, though sinless, would have been utterly consumed.
From what has been said, it will be evident that when God told Moses to make a serpent of brass, fix it upon a pole, and bid the bitten Israelites look on it and they should live, that He was preaching to them the Gospel of His grace. We would now point out seven things which these Israelites were not bidden to do.
1. They were not told to manufacture some ointment as the healing their wounds. Doubtless, that would have seemed more reasonable to them. But it would have destroyed the type. The religious doctors of the day are busy inventing spiritual lotions, but they effect no cures. Those who seek spiritual relief by such means are like the poor woman mentioned in the Gospel: she suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse (Mark 5:26).
2. They were not told to minister to others who were wounded, in order to get relief for themselves. This, too, would have appealed to their sentiments as being more practical and more desirable than gazing at a pole, yet in fact it had been most impracticable. Of what use would it be for one to jump into deep water to rescue a drowning man if he could not swim a stroke himself! How then can one who is dying and unable to deliver himself, help others in a similar state. And yet there are many today engaged in works of charity with the vain expectation that giving relief to others will counteract the deadly virus of sin which is at work in their own souls.
3. They were not told to fight the serpents. If some of our moderns had been present that day they would have urged Moses to organize a Society for the Extermination of Serpents! But of what use had that been to those who were already bitten and dying? Had each stricken one killed a thousand serpents they would still have died. And what does all this fighting sin amount to! True, it affords an outlet for the energy of the flesh; but all these crusades against intemperance, profanity and vice, have not improved society any, nor have they brought a single sinner one step nearer to Christ.
4. They were not told to make an offering to the serpent on the pole. God did not ask any payment from them in return for their healing. No, indeed. Grace ceases to be grace if any price is paid for what it brings. But how frequently is the Gospel perverted at this very point! Not long ago the writer preached on human depravity, addressing himself exclusively to the unsaved. He sought by God's help to show the unbeliever the terribleness of his state and how desperate was his need of a Saviour to deliver him from the wrath to come. As we took our seat, the pastor of the church rose and announced an irrelevant hymn and then urged everybody present to "re-consecrate themselves to God." Poor man! That was the best he knew. But what pitiful blindness! Other preachers are asking their hearers to "Give their hearts to Jesus" - another miserable perversion. God does not ask the sinner to give anything, but to receive HIS CHRIST.
5. They were not told to pray to the serpent. Many evangelists urge their hearers to go to the "mourner's bench" or "penitent form" and there plead with God for pardoning mercy, and if they are dead in earnest they are led to believe that God has heard them for their much speaking. If these "seekers after a better life" believe what the preacher has told them, namely, that they have "prayed through" and have now "got forgiveness," they feel happy, and for a while continue treading the clean side of the Broad Road with a light heart; but the almost invariable consequence is that their last state is worse than the first. O dear reader, do not make the fatal mistake of substituting prayer for faith in Christ.
6. They were told not to look at Moses. They had been looking to Moses, and urging him to cry to God on their behalf; and when God responded, He took their eyes from off Moses, and commanded them to look at the brazen serpent. Moses was the Law-giver, and how many today are looking to him for salvation. They are trusting in their own imperfect obedience to God's commandments to take them to heaven. In other words, they are depending on their own works. But Scripture says emphatically, Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us (Titus 3:5). The Law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ, and Christ alone can save.
7. They were not told to look at their wounds. Some think they need to be more occupied with the work of examining their own wicked hearts in order to promote that degree of repentance which they deem a necessary qualification for salvation. But as well attempt to produce heat by looking at the snow, or light by peering into the darkness, as seek salvation by looking to self for it. To be occupied with myself is only to be taken up with that which already has the sentence of death written upon it. But, it may be asked, "Ought I not to have the godly sorrow which worketh repentance before I trust in Christ? Certainly not. You cannot have a godly sorrow till you have submitted yourself to God and obeyed Him by believing in Christ. Faith is the beginning of all godliness.
We have developed the seven points above with the purpose of exposing some of the wiles by which the Enemy is deceiving a multitude of souls. It is greatly to be feared that there are many in our churches today who sincerely think they are Christians, but who are sincerely mistaken. Believing that I am a millionaire will not make me one; and believing that I am saved, when I am not, will not save me. The Devil is well pleased if he can get the awakened sinner to look at anything rather than Christ - good works, repentance, feelings, resolutions, baptism, anything so long as it is not Christ Himself.
Turning now from the negative to the positive side, let us consider, though it must be briefly, one or two points in the type itself. First, Moses was commanded by God to make a serpent of brass - it was of the Lord's providing - and the spiritual significance of this we have already looked at. Second, Moses was commanded to fix this brazen serpent upon a pole. Thus was the Divine remedy publicly exhibited so that all Israel might look on it and be healed. Third, the Lord's promise was that it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live (Num 21:8). Thus, not only did God here give a foreshadowing of the means by which salvation was to be brought out for sinners, but also the manner in which the sinner obtains an interest in that salvation, namely, by looking away from himself to the Divinely appointed object of faith, even to the Lord Jesus Christ. How blessed this was: the brazen serpent was lifted up so that those who were too weak to crawl up to the pole itself, and perhaps too far gone to even raise their voices in supplication could, nevertheless, lift up their eyes in simple faith in God's promise and be healed.
Just as the bitten Israelites were healed by a look of faith, so the sinner may be saved by looking to Christ by faith. Saving faith is not some difficult and meritorious work which man must perform so as to give him a claim upon God for the blessing of salvation. It is not on account of our faith that God saves us, but it is through the means of our faith. It is in believing we are saved. It is like saying to a starving man, He that eats of this food shall be relieved from the pangs of hunger, and be refreshed and strengthened. Eating is no meritorious performance, but, from the nature of things, eating is the indispensable means of relieving hunger. To say that when a man believes he shall be saved, is just to say that the guiltiest of the guilty, and the vilest of the vile, is welcome to salvation, if he will but receive it in the only way in which, from the nature of the case, it can be received, namely, by personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, which means believing what God has recorded concerning His Son in the Holy Scriptures. The moment a sinner does that he is saved, just as God said to Moses, It shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.
Every one that is bitten. No matter how many times he may have been bitten; no matter how far the poison had advanced in its progress toward a fatal issue, if he but looked he should live. Such is the Gospel declaration: whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. There is no exception. The vilest wretch on the face of the earth, the most degraded and despised, the most miserable and wretched of all human kind, who believes in Christ shall be saved by Him with an everlasting salvation. Not sin but unbelief can bar the sinner's way to the Saviour. It is possible that some of the Israelites who heard of the Divinely appointed remedy made light of it; it may be that some of them cherished wicked doubts as to the possibility of them obtaining any relief by looking at a brazen serpent, some may have hoped for recovery by the use of ordinary means; no matter, if these things were true of them, and later they found the disease gaining on them, and then they lifted up a believing eye to the Divinely erected standard, they too were healed. And should these lines be read by one who has long procrastinated, who has continued for many long years in a course of stouthearted unbelief and impenitence, nevertheless, the marvelous grace of our God declares to you, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, everlasting life. It is still the accepted time; it is still day of salvation. Believe now, and thou shalt be saved.
Man became a lost sinner by a look, for the first thing recorded of Eve in connection with the fall of our first parents is that The woman saw that the tree was good for food (Gen 3:6). In like manner, the lost sinner is saved by a look. The Christian life begins by looking: Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else (Isa 45:22). The Christian life continues by looking: let us run with patience the race which is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of faith (Heb 12:2). And at the end of the Christian life we are still to be looking for Christ: For our conversation (citizenship) is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ (Phil 3:20). From first to last, the me thing required is looking at God's Son.
But perhaps right here the troubled and trembling sinner will voice his last difficulty - "Sir, I do not know that I am looking in the correct way." Dear friend, God does not ask you to look at your look, but at CHRIST. In that great crowd of bitten Israelites of old there were some with young eyes and some with old eyes that looked at the serpent; there were some with clear vision and some with dim vision; there were some who had a full view of the serpent by reason of their nearness to the uplifted type of Christ; and there were, most probably, others who could scarcely see it because of their great distance from the pole, but the Divine record is It shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And so it is today. The Lord Jesus says, Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. He does not define the method or the manner of coming, and even if the poor sinner comes groping, stumbling, falling, yet if only he will come there is a warm welcome for him. So it is in our text: it is whosoever believeth - nothing is said about the strength or the intelligence of the belief, for it is not the character or degree of faith that saves, but Christ Himself. Faith is simply the eye of the soul that looks off unto the Lord Jesus, Do not rest, then, on your faith, but on the Saviour Himself.