"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 3:14-15 NKJV

One of my favorite stories in the Bible is in the book of Numbers, chapter 21.  One reason it’s a favorite is that Jesus refers to it.  Another is that the story provides context to the well-known verse John 3:16, an important verse to me, for by it I came to faith in Jesus Christ.  The event happened about 1452 BC.

Near the end of Israel’s 40-year wandering in the wilderness from Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, the people of Israel became discouraged and spoke against God and Moses their leader.  For this God sent fiery serpents which bit the people, and many died.  They realized their sin and went to Moses to ask God to take away the serpents.  Numbers 21.

God instructs Moses to craft a likeness of this serpent and lift it up on a pole, and He says – He promises – that whoever is bitten, if that one looks at the image on the pole, he or she would live.  Scholars don’t know exactly what this animal was – something like a scorpion, or possibly a flying, stinging critter.  So Moses fashioned one out of bronze and put it on a pole.  When one looked at it, he lived.

A remarkable story.  How is it that looking at an image on a pole provides the remedy for a serpent’s deadly bite?

Now comes Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews, to Jesus.  He comes in the night, likely in Jerusalem, in about 30 AD.  They converse.  Jesus speaks about the Spirit of God, about being born of the Spirit, about Nicodemus himself.  And he speaks the words of John 3:14-15 quoted above:  as the serpent was lifted up, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

Did Nicodemus figure that Jesus was this Son of Man?  What does Jesus mean that he will be lifted up, even that he must be lifted up.  And what is it to believe in this Son of Man and to have eternal life?   Nicodemus we can be sure was familiar with the Jewish scriptures: the Law, the psalms of David, the prophets such as Isaiah, Daniel.  Psalm 2, Psalm 110; Isaiah 7:14, 9:6-7; Isaiah 53; Daniel 7:13-14; these all would have helped Nicodemus to understand.

Whether with Jesus that night or later, we conclude Nicodemus did come to believe in Jesus, who often called himself the Son of Man.  For after the crucifixion of Jesus – when Jesus was lifted up on a wooden cross and suffered and died – Nicodemus, with a disciple of Jesus named Joseph, of Arimathea, a rich man, obtained the body of Jesus, prepared the body for burial and buried it in the garden tomb (John 19:38-42).

I imagine Nicodemus must have wept as he remembered his conversation with Jesus, now knowing of what Jesus spoke when He said the Son of Man must be lifted up, and having just witnessed the events which Isaiah foretold some 700 years before:

3 He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief….4 Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities… 6 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.... 9 And they made His grave with the wicked--But with the rich at His death, because He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth.  Excerpts from Isaiah 53

Back to John 3, and the next verse is of course, John 3:16.

16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. - John 3:16

Whereas the serpent was of inanimate bronze, lifted on a pole, for one incident of sin in the life of Israel, the Son of God is a living sacrifice, the unblemished Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

God has made provision for you and me for our sins, in His Son crucified on the cross, and He has made a promise of life.  To believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God come in the flesh, saves you from perishing – from spiritual death, the penalty of one’s sin – and gives eternal life.

Have you looked to Jesus, lifted up for you? Will you trust Him for life eternal?