God’s Word for You
Numbers 21:9 The serpent and the cross
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Friday, October 29, 2021
9 Moses made a bronze snake and put it on the pole. If a snake had bitten anyone, if that person looked at the bronze snake, he lived.
This passage preaches the gospel in pure, clear, historical words. This event must have stunned the Israelites. All we need to do is remember a time when some burning pain like a wasp sting or a kick from a cow hurt us. When I was still painting houses, I once stood up from a crouch and impaled my skull onto the corner of a window-mounted air conditioner. I was so stuck and in such pain that my brother had to come and pull me down off of it just to get me unstuck. The burning in my head went on for days afterward. I can still feel the spot on my head where it happened even though it was almost forty years ago. Now, imagine someone saying, “It will be okay—just look at that thing on the stick over there, and you’ll be healed right away!” The pain of the venom vanishes. Wouldn’t you have laughed? I would have. “God will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy” (Job 8:21).
The repentant Israelites obeyed Moses, but it wasn’t an obedience that required any effort. “Look at the snake and live” is hardly a righteous act. Rather, it’s simply a “yes” to an invitation, like drinking medicine or receiving a shot in the arm that can save your life.
Of course, there are people in the world who think this is some kind of parable or allegory, but that it did not actually happen. They’re confused because they cannot bring themselves to believe that looking at a snake on a stick could heal. But yesterday we saw that it wasn’t the snake that healed, but the promise of God, that healed. Maybe there were some foolish, stubborn Israelites who scoffed at Moses, nursing their poisoned snakebites with cool cloths, who just refused to look, and who died because they didn’t believe. In the same way there are people who don’t understand how putting faith in Jesus could atone for sin. Of course, it isn’t faith that atones, but Christ who atoned, and our faith is trusting in that promise and that declaration of “not guilty” pronounced over us by our Judge. The faith apprehends the promise. Trust grasps the saving hand that is offered.
Moses presents the account as an historical fact. More than that, Jesus recalls it as a true event which he applied to his own crucifixion: “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert,” he said, “so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14-15).
The lifting up of the Son of Man involved two things. He was lifted up on the cross to atone for our sins, and he was lifted up into heaven at his ascension forty days later. Jesus says plainly that “no one has ascended into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man” (John 3:13). But he came down in order to be lifted up on the cross. If he only came down in order to ascend again into the clouds, then his time on the earth was nothing more than a visit, like the errands of the angels, and like the many previous errands he himself undertook as the Angel of the Lord in ancient times. Those errands were to proclaim the Word of God. But when he came incarnate with human flesh—this was different. This was no mere errand; it was no visit or vacation. “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15). The purpose of the incarnation of the Son of God was so that he would be lifted up on the cross and be punished for the sins of the world. This was no small thing. “Our offenses are many, and our sins testify against us. Our offenses are ever with us, and we acknowledge our iniquities” (Isaiah 59:12). How could the lifting up of one man on a cross atone for the sins of the world? The price set for transgression and sin is blood (Leviticus 17:10-14). No human payment, even one’s own blood, is payment enough for a man’s sins (Psalm 49:7-8). But the blood of the Son of God, his holy, precious blood, “has freed us from our sins” (Revelation 1:5). “The blood of Jesus purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). Isaiah’s words are the clearest and most vivid: “The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5).
As far as I can tell, there is no hymn-verse in our English hymnals with this scene in mind, either Numbers 21:4-9 or John 3:13-15. These words came into my mind this morning to the tune of “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah.” I’m sure another poet could do better:
Moses lifted in the desert
for the bitten of the serpents
Brazen snake upon familiar
cross-shaped pole for all to see:
Look upon it!
You will live and die no more.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.