The Brazen Serpent

“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me”John 12:32

It was while Jesus was speaking with Nicodemus that the subject of the lifting up of Christ, appeared. We recall that he had been speaking of the spiritual birth necessary in order to enter the Kingdom of God. Then there was the rebuke "are you a master of Israel and know not these things..." "If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?" In another place a little further on, it is written "Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: There is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom you trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?" There are two important things to note here, Moses wrote of Christ, therefore he knew Him. How? Since Messiah had not yet come in the flesh, these words signify that Moses in the Spirit saw the Messiah to come, he understood the spiritual significance of the Paschal Lamb, the serpent on a pole, to mention but two of many old testament figures or types of the Messiah. The second thing of note here is: that if it was reasonable to expect "a master of Israel" to know these things as Jesus implied, and he did not, then why did he not know? How could it be that a master of Israel did not know what should have been evident? Incredibly the answer to that question lies in the statement Jesus first confronted Nicodemus with. As if to say here comes a man, and I know what he is, and what his questions will lead to, I will give him the answer before he has even asked the question. I refer to Jesus’ statement "Verily, verily, I say unto thee. Except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God." To borrow from St Paul's' writings in 1 Corinthians 2:14: "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned". So here then is the answer to Jesus' question -(how shall ye believe my words?), the earthly man can only know earthly things, spiritual knowledge is only seen or perceived by spiritually renewed people. Nicodemus needed spiritual re-birth, to see, not only the significance of Jesus’ words, but even the mystery hidden as it were, in the words of Moses whom he professed to follow.
Mathew Henry in his great commentary says this about the passage: “Nicodemus, as others of the Jews, valued himself, no doubt, very much on his first birth and its dignities and privileges,--the place of it, the Holy Land, perhaps the holy city,--his parentage, such as that which Paul could have gloried in, Phil. 3. 5. And therefore it is a great surprise to him to hear of being born again. Could he be better bred and born than bred and born an Israelite, or by any other birth stand fairer for a place in the kingdom of the Messiah? Indeed they looked upon a proselyted Gentile to be as one born again or born anew, but could not imagine how a Jew, a Pharisee, could ever better himself by being born again;” (emphasis mine) See the irony here! Jesus is speaking the unthinkable- that a master of Israel should himself become a proselyte to enter the true Israel. Let this speak to all who mistake religion for the truth or who hold the shadow of things as if they were the things themselves.
"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:
That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (Jn3: 14)

“If Moses is not understood here…”


This is a call to all who are followers of Moses to see and understand and obey what the significance of this event means. If Moses is not understood here, then He who was to come after him will not be known either...
So we return then, to our theme of the lifting up of Christ as pre-figured by Moses lifting up the serpent on a pole in the wilderness.
(Numbers21:1-9). And when king Arad the Canaanite, which dwelt in the south, heard tell that Israel came by the way of the spies; then he fought against Israel, and took some of them prisoners. And Israel vowed a vow unto the LORD, and said. If thou wilt indeed deliver this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities.And the LORD hearkened to the voice of Israel, and delivered up the Canaanitess; and they utterly destroyed them and their cities: and he called the name of the place Hormah. And they journeyed from mount Hor by the way of the
Red sea, to compass the land of Edom: and the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way. And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread.
And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said. We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD, and against thee; pray unto the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.
You recall the serpents were biting the people and they were dying. God sent the serpents because of their speaking against God and his anointed, Moses. The serpents represented what? The serpents were the result of their sin - the sting of the serpent meant certain death, the wages of sin is death. The certainty of death; the inescapable consequence of sin is the mark of a curse. What curse? The same one that relates to Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden. It was first, in this garden, that the curse of sin and its relationship to the serpent were inextricably linked. And so also, as the serpent first appeared here, so also Christ: " And I will put enmity between thee (the serpent) and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed (Christ); it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel", (Genesis 3). It first appears here also that Christ, hidden as it were in the word 'seed', should be Gods' answer to reversing the curse. But not, it may be seen, without some cost to himself as evident in the phrase 'thou shall bruise his heel. Some translations render the word 'bruise' in the case of the serpent as 'crush', giving the sense of a mortal wound, and in the case of the seed, 'bruise' became 'strike'. Both senses are supported in the original language. This is indeed a developing theme throughout the Old Testament reaching its' climax perhaps in the remarkable detail of Isaiah's prophecies of the suffering servant.

“he that is hanged is accursed of God”

We arrive then, through the ages, to that day in the wilderness where serpents struck the people and they died. Having realized their state, they appealed to Gods' mercy through Moses, who was already well established as a mediator between God and man and so was a type of the Messiah; -The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken; Deuteronomy 18:15 (emphasis mine) It is worthy of note here that as Mathew Henry points out this was the last miracle of Moses just as the Messiah also gave the last and greatest miracle-that of healing and eternal cure for the curse and sting of the serpents venom- at the end on the tree.
The people asked that the serpents be taken away- God in his wisdom provided a better way. The serpents remain, just as the law of sin and death, (the curse) remains to this day. But God willing to show his mercy and yet upholding justice has provided a way- the way- Christ. Paul relates in Galatians 3:13,
"Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, ‘cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:’...". And who but Moses should testify to this fact in Deuteronomy 21: 22,23, who also relates the circumstances surrounding the fiery serpents.
“And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree: His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day; (for he that is hanged is accursed of God;) that thy land be not defiled, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.” Also of interest here is to note who was responsible for lifting up the serpent on the tree; Moses of course, and who, or rather what is his office? Moses is most notably the lawgiver, and Christ, made of a woman under the law was condemned by the law, and the law exacted a full price even to the uttermost for the sin that He carried there. It is fitting therefore that the law of God is the reason Christ is lifted up on the cross, and Moses the lawgiver lifts Christ, represented by the serpent, up. So it is entirely in keeping with the idea of redemption and substitution that Christ should be represented albeit in primitive form, by the serpent hanging on a “tree” depicted in this passage.
It is expedient here to point out that it was not only Christ who is represented here in the serpent but
“in Christ shall all be made alive”Adam and all his posterity.
“For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." (I Corinthians. 15:22)So through Adam we have all carried the curse, we all bear the stamp of the serpent from generation to generation irrespective of race, color, status or any other external thing. Sin is the great leveler. It was as if, when Adam, our progenitor sinned, a change took place, so deep and far-reaching it could almost be described as genetic. We were sold to sin, shut up to it forever. In light of this, we understand how Christ is referred to as the last Adam, or second Adam. Jesus is the progenitor or firstborn of a new breed in a manner of speaking, and the change is as deep and as far-reaching, in fact eternal. And here lies the foundation for the phrase, "born again". “The first Adam earthy, the last, spiritual, who is Christ.” (l Corinthians.15: 45) On this premise we see that both Adam, with all his posterity, and Christ and all of his, are here represented in the serpent. The difference between a serpent of flesh and the brazen serpent on the tree is a difference in nature but not in form. That is to say "... .Jesus took upon himself the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men", taking upon himself human nature and yet his nature was also divine, "being in the form ofGod".(Phill2:6,7,8)
In 1 John 3:8-10 we read:
He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.
He hath made Him to be sin for us

We understand that there are essentially only two generations of man, any other differences and divisions are superficial and mere labels, only these "descendants" are of any consequence. In other words there are only two progenitors or spiritual fathers that ever existed God or the devil. "And the LORD said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. "(Num21:8) Also embodied wonderfully in this early micro gospel, is the idea of grace, as opposed to works, the idea of justification entirely the work of God. What works were required of the bitten ones, what ceremonial cleansing, what ancient rites were necessary? None, None at all! "And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole. And it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived." Look and live, that is all, look and live. They say seeing is believing and so it is. Look with the eyes of faith and live. Behold oh accursed one, do you feel the sting of sin, is the bondage of the curse heavy upon you? Look on Him who was so covered and wrapped up in the sins of the world, nay not of the world generally only, but yours too, specifically. See how He who knew no guile became so completely enveloped in the poison of the world. He was not merely covered with sin -"He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin: that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” (2Cor5: 21) And so it behooved Christ to appear figuratively as the serpent on the tree. So completely was He identified with the curse, we may begin to comprehend the heartfelt cry, "My God, My God why hast thou forsaken me" as God turned his face from his beloved- the darling of Heaven. Mathew Henry writes-“He was lifted up as a spectacle, as a mark, lifted up between heaven and earth, as if he had been unworthy of either and abandoned by both. He was lifted up to the Father's right hand, to give repentance and remission; he was lifted up to the cross, to be further lifted up to the crown… He that sent the plague provided the remedy. None could redeem and save us but he whose justice had condemned us… He whom we have offended is our peace..” Do you feel this? Look and live. Does this have some meaning for you; is there a sense that it was on your behalf he did this? Look and live. Rejoice for your name is written in heaven! Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but your Father in Heaven. Why me, you say? For even so, it seemed good in His sight.
Today the strange relationship between the serpent and healing is epitomized in the symbols used in medicine, that of a staff with a serpent entwined around it. May God grant all who come across it, the grace to see the true significance of it. Amen.