Numbers 21

How is a sinner to be saved by a just and holy God?

Our Lord Jesus gave the answer in His discourse with Nicodemus: "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 eternal life" (John 3:14,15).

This is the only shadow of the cross pointed out by our Lord. He did not want us to miss this type, which is perhaps the simplest and clearest of all the pictures of Calvary in the Old Testament–the serpent uplifted on a pole. This uplifted serpent brings to us the Gospel in miniature.

Someone has rightly said that if the whole Bible were destroyed and only this fragment remained, we would have enough to point our pathway to Heaven.

The record of the brazen serpent is found in Numbers 21. In the wilderness, Israel sinned against God. In consequence, God sent fiery serpents among them, which bit many and caused death.

When the people cried to God, He instructed Moses to make a serpent of brass and put it upon a pole so it might be seen by the people, and when a serpent-bitten and dying Israelite looked upon that brazen serpent upon the pole, he would live.

This case of physical salvation in the Old Testament illustrates spiritual salvation in the New Testament. How startling! In the midst of the seething, writhing, shrieking mass of humanity there rises a lonely pole. In the midst of vast hordes of human sinners–sin-bitten, dying–there rises a lonely cross! It was our Lord who said that just as the uplifted serpent was the only means of deliverance then, so the uplifted Son of Man is the only means of deliverance now.

From this remarkable experience in history we draw the following lessons:

1. We see this need in the condition of the people of Israel. They were in the barren and burning wilderness as a result of their unbelief, but God graciously cared for them. He gave them water from the smitten rock, and bread from Heaven; yet, in spite of His goodness, the Israelites were filled with murmurings and rebellion against Jehovah.

They murmured about their food, but this was a heart matter, not a stomach matter. They had food, but they had no faith because their hearts were not right with God. So they were a rebellious people. Rebellion against God is sin. They were sinners. Therefore, we read their confessions: "We have sinned" (vs. 7).

Let us not judge Israel too harshly, for remember that not only Israel but "all have sinned." Every sinner is a rebel against God, for "the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be" (Rom. 8:7).

2. The rebellion of Israel against God had to do in a special way with the manna which He sent them from Heaven. "Our soul loatheth this light bread" was their cry.

The rebellion of the sinner today has to do in a special way with the rejection of the true Bread of Heaven. That manna in the wilderness was just another type of our Lord, for He declares that He is "the true bread from heaven," which came to give life to the world (John 6). The sinner today, in his rebellion against God, rejects the Son of God, who alone can save.

3. The wages of Israel’s sin was death. The same is true of the sinner today. He is under the sentence and shadow of death.

Death came upon the Israelites, for we read that "much people of Israel died." What caused the death? The bite of the fiery serpents, sent in among the people by the judgment of God.

Now the Scriptures tell us of one who is called "that old serpent,…the Devil." This old serpent bit the human race six thousand years ago. The human race is a serpent-bitten race. The poison of the serpent bite has been infused into the human system. It mounts up in the blood of men and descends to the remotest generation. The poison of sin is working death in man’s experience today.

1. God told Moses to make a serpent of brass and to lift it up on a pole. That was God’s plan, not man’s. The people said to Moses, "Pray unto the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us" (vs. 7). That was their method.

Would that have helped them? No! They would still die because of the poison of the bite. That was the best plan they could think of, but the Lord’s plan of relief was very different from theirs.

By their plan, the serpent-bitten would be delivered to death; by His plan, the serpent-bitten would be saved. Those under death and beyond human rescue are not beyond His aid.

This is a fit exhibition of salvation. God’s deliverance is not of the innocent and healthy, but of the guilty and sick, under wrath and sentence of death. When Moses lifted up the serpent of brass, it was necessary for the bitten one only to look upon it to receive life.

2. The serpent was made of brass. Brass is typical of judgment. In the tabernacle, the altar of brass held the sacrifice for sin. In Revelation, when our Lord is prepared to return in judgment, He is described as having feet like fine brass.

God told the Israelites that if they sinned, Heaven above would be like brass. Samson and Zede-kiah were both bound with brass, which held them as a fetter, fast for judgment.

So when you look upon a serpent of brass on a pole, you look upon a judgment scene. At Calvary, Christ was judged for our sins.

3. This brazen serpent was made in the likeness of that which brought death. We are told in Scripture that "sin entered into the world, and death by sin," and then again, "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin." He was made to be that which brought death to us.

The brazen serpent on the pole was made in the likeness of the poisonous serpent, but there was no poison in it. There was no sin in Christ. He had flesh, but not sinful flesh. He had a human nature, but not a carnal nature. He was tempted in all points like as we are, sin apart.

4. The brazen serpent was lifted up on a pole. The efficacy of the whole transaction depends upon this. The Son of Man must be lifted up on the cross. No other death would do.

The Jewish law provided for death by stoning, but Christ stoned to death could not save. He must be hanged on the cross. Why? Because of two curses in the Old Testament. One declares, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them" (Gal. 3:10), a quotation of Deuteronomy 27:26.

May that curse light on Christ? In righteousness–no! In grace–yes! The law could not righ-teously curse the perfectly obedient One. It could only bless and reward Him.

Yet there was one way in which the curse of the law might fix upon the Righteous One. That way was under another law which pronounced one mode of death accursed. "He that is hanged is accursed of God" (Deut. 21:23), and "Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree" (Gal. 3:13). This was God’s plan, whereby Christ might bear our curse and deliver us from under it.

The crucifixion and the curse were not the due of Christ, as the Righteous One, but He bore them in our stead as our gracious substitute.

The law finds in Him all perfection, yet He is the substitute of the guilty. He obeyed the commands of the law perfectly, yet He suffered the full penalty and curse of that law. Our Lord said, "Even so MUST…." It was absolutely necessary, for the God of law MUST act righteously. The Governor of the universe MUST maintain His law. The God of truth MUST keep His Word.

So the Gospel shows us wrath lying on the Guiltless One, while the guilty ones go free.

1. When Moses formed the serpent of brass and put it upon the pole, the means of salvation was completed. All that was needed was to accept it. God’s word of promise was that the bitten one who looked would be healed.

Jesus Christ upon the cross did a finished work. A look of faith to Him suffices to deliver.

But let us make no mistake here–it must be a look of faith. Thousands looked upon Jesus dying upon the cross, and only jested and mocked. They perished. The thief on the cross looked upon Him with the eye of faith. He was saved. The look at Him is the all-necessary thing.

2. They were not told to look at their wounds. They were conscious of their wounds, just as you are conscious of your sins. Yet looking at your sins will never save you. You must look to Him.

3. They were not told to look at Moses. They had been looking to him, crying to him, but still they died. You must look to Christ to be saved. Moses was the lawgiver. He stands for the law, and many are looking to him today; but God declared that salvation is "not by the works of the law."

4. They were not told to shake off the serpents that had fastened upon them, any more than you are told to shake off your sins to be saved. Shaking off of sins is reformation, not salvation. "Look unto me, and be ye saved."

5. They were not told to go through some form of Jewish ritual to be saved. They were told to look. Rituals and sacraments of the church will not save.

Someone suggests that this would have been a good time to organize a "Society for the Extermination of Serpents." Fighting the serpents would never have saved the Israelites. It is not fight but faith that saves.

Certainly, those dying Israelites could contribute nothing toward the healing power of the serpent on the pole. Certainly, you can add nothing to the finished work of Christ upon the cross. All you need do is to look.

6. The Israelite was not told to minister to others in order that his own life might be saved. It is "not of works."

A friend of mine said some time ago that he had heard a preacher say, "I preach not only that others might be saved, but that I myself might be saved." And my dear friend said that, judging from the sermon, he doubted the man’s salvation.

No man should preach to be saved, but because he is saved. The Christian is not one who works to be saved, but one who works because he is saved.

This preacher personally was saved through the preaching of a sermon on the text John 3:14 and 15, and I shall never forget the fervor of the evangelist as he called to sinners to "look to the cross and be saved."

Charles Spurgeon was saved in the same way, when a Primitive Methodist preacher called upon him to "Look!"

Another preacher said, "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 that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith" (Heb. 12:1,2). 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 one thing required is looking at God’s Son.

1. The uplifted serpent was sufficient to save every serpent-bitten Israelite. The sacrifice of Calvary is sufficient to save every sinner, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son."

It was the misery and certain death of the sinner that awoke God’s compassion in both cases. In each case God provided salvation for the wicked and the rebellious against Him.

The hospital is not erected for the healthy, but for the sick. Salvation is not provided for the righteous, but for the sinner. It made no difference how many times a man had been bitten; the salvation which God provided was sufficient to save him and would become effective the very moment he believed. It makes no difference how many sins you have committed; one look at Calvary will save.

2. It made no difference how near death an Israelite might be; all he needed to do was look. It makes no difference how deep in sin nor how long in sin a man has been; one look will save.

Remember that you need not understand the philosophy of the transaction; all you need do is believe.

The remedy was so simple that any child could understand yet so profound that the wisest cannot comprehend. We are not saved because we understand; we are saved because we believe.

If some person in the camp in Israel should have said, "It is foolish to think a person can be saved that way, so I’ll not look," the inevitable result would have been death. We know that there are some who say "the preaching of the cross…is foolishness," but to us who are saved, it is "the power of God."

This was instantaneous. The bitten Israelite did not gradually mend, but he was saved instantly.

The very moment a sinner looks to the cross with the look of faith, that sinner is saved. Salvation is not a gradual betterment, but the reception of a new life. This was true in both cases. When the Israelite looked to the brazen serpent, the result of that look was a new life.

We have noticed that the plan of the people was to take away the serpents, but God gave new life while the serpents still remained. And it was a life that could not be harmed or taken away by the biting of the serpents.

The life that came through a look was different from the life that a man had before he looked. I am trying to tell you that when you look to Calvary’s cross, you receive a life that is different from the one that came by natural generation. When a sinner looks to Calvary’s cross, sin and Satan are not taken away from the world, but the one who looks is born from above and becomes a partaker of new life.