FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF VILLA RICA, PCA

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The Brazen Serpent

By

Rev. Todd W. Allen

Villa Rica 3/7/04

 John 3:9-15

In this third chapter of John we learn an amazing truth. It is the basic doctrine concerning the knowledge of God. Jesus taught Nicodemus  “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. ⁶“That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷“Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’

But this very truth is most difficult for the natural mind to grasp. We can see this in the exchange that took place between Christ and Nicodemus. 

Nicodemus was certainly a fit subject for Christ to choose to reveal this truth to because the incredulity of Nicodemus, of all people, reinforces the very point Christ is making, namely, that the natural man without a new birth cannot see or comprehend spiritual things. After all, who should have been better equipped and trained to discern spiritual things than Nicodemus? He was an educated man. He was a morally upright man. He was a teacher himself, a leader in the nation of Israel. He had all of the advantages of one born to nobility and spiritual opportunity. He had studied under the finest rabbis of his day. He had gone to the synagogue all his life and had heard the best teachers of the law expound the scriptures. He had risen to the highest ecclesiastical office in the nation. Yet when Christ gives him the foundational truth about God he couldn’t comprehend it at all. He was stupefied. He answers Christ, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things? ¹¹“Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony. ¹²“If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?  

Here is the marvel of it, that Nicodemus, intelligent, gifted, well-trained man that he was, did not know, could not comprehend, was flabbergasted by the most rudimentary truth of all. He did not even know the A B C’s of the knowledge of God. We might suppose that Nicodemus would have been an exception to the truth Jesus offered to him, but until Nicodemus experiences the new birth he is like any other natural person. He is in complete darkness about the things of the kingdom of God. The way of the wicked is like darkness; They do not know over what they stumble. (Prov. 4:19)

The apostle declares that the natural man's understanding is darkened being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness and hardness of their heart (Eph. 4:18). 

 We can be sure that Jesus was not surprised at the answer of Nicodemus. The Master teacher chose a man whom we would expect to know the basic and fundamental truths about the kingdom of God but who did not in order that those who are proud of their fancied wisdom and learning might humble themselves to learn as Nicodemus did. He was at least honest enough to own his ignorance. Christ told the Pharisees who prided themselves on their intelligence and wisdom that because they claimed to be able to see when they actually did not see that their sin remained. (Jn. 9:41). It is as if a teacher were teaching science with a worldview that the earth is flat and who insisted that this is the correct approach and who has closed his mind to any different view. Such is the predicament of those who claim to be theologians but who are unregenerate and see only with the eyes of the natural mind and the sinful disposition of their corrupt heart. Before they can discern heavenly things they must be born again from above, be given a new heart, only then they can begin to learn spiritual things.       

If the subject of the new birth couched in earthly

language is dark and mysterious to you, how could you

understand if I told you things about heaven, which is invisible to your eye and beyond your range of vision?

But now Jesus proceeds to give Nicodemus another truth that I wish to use as my text today.  ¹⁴“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; ¹⁵so that whoever ^believes will in Him have eternal life.

I. The Lord Jesus Likens Himself To That Brazen Serpent That Moses Made In The Wilderness For The Healing Of the People After They Had Been Bitten By Fiery Serpents 

You will recall that episode recorded in Numbers 21.4-9. ⁴Then they set out from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the people became impatient because of the journey. ⁵The people spoke against God and Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this miserable food.”

     ⁶The LORD sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. ⁷So the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, because we have spoken against the LORD and you; intercede with the LORD, that He may remove the serpents from us.” And Moses interceded for the people. ⁸Then the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live.” ⁹And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived. Num. 21:4-9   

            Let me just pause here and observe that though

God had led these people all the way and they had just gotten a great victory over the Canaanites they are fretful and dissatisfied with their lot. They hanker after the world as much as ever and want in their hearts to return to Egypt. What a word of warning for us today!

God had favored them above all men on the face of the earth, yet they considered His service thankless drudgery. He was leading them on a pilgrimage to the Promised Land and supplying all their needs in the wilderness but they loathed the angel food that came down from heaven to nourish them.  Their complaining spirit brought upon them a righteous judgment from God. He sent among them fiery serpents that bit them and whose poison was killing them. But then they repented of their complaints and sought the Lord for relief from this just judgment.

             Then God hearkened to Moses and told him what to do to be delivered from the death bite of those serpents.

The analogy between this episode in the wilderness and Christ’s earthly mission is to be seen in several facts. The first fact is man's sinful state. Satan deceived Eve and sank his fangs into our first parents. His poison has infected the race so that all men are born with a natural depravity called original sin. The poison of asps is under the lips of men and the just penalty for sin is death.

These serpents are called fiery from their color and their vile and raging temper. Their bite brought distress to the body creating a terrible thirst and a high fever. The wound of these beasts was incurable resulting in an agonizing death. The scriptures describe sin in almost those terms. Satan is called a red dragon and his darts are fiery. Sin bites like a serpent and. stings like an adder; and even its sweets are turned into the gall of asps. Jesus in pronouncing woe and damnation upon his generation called them  “You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell?  Matt. 23:33   

The second fact is the hopelessness of the condition of those Israelites who had been bitten by the flying fiery serpents. There was no remedy, no antidote. This problem was beyond human control. God had sent the serpents and God alone could deliver them from the death bite.   

            The third fact is God's provision of mercy.

When Moses prayed, 8Then the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live.” ⁹And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived. Num. 21:8-9

      Our text states, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; ¹⁵so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.

   Mel Gibson’s movie the Passion of Christ can be for those who look in faith upon Jesus on the cross the same as the brazen serpent. The Remedy for Sin is Christ lifted up at Calvary. The brazen serpent that Moses made was emblematic of the curse introduced by the agency of the serpent.    Galatians 3:13  tells us,¹³Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”— Gal. 3:13 

The brass represents Divine Judgment. The brazen altar on which the sacrifices were slain speaks of it. In the book of Revelation Christ is seen as Judge inspecting the seven churches and the scripture says, ¹⁵His feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been made to glow in a furnace…   (Rev. 1:15)

Brass is a metal that can endure the heat of the judgment fire that consumes the offering. It took one mighty to save, one who could take our judgment and recover from the blow. And the serpent of brass typified the one who was to come to take away our sin. Thus Christ makes the analogy between himself and the brazen serpent Moses was told to make and lift up on a pole.

The children of Israel were saved from the death bite of the fiery serpents by looking at the brazen serpent Moses had made. They could not save themselves. There was no physician that could heal them, no medicine that they could take to ward off the deadly effect of the serpent bite. It was a progressive and terminal condition. Only a divine remedy could save them.              

 Perhaps some thought of starting a. campaign to eradicate fiery serpents, a crusade to wipe out this dread scourge. But they knew that was hopeless even as sin is hopeless today in our own society. There is no way to stamp out sin. Sin gets more deadly as time passes; it is progressive, insidious, relentless and the end of sin is death. No man is any match for its deadly power. It works in the soul as the poison of an asp.

Nor were they told to reform themselves so that this distress would go away. They were not told to pray for help, they had already done that. What they needed now was the remedy, a means of grace, salvation.

Nor were they commanded to look at their wounds and study the nature of the bite. They were not going to find any benefit in brooding or worrying over their serpent bite. They were sick unto death and they knew it without studying the nature of the beast that had

bitten them or the character of the bite they had received. When a sinner recognizes that he is a sinner he can find no relief or comfort in examining his condition. He doesn't need a diagnosis of his sin; he needs to look away from himself to the divine remedy.

III.  Just As The Serpent Bit Israelites Were Saved By Looking At The Brazen Serpent On A Pole S0 Every Sinner Can Be Saved From Death By Looking To Jesus.

God has made Christ a remedy for sin. He was lifted up on the cross and it is by looking unto him hanging on the cross at Calvary that salvation is obtained. The Israelites were healed by a look of faith; they simply believed God's Word spoken by Moses and by looking at the brazen serpent they lived. Even so today the sinner must look unto Jesus and be saved.

God says, ¹⁸   Hear, you deaf! And look, you blind that you may see. ²² “Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; For I am God, and there is no other. Isa. 42:18, Isa. 45:22
            The Christian life begins by looking upon Jesus and it continues by looking: Let us run with patience the race which is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  (Heb. 12:2)  

It wasn't how clear their eyesight was that saved those Israelites. Some may have had dim eyesight, or they may have been at some great distance from the brazen serpent for the healing was not in the strength or clarity of their vision. They were simply told to look and be saved, look and live. Jesus told Nicodemus, 14“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; ¹⁵so that whoever ^£believes will in Him have eternal life.

 This is the divine remedy for sin, beloved. Do you know of any other remedy? Do you think that you will escape the sting of sin without the divine remedy? Do you see your perilous condition and want to be saved from death? Then look unto Jesus. Look today. Look right now. It is not how you come, not the way you come, it is only by looking upon Jesus. Turn your eyes upon him, look at him. Nothing is said about having to straighten out your life. It is just as I am that I must come. It is for him to save me from the power and penalty of sin. He promises to do it for every soul that believes in him.

Hymn #307 “Nothing but the Blood”