As Moses Lifted Up The Serpent In The Wilderness

The Relevant Christian Magazine | 7/29/14 | Chuck Ness

[OneVike]

Have you ever given it much thought about the phrase, “Lift Christ up with Praise?”

Quite often you will hear a pastor use this phrase as he instructs you to give glory to God though His Son. But have you ever really consider what the significance of the phrase? Give me a moment of your time and allow me to introduce you to something very few Christians have actually ever considered when hearing this phrase, “Lift Christ up with Praise.”

Most people know the verse, John 3:16, many have even memorized it. For me, that was the first verse I ever memorized in Sunday school as a child. If there is any verse that says it all, it’s John 3:16. God’s gift to mankind was His only Son Jesus. With the death of His Son on the Cross, all we need to do is confess Him as our Lord and Savior and our sins have been paid for in full. It’s Salvation in a nut shell. Praise God for simplicity! Now, this verse is great, but what is truly interesting to me is the verses that precede it. (John 3:16) I lose count of how many times I have read these verses, only to have my mind mentally skip over and almost ignore their meaning.

When you read John 3:14, it should take you back in time to Israel’s past. It was a time when Moses was leading the twelve tribes through the wilderness of Sin, a time when God was showing them His power and love firsthand. In the Old Testament, we read that the children of Israel had grown discouraged and spoke out against Moses and God. (Numbers 21:4-9). As punishment, God sent down fiery serpents that would bite the Israelites and many would eventually die.

Realizing their sin, they went to Moses confessing and asking him to pray to the Lord that He might take the serpents from their presence. Well God would not remove the cause of their plight, but He did instruct Moses to make a serpent and erect it on a pole.

Moses told those who were bitten by the serpents to come to the pole and gaze upon the image of their pain and they would live. At that time, to look upon such an image erected on a pole would have been considered repulsive, and many would instinctively look away. However, if they wanted to live, those who had been bitten were required to look upon the image of the serpent, or they would die.

You may wonder what this has to do with Christ’s crucifixion. At the time, the Jews looked at crucifixion as the sign of a curse, just as the Israelites looked upon the sign of the snake on the pole. At the time when Jesus walked with men, death by crucifixion was only used for the worst of criminals. Thus, to see Christ lifted up and crucified meant that He was considered cursed under Jewish tradition. After all, God instructed the Israelites as follows:

“If a man has committed a sin deserving of death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain overnight on the tree, but you shall surely bury him that day, so that you do not defile the land which the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance; for he who is hanged is accursed of God.” Deut. 21:22-23.

This is the verse Paul brought to mind when he wrote to the Galatians:

Christ has 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” (Galatians 3:13)

So, just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness to save his people from death, we too must look at the uplifted Son of Man to be saved.

Christ couldn’t just die. He had to die the death of a sinner, lowly and cursed. Lifted up on a pole, He was an image many found repulsive. He could have just come down and said, “Not today!” But he stayed. He died a death of pain and shame for sins he never committed. Sacrificed from the beginning of time, for sins He saw us commit, yet turned His eyes every time we did.

Every time you are tempted by sin, try to remember how the King of kings and Lord of lords was so humbly lifted on a pole for you. Take a moment and look up at the cross, and do not allow your head to turn away, or you very well may find yourself giving in to the temptation to sin. If you find yourself stumbling into sin, then take a moment and pray, take a moment and ask the One who stayed upon that cross for you, to take away your shame of sin. His arms are outstretched and waiting for you, all it takes is for you to look up willingly and accept His Father’s gift to you.

I pray that those who have ears to hear will listen to His voice and call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen

[DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis]

The bronze serpent just happens to be from this week’s Torah portion. Nice relevant topic for discussion this weekend.

[MeshugeMikey]

The Bible is an Infinitely thick book regardless of the weight of the pages.

[Jack Hydrazine]

"At that time, to look upon such an image erected on a pole would have been considered repulsive, and many would instinctively look away. However, if they wanted to live, those who had been bitten were required to look upon the image of the serpent, or they would die."

I'm not so sure about it being repulsive to look upon. The cobra was worshiped as a goddess, known as Wadjet, in the ancient Egypt from which they had just departed.

Snake symbolism

In Ancient Egypt, where the earliest written cultural records exist, the serpent appears from the beginning to the end of their mythology. Ra and Atum ("he who completes or perfects") became the same god, Atum, the "counter-Ra," was associated with earth animals, including the serpent: Nehebkau ("he who harnesses the souls") was the two headed serpent deity who guarded the entrance to the underworld. He is often seen as the son of the snake goddess Renenutet.

She often was confused with (and later was absorbed by) their primal snake goddess Wadjet, the Egyptian cobra, who from the earliest of records was the patron and protector of the country, all other deities, and the pharaohs. Hers is the first known oracle. She was depicted as the crown of Egypt, entwined around the staff of papyrus and the pole that indicated the status of all other deities,, as well as having the all-seeing eye of wisdom and vengeance. She never lost her position in the Egyptian pantheon. ----------------- There's an old saying that goes, "It took forty hours to get Israel out of Egypt, but it took 40 years to get Egypt out of Israel" rings true.

[kitkat]

“Snake represents sin, which Christ became.

Maybe it’s the way I’m reading it, but that phrase seems illogical and confusing.”

I, too, am confused by the above words, “which Christ became.”

[wbarmy]

If you are speaking of Protestants or Baptists, it is not the corpus, but the fact that we usually use an empty cross, to show that He is alive for evermore. His power is in his resurrection, not in His death. The death was accursed and pays for sin, but the Miracle in the Garden proves He is who He said He was.

[Oratam]

An adumbration or prefigurement.

"But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews indeed a stumblingblock, and unto the Gentiles foolishness."

[Uri’el-2012]

Is that also perhaps the reason that people (except for Catholics and Orthodox Christians) are embarrassed or repulsed to see a cross with a corpus on it?

Before the Reformation every crucifix had a corpus.

But years later the bronze snake on a pole
was destroyed because it had become an IDOL
which was worshiped instead of the ONE true YHvH.
(2 Kings 18:4)

shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach

[Jack Hydrazine]

In Hebrew the words used to describe the fiery/poisonous/sharp snakes is "HaNachashim HaSaraphim." הַנְּחָשִׁים הַשְּׂרָפִים

[Jack Hydrazine]

See post 23.

[RoosterRedux]

Thx Jack.:-)

I wish I could read Hebrew.

[Jack Hydrazine]

It’s very easy!

Aleph, bet, gimel, dalet...

LOL!

[Salvation]

God doomed the serpent in the Garden to crawl on its belly and eat dirt. Sure sounds a lot like a snake to me.

[Salvation]

**Supposed to hit 103 today**

Too hot for me.

[Salvation]

Thanks.

[Star Traveler]

The situation of this account in Numbers was to set up a “type” for the people, in order to point to the coming death on the cross of the Messiah of Israel and the resulting salvation to all who put their trust in him, from that “finished work” on that cross.

A Study of Types: What is a Type
http://www.churchesofchrist.net/authors/Grady_Scott/types.htm

Here’s a sermon outline explaining this “type”

THE BRAZEN SERPENT, A TYPE OF CHRIST
http://www.oceansidechurchofchrist.net/Sermons/SermonsHTML/2009/2009-08-16_The_Brazen_Serpent_A_Type_of_Christ.html

And here is the actual account in the Bible ...

Numbers 21:1-9

1 The king of Arad, the Canaanite, who dwelt in the South, heard that Israel was coming on the road to Atharim, then he fought against Israel and took some of them prisoners.

2 So Israel made a vow to the Lord, and said, “If You will indeed deliver this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities.”

3 And the Lord listened to the voice of Israel and delivered up the Canaanites, and they utterly destroyed them and their cities. So the name of that place was called Hormah.

4 Then they journeyed from Mount Hor by the Way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the soul of the people became very discouraged on the way.

5 And the people spoke against God and against Moses: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread.”

6 So the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died.

7 Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord that He take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.

8 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.”

9 So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.

— — —

Note one other thing here, SIN often enter one’s life and causes either some disaster or judgment from God — right after — a wonderful success, oftentimes that success being from God.

A principal of something to WATCH OUT FOR ... is that SIN comes easily in, right after a great success! Be on great guard, after a success!

[ImaGraftedBranch]

He took on Himself ALL the sins of the world on the cross - past, present, and future - in order to redeem mankind. In effect He became the sin which God abhors, out of His unfathomable Love for us. The perfect sacrifice.

Salvation is not to be confused with the redemption. All have been redeemed through Christ on the cross; not all are willing to accept this greatest offer of love (salvation) that creation will ever know.

That is the shame of it, and why many Christians who understand this work so hard to spread the Good News.

[UCANSEE2]

Oops. I meant Numbers, not Exodus.

Got it.

So... what was the name used for the snake that his staff turned into in Exodus ?

Is the staff with the snake mounted on it, and the staff that turned into a snake the same item ?

[CyberAnt]

This is a most awesome revelation.

Thank you so much.

[Star Traveler]

The article said ... “Moses told those who were bitten by the serpents to come to the pole and gaze upon the image of their pain and they would live.”

He said no such thing!

Numbers 21:8-9

8 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.”

9 So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.

There was nothing else to do except simply look. There was no gaze, no coming up to it, no “contemplation” — simply a quick look from “wherever you were at”.

It’s the same thing with Salvation ... you don’t have to go somewhere, you don’t have to belong to some group, you don’t have to spend a certain amount of time contemplating, you don’t have to go through a ritual ... none of that.

SALVATION is ...

... that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

(Romans 10:9-10)

[UCANSEE2]

I know what he meant.

Christ ‘became’ the sum and total of all our sins, so that THEY could be forgiven in one fell swoop with Christ’s death on the cross.

The problem I had, is with the way it was said.

It could be read as Christ became the Snake. It could be read as Christ became sin, which I think is what you are objecting to.

Maybe it’s just that “which Christ became” is a lot easier to type than “Like Hercules, Christ carried the weight(sin) of the whole world on his shoulders as he was nailed to the cross”.