THURSDAY 8th
Numbers 21:4-9
NIV (v9) – ‘So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.’
ESV (v9) – ‘So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.’
Yesterday we looked at the problem within this verses, the peoples grumbling against God and against Moses, today we turn to the solution. The first part of the solution was God sending the fiery snakes among them, the second part was the people getting bitten and dying, the third part was the people recognising that what had happened was because they had sinned, and so they then went to Moses admitting their sin and asking him to intercede on their behalf and for him to ask God to take the snakes away from them. The very one they were grumbling against, they now had to grovel (for want of a better word) to.
The solution was then given from God to Moses, to make a snake out of bronze and to lift it up on a pole and if anyone got bitten, if they looked up to the bronze snake they would live.
Jesus referred to this account in John’s gospel 3:14, ‘And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.’ It seems strange at first for Jesus to be likening himself to a bronze snake lifted up on a pole in the wilderness, but what he was indicating is this; the snakes in the wilderness had become a curse upon the people of Israel, and as such they were being bitten and dying, and likewise, for the whole of the human race, the snakes are a picture of sin, which has become a curse upon humanity, and all have sinned (been bitten by the curse of sin) and all fall short of the glory of God, and all will die in their sin unless . . . and the unless leads to what Jesus is referring to in John 4:14, ‘As Moses lifted . . . so must the Son of Man be lifted up, . . .’, he was willing to become the curse on our behalf, he who knew no sin, became sin and was to be lifted up on a pole, which we see as the Cross at Calvary so that if anyone should look up to him and believe they would be saved and live. (2 Corinthians 5:21 ‘For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.’)
Scripture says, ‘Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree — so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.’
I am reminded of one of the older hymns,
There is life for a look at the Crucified one,
There is life at this moment for thee.
Then look, sinner, look unto him and be saved,
Unto him who was nailed to the tree.
Look, look, look and live,
There is life for a look at the Crucified one,
There is life at this moment for thee.
When in my mind I think back to this account in Numbers, and I see the people being bitten and slowly dying what must have been an awful painful death, I fail to see them refusing to look up to the bronze snake on the pole, one look would be enough to live, and yet when it comes to eternal redemption, to be saved from the curse of sin and the eternal consequences of it, so many blatantly refuse to look at the One who has made redemption and eternal life possible, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Where are you today? Are you still suffering from the curse of sin, still heading toward an eternity lost forever, cut off from God in the lake of fire, the place reserved for the devil and all who reject God’s mercy – why not take a look today to the One who was lifted up on your behalf, the One who became a curse so that you can be set free from the curse, take a look at Jesus, and believe in him, put your faith in him, put your hope in him, for there is no other cure for the curse of sin, he is the only one who has conquered death and thus able to grant life everlasting.