Jesus a serpent

18 Thursday Oct 2012

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Brass Serpent, Bronze Serpent, Comfort Zone, Eternal Life, Moses, Sin, Truth

Everyone is familiar with John 3:16—“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that every one who believes into Him would not perish, but would have eternal life.” But, who ever remembers that in the context of this verse Jesus refers to Himself as a serpent?: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that every one who believes into Him may have eternal life” (vv.14-15). What?! Jesus a serpent?! To get the light on this startling statement, we must go back to Numbers 21 and study the account there.

After the children of Israel had been led by Moses out of bondage in Egypt, it says that they became impatient on the way and spoke against God and against Moses. God’s reaction was to send fiery serpents among the people, which bit the people so that many people of Israel died. Realizing they had sinned, the people repented to Moses and asked him to pray for them that God would take away the serpents. God then instructed Moses to fashion a serpent out of bronze and set it on a pole so that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.

Now, in John 3:14, Jesus indicated that Moses’ bronze serpent was actually a figure of Himself. In the same way that the bronze serpent had the likeness of a poisonous snake but not the poison, Christ came in the likeness of the flesh of sin (Romans 8:3), yet He did not have the sin nature (Hebrews 4:15). And as the bronze serpent was lifted up on a pole, so Christ was lifted up on the cross. All who look upon Him, believing and thus receiving God’s way of redemption, shall live!

It is amazing how one word can shake us out of our comfort zone (or what we think we know) and propel us into the depths of the truth.

gift

04 Wednesday Apr 2012

Posted by Paul Joseph in Bible study

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Calling upon the Name of the Lord, Cup of Salvation, Eternal Life, Jehovah the Savior, King David, University of Texas at Austin

When my kids were younger and I returned home from my many travels abroad, they would always run to the door to greet me, and their first question was, “Did you bring home anything for us?” They were looking for a gift from their daddy. Gifts are very important in a host of circumstances, as you all are well aware. It is big business to sell gifts, and wrap gifts, and deliver gifts. One gift can change a whole atmosphere or relationship by 180 degrees. There’s a proverb that says, “A man’s gift makes room for him and brings him before great men” (Proverbs 18:16). Speaking of being brought before great men, when you tour the LBJ Presidential Library and Museum on the campus of The University of Texas at Austin, something you’ll see there are all the interesting and costly gifts given to President Johnson by foreign dignitaries. No doubt, their gifts made the way pleasant for them to come before the President of the United States.

Well, the God of the universe who wants to have a relationship with us humans is also well acquainted with giving gifts to the creatures who were made in His image and likeness. He wants to gain our hearts and fill us with Himself. By becoming a man in His incarnation and shedding His own blood to pay the price for our sins, God “gave His only begotten Son, that everyone who believes into Him would not perish, but would have eternal life” (John 3:16). In His resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit (1 Corinthians 15:45) as a drink for us (John 7:37-39; 1 Corinthians 12:13)—the very cup of salvation that King David made reference to in the Psalms. As King David considered all that the Lord had given to him, he asked, “What shall I return to Jehovah for all His benefits toward me?” (Psalms 116:12). He recognized that the most profitable thing he could do for God was to continue to receive what the Lord would give to him: “I will take up the cup of salvation and call upon the name of Jehovah” (Psalms 116:13).

Today, Jesus Christ is this very Jehovah God. The name Jesus literally means Jehovah the Savior, or, the salvation of Jehovah. May we all take God’s gift to us by calling upon His name, because the Lord is rich to all who call upon Him, and, whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved (Romans 10:12-13). “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). And don’t forget Romans 11:29—“For the gracious gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.”