Jesus a serpent

18 Thursday Oct 2012

Tags

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.

rise

16 Saturday Jun 2012

Posted by Paul Joseph in Bible study

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Tags

Dead, Impotency, Life supply, Pray-reading, Sin, Son of God

In the Gospel of John chapter five there is the story of a man who had been an invalid for 38 years. He thought he knew what he needed to do to get healed, but he surely could not do it himself, and nobody would or could help him. Thus, he remained in his pitiful condition. The text indicates that his impotency was due to sin (v.14), and further, we find that actually this man was dead in his sin (v.25), for death is the ultimate consummation of sin. Actually, this man represents all mankind—all of us (for we all begin as dead in our sins and offenses which we inherited from the fall of that first man Adam). At this juncture, the Lord Jesus came to him and asked one question: “Do you want to get well?” Although only a simple yes or no was required to answer the question, the man began instead to explain his situation and how he could not do what he thought he needed to do in order to get well. Before the man could finish, the Lord Jesus spoke one word that changed this man for the rest of his life and into eternity—“Rise, take up your mat and walk.” That one word from the Lord actually enlivened and energized the man. Verse 25 says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, An hour is coming, and it is now, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.” Indeed, one word from the Lord is worth more than a million words of advice from anyone else. His one word is full of life supply! His words are spirit and they are life (John 6:63).

The Bible is the Word of the Lord. It was breathed out from Him (2 Tim. 3:16). When we exercise to breath in His word through prayerful reading, we experience the same supply of divine life experienced by that sick man back in John chapter 5. Besides pray-reading the Word of God to get life, we can also listen to the other believers of Christ, who are members of Christ. When they speak for the Lord and speak forth the Lord, again, life is supplied to us, even imparted into us, through the speaking of the saints. May we all position ourselves in front of the Word of God and in the midst of the believers in Christ where we can have the speaking of the Lord imparting life into us!