A Snake Lifted Up
Some thoughts on Numbers 21 - the
snake being lifted up to cure the Israelites from snakebites - inspired by a
post by David of A Physicist's Perspective
David of A Physicist's Perspective had some excellent thoughts on Numbers 21. In case
you don't remember the passage offhand, here's a quick
snippet:
Numbers 21:4-9 :
4 From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient 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 we loathe this worthless food.” 6 Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. 7 And 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 And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” 9 So Moses made a bronze [1] serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.
David did a good job explaining the foreshadowing of Christ in this passage and the "foolishness" of the Cross to those who are perishing, as well as the tight connection between repentance and salvation. As is often the case with David, his post got me thinking as well, and I noticed a few things in this passage that I had not seen before.
The first thing that I noticed was the difference between what the people asked for, and what they received. Notice they asked "that he take away the serpents from us.", and yet God gives them a way to be healed from the venom of the serpents. Salvation is not what we want, but what we need. We would love to receive salvation from our current problems, deliverance from difficulty and a life of lazy ease. But these are not what we need, and our Heavenly Father, knowing our real needs, gives us Christ. It reminds me that the Jews would love to have had a Christ that would have saved them from the tyranny of Rome, so much that some missed the glorious Christ that would save all people from the tyranny of death itself.
It also shows us how our repentance can flow out of a fearful recognition of God's wrath. Sometimes this is a bad practice - we cry out to God only because we are in a bad situation, and promise to behave differently simply because we want to get out of it rather than out of any real remorse. I know I'm guilty of this many times over - "Oh God, if you'll save me from this I'll never do X again." But here it seems that the Israelites actually did recognize the evil in their sin. It was God's wrath that revealed their error to them, but they did confess their error.
Another important thing it shows is that salvation doesn't remove temporary set backs or make us some kind of super-saint who doesn't sin any longer. They were not rid of the snakes, they were cured of the snakebites. This implies that the snakes continued to keep on biting them. Perhaps the Israelites were led to a deeper faith in God by the snakes, as it is hard to ignore being repeatedly bitten. It may have humbled them as well, as each time you are bitten it forces you to acknowledge you will die from the venom, and look to and trust in the sign that God has offered.
This is an allusion to the persistence of our sin. When we become Christians, we are not freed immediately from any sin in our lives. Like the snakes that tormented the Israelites, our sin keeps coming back to bite us. But what God has done in salvation is to remove the sting of sin - namely, that sin no longer condemns us before God. Our sin, like the venom of the snake, meant that we would surely die. As Christians, we will die, but the sting of death and sin has been removed - we will not stand condemned, but rather enter Heaven rejoicing in the grace of God. Those sins that remain in our lives also humble us as well, as every time we realize our sin, it forces us to acknowledge our need of Christ, and bids us to return our gaze to the Cross and trust in His finished work.
1 Corinthians 15:54-58 :
54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
55 “O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
Let us turn our eyes to the Cross, and rejoice in the God has given us the victory over death. Amen.
Numbers 21:4-9 :
4 From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient 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 we loathe this worthless food.” 6 Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. 7 And 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 And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” 9 So Moses made a bronze [1] serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.
David did a good job explaining the foreshadowing of Christ in this passage and the "foolishness" of the Cross to those who are perishing, as well as the tight connection between repentance and salvation. As is often the case with David, his post got me thinking as well, and I noticed a few things in this passage that I had not seen before.
The first thing that I noticed was the difference between what the people asked for, and what they received. Notice they asked "that he take away the serpents from us.", and yet God gives them a way to be healed from the venom of the serpents. Salvation is not what we want, but what we need. We would love to receive salvation from our current problems, deliverance from difficulty and a life of lazy ease. But these are not what we need, and our Heavenly Father, knowing our real needs, gives us Christ. It reminds me that the Jews would love to have had a Christ that would have saved them from the tyranny of Rome, so much that some missed the glorious Christ that would save all people from the tyranny of death itself.
It also shows us how our repentance can flow out of a fearful recognition of God's wrath. Sometimes this is a bad practice - we cry out to God only because we are in a bad situation, and promise to behave differently simply because we want to get out of it rather than out of any real remorse. I know I'm guilty of this many times over - "Oh God, if you'll save me from this I'll never do X again." But here it seems that the Israelites actually did recognize the evil in their sin. It was God's wrath that revealed their error to them, but they did confess their error.
Another important thing it shows is that salvation doesn't remove temporary set backs or make us some kind of super-saint who doesn't sin any longer. They were not rid of the snakes, they were cured of the snakebites. This implies that the snakes continued to keep on biting them. Perhaps the Israelites were led to a deeper faith in God by the snakes, as it is hard to ignore being repeatedly bitten. It may have humbled them as well, as each time you are bitten it forces you to acknowledge you will die from the venom, and look to and trust in the sign that God has offered.
This is an allusion to the persistence of our sin. When we become Christians, we are not freed immediately from any sin in our lives. Like the snakes that tormented the Israelites, our sin keeps coming back to bite us. But what God has done in salvation is to remove the sting of sin - namely, that sin no longer condemns us before God. Our sin, like the venom of the snake, meant that we would surely die. As Christians, we will die, but the sting of death and sin has been removed - we will not stand condemned, but rather enter Heaven rejoicing in the grace of God. Those sins that remain in our lives also humble us as well, as every time we realize our sin, it forces us to acknowledge our need of Christ, and bids us to return our gaze to the Cross and trust in His finished work.
1 Corinthians 15:54-58 :
54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
55 “O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
Let us turn our eyes to the Cross, and rejoice in the God has given us the victory over death. Amen.
Posted: Thu - April 21, 2005 at 10:32 PM | | | | | | |
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Published On: Apr 21, 2005 10:47 PM
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