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The Bronze Serpent - Numbers 21
The Bronze Serpent - Numbers 21
You have got to be kidding me! Just looking at a image of a snake I can be cured? No way! That doesn't make any sense at all. It is unreasonable.
That reaction is rather easy to imagine… unless the person was actually snake bit! No doctor, no anti-venom, no medical care available. THEN, they might 'believe'.
What they could KNOW: "Then the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live.”
What WE know: "And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived."
Why would God choose THIS method to deal with people?
Was the power to heal in the bronze serpent? Was it in the act of going and looking at the bronze serpent? Of course not, it was in the act of God healing the person. WHEN did God heal the person? Could one 'believe' in such healing without going and looking? Would such 'belief' result in life or death to the one bitten? Could God make an exception?
As with many such events in the Old Testament, they actually prefigured the coming of Jesus. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life" (John 3:14-15). Such faith is NOT a 'one and done' mental act, but a living, continuing trust in Jesus.
"“Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?" (Luke 6:46)
"My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world." (1 John 2:1–2)
"Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation," (Hebrews 5:8–9)
We have been 'snake bit' by 'the old serpent, the devil' and we have no other means of saving our eternal life except by such living trust in Jesus. Will you live, or die?
Hugh DeLong
