Jesus spoke about His crucifixion to come referring to a type of it from the Old Testament, “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” (John 3:14)
The Israelites, groaning and grumbling, were being led through the wilderness by God, having just left the slavery of Egypt.
“Then they set out from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the people became impatient because of the journey. 5 So the people spoke against God and Moses: ‘Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we are disgusted with this miserable food.’
6 Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. 7 So the people came to Moses and said, ‘We have sinned, because we have spoken against the Lord and against you; intercede with the Lord, that He will remove the serpents from us.’ And Moses interceded for the people. 8 Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a fiery serpent, and put it on a flag pole; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, and looks at it, will live.’ 9 So Moses made a bronze serpent and put it on the flag pole; and it came about, that if a serpent bit someone, and he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.” (Numbers 21:4-9)
Moses is a type of Jesus, allowing Himself to be lifted up upon the cross. The pole is a type of the cross—it is a witness of the type of sacrifice of Jesus to come.
The serpent is a type for sin. Why a serpent?
The devil came to Adam and Eve as a serpent in the garden of Eden. He is the beginning of sin, the beginning of the poison that kills. The wages of sin—the poison, is death. Poison kills. Sin kills.
What is sin?
To sin means “to go the wrong way, incur guilt, forfeit” or even “to make a sin-offering.”
The serpent on the pole or standard, raised up for people to look to is a type of the Lord Jesus on the cross, bleeding.
Paul wrote, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin in our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2Cor 5:21)
Isaiah prophesied: “Therefore I will allot Him a portion with the great, and He will divide the plunder with the strong, because He has poured out His life unto death, and He was numbered with the wrongdoers. Yet He Himself bore the sin of many and interceded for the wrongdoers.” (Isa 53:12)
Jesus took the sins of the world upon Himself. Because of His action, He took the Father’s wrath for those sins upon Himself.
Now the Israelites were in the wilderness following God. They’d just completed a major victory but were tired of following God. They had become impatient. Then they made a deadly mistake: The people spoke against not just Moses, but God Himself, whining about the food and the lack of water.
To speak against God is sin.
He sent fiery serpents that bit the people; many died.
God deals with sin. It cannot be avoided.
The people repented, asking Moses, a type of the Lord Jesus to intercede with God for them.
Then the Lord made a way for the forgiveness of sin. Those who repented were to look to a fiery serpent on a pole. This required faith. It required repentance. It required dropping one’s pride and doing things God’s way.
Moses is a type of Jesus who also made His way to the cross.
To look to the cross of Christ is to have faith in Jesus. Faith believes that the blood of Jesus washes away the sin.
The Israelites in the wilderness who looked to the bronze serpent upon the pole were healed of their snakebites.
What Jesus suffered—the beating, flogging and crucifixion, brings about healing caused by sin.
“But He was pierced for our offenses, He was crushed for our wrongdoings; The punishment for our well-being was laid upon Him, And by His wounds we are healed.” (Isa 53:5)
The blood of Jesus poured out of His wounds.
“For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement.” (Lev 17:11)
Those who did not look to the pole with the serpent died in their sins. Their sin stuck to them. Jesus said, “Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.” (John 8:24)
Without the cross of Jesus there is no forgiveness for sin.
To die in one’s sins is to choose to handle sins in one’s own way. It is to choose to pay for the sin yourself. Payment of one’s own sin is to receive God’s wrath. Payment for sins after death occurs in hell, a place of darkness and torment.
To reject Jesus on earth is to be separated from Him after death.
To receive Jesus on earth is to be received by Him after physical death.
Where is Jesus? He is in Heaven. Heaven is Paradise. The way to Heaven is belief in Jesus.
Why was the serpent bronze?
Bronze is symbolic of suffering and oppression. It is a type of the cross of suffering that consumed the Lord.
Jesus was nailed to the cross, through His hands and His feet. He suffered a bloody death leaving Him unrecognizable. He suffered. That suffering occurred because of the sin that He took into Himself. Yes, even your sins.
When Jesus returns from heaven, He will come with hair white like white wool, like snow, His eyes a flame of fire, and His feet like burnished bronze, when it has been made to glow in a furnace. (Rev 1:13-15)
A furnace separates impurities from the pure metal.
The power of God, of Jesus, purified those sins, making them white.
Isaiah 1:18 foretold this: “’Come now, and let us reason together,’ Says the Lord, ‘Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool.’”
When Jesus is received as your Savior, your sins, the impurities in your life, are burned away from you. In fact, Jesus has already done this work, but you must receive Him and the work that He has finished. The Apostle Paul refers to change as the making of a “new creation.”
“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” (2Corinthians 5:17) Paul was a former murderer of Christians. He knew what it meant to become a believer in Jesus (Christ/the Savior) and have his sins not just forgiven, but removed from himself.
After sin was separated from Jesus at the cross, it was thrown away from Him.
Micah 7:19 states, “He will again have compassion on us; He will tread our iniquities under foot. Yes, You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.”
Those sins of the past, no matter what you did can be forgiven, forever. The Word of God says, “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” (Psalm 103:12)
Jesus is the antidote for the venom of sin. He said, “I am the resurrection and the life; the one who believes in Me will live, even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”
There is no condemnation for those who look to Jesus as Savior. (Romans 8:1) Paul wrote this too. He was fully accepted by God because of what Jesus, God’s Son, had done for him.
When Jesus returns, He will come to judge and wage war against the world and its sin. (Revelation 19:11)
“He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. 14 And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. 15 From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. 16 And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written: ‘KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.’” (Revelation 19:13-16)
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)
He will judge the people of the nations.
“But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. 32 And all the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, just as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; 33 and He will put the sheep on His right, but the goats on the left.” (Matthew 25:31-33)
The sheep are a type of those who believe in Jesus and have had their sins removed. The goats are a type of those who never believed in Jesus and still are living in their sins.
The sheep, believers, will inherit the kingdom. These are those who are true believers. Their lives demonstrated their belief.
“Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; 36 naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? 38 And when did we see You as a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? 39 And when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40 And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of Mine, you did it for Me.’” (Matthew 25:34-40)
What about the goats?
These people will have rebelled against God, thus aligning themselves with the kingdom of darkness.
“Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, you accursed people, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; 43 I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ 44 Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or as a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not ]take care of You?’ 45 Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it for one of the least of these, you did not do it for Me, either.’ 46 These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:41-46)
Jesus gave His life for both the sheep and the goats, so that all could enter into eternal life and the Kingdom of God. He is called the Lamb of God. He also fulfilled all Old Testament sacrifices, including those of goats. (Lev 23:19) Jesus paid for the sins of the goats. (John 3:16) Hell was not prepared for people, but there will be those, goats, who will choose to rebel, live in unbelief, or disobedience, loving darkness more than light, and they will enter in to the eternal fire.
The Bible says, “Faith without works is dead.” (James 2:26)
“Dead” means without life. Are you as a dead man The Bible says, “Faith without works is dead.” (James 2:26)
“Dead” means without life. Are you as a dead man laying in a coffin waiting for Jesus to return?
The righteous are to be examples of those fulfilling the commands of Jesus until He returns. (Rev 19:7-8) These works were prepared for the church ahead by God. (Eph 2:10) These works are the church’s reputation. The elders are to instruct the younger in good works. (1 Tim 6:18) The light of the church must shine through good works that can be seen. This glorifies God. (Matt 5:16) The church is called to make herself ready for the Lord’s return—this includes finishing God’s commands of good works. (Rev 19:7-8)
(C) Kelly Jadon 2023
