Israel was the church of God according to election. Yet a bitter and rebellious people were the Israelites as they took their pilgrimage through the wilderness and into the land God had promised. The elect by nature were no different than the surrounding nations or the carnal element that always resides in the church. Again the Israelites lodged their complaints against Moses and against God. They longed for Egypt and the things of Egypt. They were filled with contempt for God’s provision of the manna. They accused Moses of bringing them into the wilderness to die.
Swiftly and quickly came the Lord’s reply. The Lord sent upon the nation fiery serpents. Fiery because of the venomous bite that inflamed the site of the deadly wound. Where the snake’s fangs pierced the skin, the venom immediately began to work, until the body shut down and the Israelite perished.
A symbol of sin! Bitten by sin was man in the garden, and he perished under that sin according to the righteous judgment of God. And bitten by those fiery serpents, the Israelites were as good as dead. With no antivenom and no antidote, their end was to perish. And many did perish in the nation. They died under the terrible power of sin that brought them down to hell. God through this event was teaching the Israelites who they were by nature. They were sinners, guilty in Adam and sold under sin.
The Lord answered Moses’ intercessory prayer through a sign. Through the sign God declared the gospel to dead sinners. He appointed the antivenom. Moses was to craft a brazen serpent and lift it up on a pole. That brazen serpent was the symbol of God’s curse and his wrath against sin.
Dead sinners looked upon that glistening and glinting serpent suspended on a pole, and they lived! To the Israelites God brought healing and life. Sinners who were doomed to die now lived only by a true faith in the promise of God.
Of this event Christ spoke. As Moses lifted up that serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up. And on the accursed tree of the cross, Christ became like that serpent lifted up. God made him, who knew no sin, to be sin for us. God made him a curse for us. Imputed to Christ were all the sins of his ungodly, elect people, and he identified himself with their sins. For our sins he was lifted up and accursed of God at the place of a skull. Christ took away our guilt, the wrath of God, and the curse.
That we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Instead of guilt Christ’s perfect righteousness, satisfaction, and spotless holiness are imputed to us. And instead of being cursed, the church of God is unimaginably blessed. The curse is lifted off the church because the Son of man was lifted up.
And Christ still is lifted up every Sunday in the church where Jesus Christ crucified is declared as the only way of salvation. All who believe in him shall never perish but have everlasting life.
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