Numbers 21:4-9, Psalm 107:1-3, Psalm 107:17-22, Ephesians 2:1-10, John 3:14-21.
(A) A SERPENT ON A POLE, AND A MAN ON A CROSS.
Numbers 21:4-9.
Much of the books of Exodus and Numbers tells the sad history of a people who for forty years - whilst being delivered, led, and provided for by God - made a profession of complaining. The turning point came when a pole was raised up in the desert with a symbol of the enemy upon it (Numbers 21:8). There and then a generation of wilderness wanderers were called to grow up, cease their constant complaining, enter into the faith of Abraham (Galatians 3:9), and hasten on their journey towards the fulfillment of the promises.
The symbolism of the serpent on a pole was taken up by Jesus (John 3:14-15). Sin died at Calvary (2 Corinthians 5:21) - and death died, the wages of sin (Romans 6:23). All who fix their eyes upon Jesus (Hebrews 12:1-2), trusting in His finished work upon the Cross, enter into a new state of being called “eternal life” (John 3:16).
“Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3:14-17).
If a serpent on a pole was a shocking symbol for a monotheistic people, so is the picture in our minds’ eye of the broken body of a man impaled upon a wooden cross. Yet, in both instances, this is what God commanded. Without the brazen serpent there was no healing for the Israelite who had been bitten by a snake (Numbers 21:9) - and without the Cross there is no salvation for any one of us, bitten as we are by the sting of death which is sin (1 Corinthians 15:55-57).
Jesus was “lifted up” in the crucifixion, so that everyone who believes in Him, trusting not in themselves but trusting in His sacrificial blood, would have eternal life. This was, and is, the supreme act of God’s love.
Our God is the God of the unusual. Looking at the symbol He has commanded brought healing to the poisoned Israelite, and similarly brings salvation to the would-be Christian. There is no time for prevarication: do this or die.
(B) A CALL TO GIVE THANKS.
Psalm 107:1-3; Psalm 107:17-22.
This Psalm is a celebration of the wonderful works of God. The situations referred to in each of its word pictures could no doubt be attached to some specific event in the history of God’s people. However, they are common experiences, and relevant for each of us, and all of us collectively, in all generations.
Psalm 107:1 is a familiar verse: if not from church liturgies, then from the other times when the same words appear in the book of Psalms. Psalm 106:1 is a case in point. So, yes, let us “Give thanks to the LORD for He is good: for His mercy endures forever”!
The tales of weal and woe which this Psalm reflects leave us with one enduring fact. Whether our woe, or our well-being, is deserved or undeserved: the fact remains that “the LORD is good” (Psalm 107:1). And, yes, ‘All things’ DO ‘work together for good, to those who love the Lord’ (Romans 8:28).
In Psalm 106:47, the writer appealed to the LORD for his people to be gathered from among the heathen. The answer comes in Psalm 107:3, where they are “gathered” from the four points of the compass. Just like the church.
And, like the church, “Let the redeemed of the LORD say so” (Psalm 107:2). God’s wonderful works reach their zenith in the resurrection of Jesus, and our redemption through Him. Testimony is so important in the witness of the church: ‘I once was lost, but now am found’.
As we come to our chosen word picture (Psalm 107:17-22), one strong contender for its Old Testament background is Numbers 21:4-9. There the complaint of the people of Israel was, ‘no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread’ (Numbers 21:5). What an attitude to God’s gracious and miraculous provision!
The indictment against such “fools” (Psalm 107:17), is that “their soul abhorred all manner of food” (Psalm 107:18). The response of the LORD to “their transgression, and to their iniquities” is to send “affliction” (Psalm 107:17), causing them to “draw near to the gates of death” (Psalm 107:18). In the example we have cited, this took the form of a plague of fiery serpents, which ‘bit the people and caused many of the people of Israel to die’ (Numbers 21:6).
But then the people asked Moses to pray for them (Numbers 21:7). This could correspond to their “cry unto the LORD in their trouble” (Psalm 107:19). Not only did the LORD come up with a scheme to relieve their present distress (the serpent on a pole - Numbers 21:8-9), but also a picture of a much grander scheme, for a more universal salvation, with Christ on the Cross at its centre (cf. John 3:14-17).
Not all afflictions come as a direct result of some specific sin - but some do. Whichever way, when we are afflicted, the only one way to turn is to God Himself, through the Lord Jesus Christ. “Then He saved them from their distresses. He sent His word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions” (Psalm 107:19-20). ‘And so, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived’ (Numbers 21:9).
We conclude our little picture with a call to those who have been thus redeemed, by the blood of the Lamb (1 Peter 1:18-19), to “praise the LORD for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men (literally, children of Adam)” (Psalm 107:21). This is something of a refrain throughout this Psalm.
“And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving and tell of His deeds with songs of joy” (Psalm 107:22). Telling of his deeds is a joy, but sometimes our telling of our testimony is sacrificial. However, we must share the good news: “His mercy” DOES “endure forever” (Psalm 107:1).
(C) WORKMANSHIP OF GOD.
Ephesians 2:1-10.
1. SIN.
Speaking to the Christians in Ephesus, the Apostle Paul said: “You - who were dead in your sins” (Ephesians 2:1).
Sin is any disobedience to, or breaking of, the law of God. By nature, since the fall of Adam, man is disobedient to God’s law. Man has broken, and goes on breaking, every commandment which God has given.
All of us know right from wrong. It is written in our hearts to know that stealing, cheating, murder, corruption, hatred - all these things are wrong. We know it is right to respect and honour parents, to love our neighbours, to help those in need. It is wrong to want what belongs to someone else.
Also, deep within us we have an inbuilt need to worship the true and living God, if only we could find Him. We know it is wrong to worship anything that He has created, or anything we have made with our own hands. We know of the need to honour Him, and to set apart time for His worship and to seek after Him. Hence in His commandments he says, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy…”
Yet our consciences were deadened by sin. We knew not where we might find Him. There was a great gulf, a chasm, between God and us. We might have tried to find Him by reaching upwards to heaven with our ideas and our idols, but we fell short. “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).
Sin separates us from God. Separation from God is spiritual death. “Dead in our sins” (Ephesians 2:1) is just how we are when we do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Before they were Christians, these Ephesians lived like everyone else in the world. They were disobedient to God (Ephesians 2:2), consciously or unconsciously following the way of evil. They satisfied every fleshly lust and desire (Ephesians 2:3).
This is how the world was, and this is how the world is. People delight in sin, and take pleasure in those who corrupt themselves! Such people, left to themselves, are under the condemnation of God. They are “sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2), and “children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3).
2. “BUT GOD…”! (Ephesians 2:4).
For most of the people to whom Paul first addressed this letter, they were no longer under this condemnation, this separation from God. Something had changed.
(i) Something had changed in their relationship to God.
It was not that they had suddenly found a successful religion that somehow gave them a more certain access to God. None of the world’s religions have succeeded in reaching up to God.
It was rather that God had reached down to them in the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is what Christianity is all about. The chasm is bridged, but not by our feeble efforts to reach up to God, but by His powerfully reaching down to us.
“But God” is merciful (Ephesians 2:4); God is love (Ephesians 2:4); God is gracious (Ephesians 2:5); God is kind (Ephesians 2:7).
The only thing that distinguishes Christians from other people is the blood and righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ. All humanity are sinners in need of a Saviour, and the only thing that makes Christians different from the rest of humankind is not that we have found Him, but that He has reached down to us.
The gulf is bridged by the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, who took upon His own holy Person the sins of His people. Thus God’s anger against sin is directed against His own Son, our substitute, who is the only acceptable sacrifice for sin.
Jesus’ followers are seen as partakers in His resurrection, being made alive, given a new life in Him (Ephesians 2:6). They are given citizenship of heaven. This world is not the Christian’s home: he is just a traveller here.
(ii) Something had changed within themselves.
The Christian’s passport to heaven is his faith in what Jesus has done for him. Yet faith itself does not originate with us. It is a gift of God (Ephesians 2:8).
People complain for lack of faith, but Jesus teaches that there is immense power in a true faith that is as small as a mustard seed. However, faith is not of our own doing: it is a gift of God (Ephesians 2:8). We need to get away from the idea that we can somehow “work up” enough faith: we cannot get faith by our own efforts.
If I want to give a present to one of my grandchildren, I don’t expect them to do anything, or to give anything in return. All that is required is that they reach out their hand to receive it.
In like manner, we just reach out to God and open our hearts to Him. He enters into our lives, granting the gift of faith to believe the things which He is showing us. Our cry is, “Lord, I believe. Help thou my unbelief” (Mark 9:23-24).
The Christians at Ephesus had done this. They burnt their occult books (Acts 19:19), and worshipped God only through our Lord Jesus Christ. What a change had taken place in their hearts!
3. WORKS.
Just so that we know not to boast of our faith when we have it, Paul assures his readers that if they are saved from their sins and have faith, this is not through anything that they may have done: “not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:9).
Those who are saved, those who partake of the gift of faith, believing the gospel for themselves, are seen rather as God’s workmanship: “We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10).
How wonderful that God should be at work in our hearts today, having prepared works for us to do…
(D) THE SERPENT AND THE CROSS.
JOHN 3:14. “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up.” This refers back to an incident during the wilderness wanderings of the children of Israel (cf. Numbers 21:4-9), and forward to the crucifixion.
If a serpent on a pole was a shocking symbol for a monotheistic people, so is the picture in our minds’ eye of the broken body of a man impaled upon a wooden cross. Yet, in both instances, this is what God commanded.
Without the brazen serpent there was no healing for the Israelite who had been bitten by a serpent (cf. Numbers 21:9) - and without the Cross there is no salvation for any one of us, bitten as we are by the sting of death which is sin (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:55-57).
JOHN 3:15. “That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” Jesus was ‘lifted up’ in the crucifixion, so that everyone who “believeth in Him,” trusting not in themselves but trusting in His sacrificial blood, would have “eternal life.” It is through such faith that we receive this truth into our hearts.
JOHN 3:16. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
The source of man’s salvation is the love of God. The giving of His “only begotten Son” was and is, the supreme act of God’s love toward mankind. The “whosever” speaks of the universality of the love of God. As in the previous verse, it is “whosoever believeth in Him” who “should not (will not, shall not) perish, but have everlasting life.”
JOHN 3:17. “For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved.”
This was Jesus’ mission of salvation. Not to condemn, but to save. In the first advent Jesus came not to judge, but ‘to seek and to save that which is lost’ (cf. Luke 19:10).
JOHN 3:18. “He that believeth on Him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
There is a privilege attached to belief in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is ‘no condemnation’ (cf. Romans 8:1). This shows the importance of having believing faith. Likewise, the peril of not believing is to find oneself “condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
Thus the cry of the Apostles, ‘believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved’ (Acts 16:31).
JOHN 3:19. “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”
This is the true cause of condemnation. Light is come, but men prefer darkness because their deeds are evil. Salvation is of God, and is on offer for all men. This verse shows us that if anyone perishes, it is of their own doing.
JOHN 3:20. “For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.”
The ungodly person, the evil doer, hates the light, and will not come to the light lest their sins be exposed. And even some who have the outward appearance of coming to the light (e.g. through church attendance, &c.) may well harbour within their hearts a hatred towards the light of the gospel. No unregenerate person likes to hear that they are a sinner!
JOHN 3:21. “But he that doeth the truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought of God.”
We are saved “unto good works” (cf. Ephesians 2:10). Works that bear fruit (cf. John 15:8). So those who are saved are not ashamed to come to the light, that their works may be manifest for what they are, to the glory of God (cf. Matthew 5:16).
