THE SON OF MAN MUST BE LIFTED UP
John 3:14-21 - March 11, 2002
14Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.
16"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but who-ever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness in-stead of light because their deeds were evil. 20Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."
Dear Christian Friends and Fellow-Redeemed: When we look at life, we could make a list of those things that are necessary. For each of us that list might be long, it might be short, and would have different necessary things on it. Certainly, one of the things necessary in life is oxygen so that we can breathe and live. Another necessary thing would be food and clothing and drink and all of those mundane things of the world. We might not think as Jesus thinks. For Him it was necessary that He die. We heard it in our Gospel lesson this morning. Jesus tried to prepare his disciples that He would face death. In the Gospels time and again, He told them His going to Jerusalem would mean pain, suffering and finally death itself. He also reminded them of His resurrection. For Jesus, this was necessary. For mankind and us and all generations to come this too was necessary as our text says, "the Son of Man must be lifted up."
We are told that here in John. We are told it in Luke where Jesus tried to prepare His disci-ples. "And he said, ’The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life’"(Luke 9:22). It was necessary that He would be killed. There was no escape for Jesus. We can be thank-ful because there was no escape for Jesus. But it meant there was an escape us, escape from the punishment for our sins, escape from Satan himself, and escape from even death. So we turn to what the Lord says to us in the Gospel of John using His words as our theme, "The Son of Man must be lifted up." In other words He must be put on the cross and face death. The Son of Man must be lifted up I. For the world’s salvation and II. As the light for believers.
In the third chapter of John, this is the account of Nicodemus coming to Jesus and asking Him very important questions. Nicodemus was a ruler of the church council of the day. He came to Jesus at night so others would not make fun of him. He came to Jesus wondering if this Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ, the Messiah who had been promised in the Old Testament. As we look at this third chapter of John, Jesus tells him, "Yes, He is", and He tells him that a man must be born again of wa-ter and of the Spirit. Nicodemus doesn’t understand this. Jesus says to him, "You are a teacher of the law. You are a teacher in God’s house, and you do not know these things?" You have to re-member that Nicodemus had in his mind earthly things, more than spiritual things.
So we come to our text and these familiar words where Jesus tries to get Nicodemus to stop thinking which such an earthly mind and concentrate on those things that are necessary, those things that are spiritual. He does that first of all by using an example from history that Nicodemus knew. Our text begins: "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life. Nicodemus knew the history of the chil-dren of Israel. He knew that they wandered in the wilderness; and at one time when they grumbled and complained, the snakes came and bit the children of Israel and they died. They were saved when Moses, under God’s direction, raised up the bronze snake. Yet, it is so strange--how can look-ing at this inanimate object, this idol if you want to call it that, a snake made out of metal, save any-body. Yet, they did. Those who looked at it were saved, and they did not die. It happened because God caused it to be so.
In the same way, we are told, "So the Son of Man must be lifted up." He would be lifted up on the cross. Of course, there is a bit of difference--Jesus our Savior was a living, breathing person. He wasn’t a bronze statue. Yet, He would be lifted up so that people wouldn’t be saved just for earthly things, but would be saved for time and eternity. That’s all done because of God’s great love for us. From John 3:16, the verse that about everyone knows: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." This describes God’s love for mankind. Nicodemus, who was struggling with these spiritual things, is reminded of God’s great love for mankind. Jesus tells of this love of sending the Son and the reason that He came. He gives us this purpose in verse 17: "For God did not send His Son into the world to con-demn the world, but to save the world through Him."
That was true when Jesus was teaching and came to the temples. We heard last week how He drove out the moneychangers; He came there as one who would judge those things which were wrong. His main purpose is necessary, because His purpose in life was to save the world. He came to save mankind by paying for their sins. Now of course, when He comes and takes a stand on any issue, there are going to be those on one side or the other. In the same way even though He came in a purpose of salvation, there would be those who would stand condemned, because they would not believe. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because He does not believe in the name of God’s only begotten Son. There were those who did not believe such as the Scribes, the Pharisees, the leaders of the day, the Ro-man government, and Pilate didn’t see Jesus as the Messiah. Because they did not believe, they stood condemned, not because of Jesus pronouncing judgment on themselves, but because of their own unbelief, because of their own hardness of their hearts. Jesus came to save.
The Son of Man must be lifted up as the world’s salvation. Jesus came as Savior of all man-kind. That’s important for us to remember especially in a day and age when sometimes people are searching, they are looking, they are saying, "Who can save me?" Or worse, "How can I save my-self?" The Scriptures remind us that there is only one way of salvation. It’s not through us. It’s not through our good nature. It’s not through our kindness. It’s not through our buying our way into heaven, is it? But we are reminded as the Apostles taught the crowd in the history of the church: "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved"(Acts 4:12). That name is Jesus, Jesus that means, "to save people from their sins." Not just a few people, not a few chosen people, but He came to save the whole world. The whole world is born into this world sinful.
The Prophet Isaiah says this: "We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all"(Isaiah 53:6). We are not exempt. If we have life and breath in this world, then we have sin that clings to us. But also if we have life and breath and faith in this world, we have a Savior who clings to us and forgives our sins, because God has laid our iniquity upon Him.
Again, He does it without any merit or worthiness on our part. It is a gift, God’s undeserved love. It is important for us to remember that. We turn to those familiar words in Ephesians, which talk about God’s gift of love, His grace for us. In the second chapter we read: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- not by works, so that no one can boast"(Ephesians 2:8,9). That’s important to remember that none of us can boast. We can rejoice and be thankful that God has chosen us. Out of darkness, God has saved us. We know that He is our personal Savior. When we get to heaven and see Him face to face, we won’t have any rea-son to boast, because it was not any of our doing that got us into heaven. It really is not any of our doing that causes us to believe, but it is the work of God in His marvelous grace. It is by grace you have been saved.
This Son of Man came to live and die, because He must be lifted up to provide salvation for the whole world. We are part of that world. Now the Son of Man must be lifted up for the world’s salva-tion. We come to a part in our text that tells us that you and I as believers appreciate that, because He comes II. As light for the believers. He really comes as a light for the world, doesn’t He? But the world, as they continue in their evil, doesn’t enjoy that light.
Our text tells us that: He says that those who don’t want to believe in the name of Jesus stand condemned. Really that is the verdict. He says, "This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men love darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil." Christ is described as the Light of the world. John the Baptist went out in the wilderness preaching and said, "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand." Many people came out to be baptized. But many also rejected that Light. We know that at the end of John Baptist’s life John was beheaded, because the deeds of man-kind are evil. They rather sit around in the darkness thinking they are getting away with something or other than stand in the Light as our text describes that: "Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light, for fear that his deeds will be exposed." Satan, an angel of darkness, loves the dark. We associate evil with darkness. It says those who sin sit in the darkness, because they do not like light.
So how was this Light in the world to actually be the Light of the world? Jesus comes as the Light of the world, and He comes to expose sin and condemns those in the darkness. Jesus comes also as the Light of the world for us as believers and believers everywhere that we would bask in the Light of the glory of God. In the last verse of our text we are told, "But whoever lives by the truth comes into the Light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God." The original says that the works of the righteous are the works that God has done through them. Again, they can’t take any credit for themselves, but God works everything through the believ-ers.
What does that mean for us that Christ is the Light of the world? We don’t sit in fear and trembling realizing the Light of the world is going to expose our wickedness. Although, we realize that it does. We rejoice in the fact that the Light of the world not only exposes our wickedness; but it takes away our sinfulness. When it says, "The Lord is my Light and my Salvation," we realize He is our Light and our Salvation. Without that Light and Salvation, we would grope around in darkness; and we would be lost forever. The Psalm writer says, "The LORD is my light and my salvation-- whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life-- of whom shall I be afraid?"(Psalm 27:1). He says the Lord is the stronghold of whom shall I be afraid? We turn to the Lord as our only source of salvation. We turn to the Lord as the Light which gives us light for our souls. So we are not lost in this world, so we are not groping around wondering how we might be saved. We know that the Lord has saved us through His Son, the Son of Man who must be lifted up. That is our light. We also real-ize that as we live in this world, we are still infected by sin. We were born into the world that way. The Lord tells us we aren’t born as innocent babies (we might be cute babies for a certain time), but not innocent. Instead, we inherited the sin that was passed unto us by our parents. So there are times we like the rest of the world, like those who deny Christ, enjoy those times that are done in the darkness.
Scripture tells us that many evil deeds are done at night. We are told in Scripture that they get drunk at night, they whisper secret things at night, and they say things that ought not be said. They think all things in the cover are darkness is hidden. We are told: "There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known"(Luke 12:2). So we might think that we get away with this or that sin, or pulling the wool over someone’s eyes, but the Lord says in the end all things will be revealed. It isn’t meant to scare us, but it is meant to remind us of the seriousness of sin. It is meant to remind us that we are all sinners. But also because the Son of Man must be lifted up, we are sinners that found God’s forgiveness because He is the Light of the world. Again, not just the Light of the world, but He is our personal Light in this world.
The Apostle Paul writes to us from Corinthians: "For God, who said, ’Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ"(2 Corinthians 4:6). Once again, He reminds us that we don’t stand on our own merits and worthiness, but God has worked faith in our hearts. Just as the Son of Man must be lifted up, so it is necessary that the Holy Spirit work faith in our hearts. That too is one of these necessary things of life, just as it is necessary to have air to breathe and food to eat and clothes to wear and on and on as that list could go, it is necessary to have the Holy Spirit and His gift of faith. Because of the gift of faith that comes from the Holy Spirit, we realize the necessary things of Jesus’ life, that the Son of Man must be lifted up.
The disciples did not want to hear that; but you and I, as we look back, understand that through the eyes of faith that the Son of Man must be lifted up. Because only by being lifted up on the cross and letting the lifeblood drain out of Him, was He able to provide salvation for the world. Only by being lifted up on the cross, was He able to become the Light of the world and even more importantly our Light and the Light of all believers. So Scripture tells us "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed"(1 Peter 2:24). The Son of Man must be lifted up. He must be placed upon that cross so that mankind would be saved and so that you and I can bask in the Light of the glory of God. Amen.
Pastor Timm O. Meyer
