John 3:14-16 (ESV)

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Jesus takes Nicodemus back into the Scripture to help him see the truth in his own well studied context. In Numbers 5 we read (once again) about the loud complaining of the Israelites in the desert. There were sick and tired of eating manna and held nothing back in their groanings. As a result, God sent “fiery serpents” amongst the people and those who were bit, died. So, they approached Moses and said:

“We have sinned, because we have spoken against the LORD and you; intercede with the LORD, that He may remove the serpents from us.” And Moses interceded for the people. 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.” 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 (Num 5:7-9).

I wonder if any lights came on in Nicodemus’ mind. Was Jesus comparing himself to Moses…or the golden serpent placed high above the people on a standard (pole)? His clarity most certainly came later upon viewing Jesus “set on a standard” at Calvary accompanied by the darkness, earthquake, and the tearing of the curtain at the Holy of Holies when He breathed his last. Whatever happened in Nicodemus’ mind and heart, it gave him the courage to help Joseph of Arimathea bury the body of his new friend and teacher.

Like the Israelites, every single human has been “bitten” by the condemnation of their own sin and the result is…death (Rom. 6:23). Unlike the Israelites, however, far too many people are not confronted by their sin in such an obvious manner. Even though God has imprinted His Law on every human heart (Rom. 2:15) and made His very existence obvious (Rom. 1:19), people choose to ignore God and their own conscience and suppress that truth, replacing it with a lie (Rom. 1:18, 25). God certainly could have chosen to allow the Israelites to die in the wilderness as a result of their sin…but he didn’t. Instead, God set before them a standard. A way out. He did it, again—and for good—when He set the ultimate and final standard on a Judean hill outside Jerusalem.

John 3:16.

Look and Live.

Salvation in One Word: Jesus.