The Brazen Serpent
T. Guthrie, D. D. John 3:14-15 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:… I. THE BANE. Sin under the aspect of the serpent's bite. This symbol has a twofold significance. 1. It glances back to the Old Serpent in Eden; as do also, more or less, that singular phenomenon among so many heathen nations, serpent-worship. 2. The main significance is the light which it throws on sin itself. Its character is spiritual venom; its effects are anguish and death. Those who say, I feel none of those poisonous effects, only prove themselves by that to be the more fatally steeped in sin's sweltering venom; for they bewray the awful state described in Scripture as "past feeling," or having the "conscience seared as with a hot iron." II. THE ANTIDOTE. Christ uplifted on the Cross and upheld in the gospel as the propitiation for the sins of the whole world. The atonement is the only healing balm. Penances, moralities, and all other substitutes are vain. 1. There is a marked significance in the serpent itself and the very pole. The atonement is as eloquent of sin as it is of salvation. The most awful exhibition of sin ever given was that given on the Cross. Hence our guilt is represented as superscribed thereon — as a handwriting against us legible to the entire universe. In the cross, and on the Crucified, God emphatically "condemned sin." 2. The human race have been so infected with the serpent's venom as to be called after the name of their father, "serpents," "scorpions," a "generation of vipers." Now Christ came not in sinful flesh, but in its "likeness." The Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all as the representative of humanity. Even as the serpent of brass on the pole was in the likeness of the fiery serpents, but, unlike them, had no venom in it. In this vicarious way was human guilt declared, exposed, condemned. 3. The sin, by being condemned, was "put away." As in the ancient sacrifices the fire symbolically burned up the imputed sin along with the victim, so, on the Cross, the world's sin was put away in Christ's sufferings, considered as a barrier to salvation. This blow to sin was a death-blow to Satan. It was the bruising of the serpent's head (Hebrews 2:14, 15). III. The MEANS by which the antidote becomes available for the removal of the bane; viz., faith. The wounded Israelites were healed by seeing; the perishing sinner by believing. Notice here in Its proper place the significance of the pole. It was the chief military standard — not the minor or portable ones that were borne about, but the main standard that stood conspicuous in the most prominent part of the camp, fixed in the ground, and from which floated a flag (Jeremiah 51:27; Isaiah 49:22. See also, Isaiah 13:2; Isaiah 18:3; Isaiah 62:10, 11). These texts amply illustrate the use and meaning of the large banner-poles, with their floating insignia, as the symbol of universality of promulgation, and thence of Divine interposition of world-wide scope. The texts cited, or referred to, though beginning with the ordinary uses of the symbol, soon run it into Gospel moulds; and most fitly, for very ancient predictions had declared that "unto him," the Shiloh, "shall the gathering of the people be" (Genesis 49:10; Isaiah 11:10; John 12:32). (T. Guthrie, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: WEB: As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,