Scandalous Love for Filthy People

We are gathered here in this holy Friday service to commemorate the great moment that remains the salvation of our world—the passion and death of the Lord Jesus. As we mark all the events of the church year, we are of course looking forward to the day of Ascension—the time when Jesus Christ was ushered into the presence of the Ancient of Days, and when He was given universal and complete authority over all the nations of men. But when we remember that ascension, we are not puzzled by the name. We don’t have to have it explained to us why we call it Ascension—Jesus ascended into the heavenly places on that day.

But this day, holy Friday, good Friday, is also a day of ascension, and learning how this could even be possible is right at the heart of Christian wisdom. But to understand this, we have to go back to the time when our fathers were wandering in the wilderness after their deliverance from Egypt, and before their entry into Canaan.

“And they journeyed from mount Hor by the way of the Red sea, to compass the land of Edom: and the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way. And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loaths this light bread. And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD, and against thee; pray unto the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived” (Numbers 21:4-9).

The people were very discouraged by their circumstances, and they fell into the sin of grumbling and murmuring (vv. 4-5). They had no bread and no water, and they were sick of the manna that God had so kindly provided for them. They complained that they had been brought out of Egypt in order to die in the wilderness (v. 5). The Lord then gave an additional trial according to their word . . . by sending fiery serpents among the people, in order to bite them, and so many of the people did in fact die (v. 6). As a result of this fierce chastisement, the people repented and asked Moses to intercede for them, asking that the Lord would take away the serpents (v. 7). And so Moses prayed for them, and the Lord told him to make an image of the kind of fiery serpent afflicting them, to set it on a pole, and anyone who was bitten could look upon that fiery serpent in order to be healed (v. 8). And so Moses made the image out of brass, and the Lord’s word of healing came to pass (v. 9). Anyone bitten who looked to the serpent was healed. But notice that the people asked for the serpents to be taken away, and God did not answer that request. He did not take the serpents away; He gave them another serpent.

Now this image of the fiery serpent was not an object of worship, but it was—like the sacrifices and tabernacle worship—a representation of what the Messiah was going to do for mankind when He came. Over time, it did become an object of false worship, an old covenant crucifix, and so Hezekiah showed his devotion to the Lord by destroying it. As Scripture says, ”

He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan. He trusted in the LORD God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him” (2 Kings 18:4-5).

And so this strange episode might seem to be closed. But centuries later, as Jesus was declaring the gospel to Nicodemus, He made a strange reference to this incident in the wilderness, pointing to the great difference between burning incense before a thing of brass, a Nehushtan, and looking in faith at a glorious reality, the exaltation of Jesus Christ. As Jesus said, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up” (John 3:14). There are two strange things here—the first is the comparison of the Son of man to an impaled serpent who was afflicting God’s people. What is the meaning of that? And secondly, Jesus uses a word here, translated as lifted up, to describe His crucifixion, and it is a word that has connotations of exaltation. Jesus was not just referring to the physical action of lifting Him up on the cross. His crucifixion was to be, in a very real sense, an ascension. In the gospel of John, He speaks of this odd exaltation more than once.

“Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things” (Jn. 8:28).

“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me” (Jn. 12:32).

This peculiar exaltation has a number of glorious features. Note that Jesus says that it is an exaltation that will exert a fascinating influence over all of humanity. All men will be drawn to the crucified one (12:32). Also we should note that Jesus teaches that this is an exaltation that constitutes a compelling proof that Jesus said and did nothing other than what His Father in heaven taught Him to say and do. Put another way, the crucifixion demonstrates that Jesus is from God (8:28). But it is the lifted up reference in 3:14 that takes us back to the wilderness, and the affliction of the Israelites who were bitten by serpents. That reference is preceded by Jesus’ teaching that we must be born again, and is followed by His reference to God’s love for the entire world, and His intention to save it. And this is where we learn the meaning of the strange comparison of a brass reptile and the Son of man.

We live in a hard world. We get easily discouraged. Our discouragement, like that of the Israelites, might have to do with food and water. It might be because of money or lack of it. It could be that we want to more successful than we are, or taller than our brother, or smarter than our sister. It could be a medical affliction, or the travails of aging. If you know your own frame, you know it could be anything. But when we are discouraged, our natural tendency is consistently to make everything worse, which we do by murmuring against God about it. It is here that the fiery little satans always come, with all their poisonous accusations. These are serpents, after all, and the serpent is the accuser (Rev. 12:10; 20:2). We are bitten by accusers, and affected by the poison, we become accusers. We become what we are bitten by. And of course in such a hard world, there is plenty of material for us to use in those accusations against others. But the more we give way to this, the higher the fever gets, and the closer to final death we come.

So Moses fashioned an image of this vile serpent, and placed it on a pole, lifting it up so that the people could see the impaled serpent, so that they could clearly see the death of all accusation. Now Jesus said that He was going to be lifted up in the same way, and He said that it was going to be His glory—as events have certainly shown. It has been His glory and His exaltation.

As we worship here now, the nations are continuing to stream to Him. As we see the sacrificial example that He has set, we see clearly that Jesus did and taught all that the Father gave to Him. And as we look away from our own affliction to the afflicted one, we are healed and made whole.

The one who knew no sin was made sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). A biblical proclamation of the cross is not something that the natural man would ever have thought up. We are actually too pious for that, and this gospel of a substitutionary atonement verges too close to blasphemy for our taste. Those within the Church who object to a vicarious death for sinners—and there have always been such—consistently object to it because it is such a stumbling stone, a rock of offense. It is the scandal of history—how dare we look to the sinless Christ, the Holy One of God, and see a writhing snake full of poison? And the answer is that we would not dare to suggest such a thing, unless the God who loves to overflow with scandalous love for filthy people specifically revealed it to us. Unless He had told us this, we would be frankly out of our minds to say it.

But the blasphemy is only apparent. We do not look to a serpent honored on an imperial pedestal, but rather impaled on a pole. We do not look at a dragon, rampant in dragonish glory, full of beautiful indignation and brilliantly false righteousness. No . . . we look at the death of all such dragons. We look upon the last throes of the spirit of accusation. Jesus died in such a way as to secure for us a clear vision of sin—and because it is clear, we see that the sin is dead forever. Jesus died so that every vile thing that afflicts us as we dwell in this camp, in this wilderness, might be seen by us as judged, crucified, impaled, hanged on gibbet, and put away forever.

Put away forever. Those are glorious words. What a glorious gospel, and what a Savior we have. This is a glorious day. Our sins have been put away forever. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, amen.