“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.”
In the garden of Eden the serpent instilled his poison into the heart and nature of Adam, and man became a transgressor. No longer was he innocent, but his whole moral being before God was changed. Now he had a sinful nature — the flesh — which could only bring forth sins. Death came in as a result, for God in judgment joined death to sin. “Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin.” Rom. 5:1212Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: (Romans 5:12).
But God is also rich in mercy and long before Adam sinned and came under the sentence of death He had already devised that blessed plan of salvation whereby He might rescue and bless poor fallen man. So though He must in righteous judgment join death with sin, now through the work of His beloved Son in grace He has joined life with faith for the soul that looks and sees Jesus dying on the cross for him.
Life through the death of another is, we believe, the grand truth set forth in the serpent lifted up in the wilderness, in the midst of the perishing thousands of Israel.
The serpent lifted up
Could life and healing give;
So Jesus on the cross
Once died that we might live;
That whosoever will believe
Shall everlasting life receive.
The blood of the sin offering purges and cleanses from sins, the ashes of the red heifer was for cleansing from defilements along the way, but man’s fallen nature the flesh — can never be cleansed. The old man is unchanged even in the believer. And this the trials and difficulties of the wilderness only bring out, for when the soul of the people was discouraged they murmured against God and His servant Moses, and there was in their hearts the constant regret that they had left Egypt. This was the fruit of the flesh, and so far there was no sacrifice to meet its deep evil.
But now we learn that God’s provision for the old nature — flesh — is death. In the death of Christ God has found a way — the only way — to put away the old man sin — from before Him. “He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” 1 Cor. 5:21. Christ was made sin and died, and so for us as believers He becomes our deliverance from its power.
The flesh — the old nature in us — is incurable; it can never be reconciled to God, and will ever break out into sins. Only through death, the death of Christ, does the believer know deliverance from its power. And yet as surely as death is the result of sin, so life eternal is the blessed result of looking by faith at Christ made sin for us.
ML-03/03/1974