May 9, 2025 - Numbers 21:8 - "The Serpent Set Upon a Pole"

Numbers 21:8

"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."

When Satan tempted Adam and Eve, he did it through a serpent (Genesis 3:1). All through Scripture, we find the serpent being a type of sin, Satan—a type of all that is evil. In Numbers chapter 21, we read of a time when the Lord sent fiery serpents among the children of Israel. These serpents were a type of judgment. "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 loatheth 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" (Numbers 21:5–7).

Moses was God's mediator. He served here as a type of the Lord Jesus Christ, through whom God purposed to deliver His people, the church. So, to speak against Moses was to speak against God, His mediator, and therefore against Christ. To find dissatisfaction with Christ as the Mediator is rebellion—against Him as the only Substitute, the only Way of Righteousness, and the only Way by which God can forgive sin. Therefore, to speak against Moses as a type of Christ is a grievous complaint. And yet we read, "And Moses prayed for the people." A mediator stands between God and the sinner and intercedes on their behalf. What a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ! There could be no favor, there could be no grace, no mercy, apart from the intercession of the Lord Jesus Christ for His own.

How important is this particular story regarding the type and picture of redemption through the Lord Jesus Christ? In John 3:14–18, we read where our Lord was speaking with Nicodemus, who was a Jew who understood the Old Testament Scriptures, and yet was ignorant as to how this very story pertained to the Lord Jesus Christ. We find the Lord Jesus using this very story to serve as a type of His being lifted up in death as the Substitute for sinners: "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."

In Numbers 21, many perished, even though God had directed Moses to lift the brazen serpent on a pole. But that serpent was not for them. Some preach that God would like to save everybody if they only "will." Well, if that were the case, such a "god" is a miserable failure, because the majority of people die in their sins without ever having any knowledge, understanding, or belief in the Lord Jesus Christ and His death. If God can will the salvation of sinners, and yet His will does not effectually save, what then does the will of God have to do with salvation?

Many say that God should leave the choice up to the sinner, but were that the case, none would believe. Those whom God leaves to themselves will perish in unbelief, because only God can grant faith to believe. Even John 3:16 doesn't say that God sent His Son into the world to save everybody. It says, "whosoever believeth in him." Those who believe—God has given them eyes to see Christ and rest in Him. "For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world;" in other words, it's not everybody that’s going to be condemned, "but that the world through him might be saved." By the word "world," He is describing the world in an ethnic sense, Jew and Gentile—sinners from every tribe, nation, and tongue. He sent His Son into the world, that the world, those in the world, through Him might be saved (Revelation 5:9). "He that believeth on Him is not condemned" (John 3:18). Why? Christ already bore their condemnation in His death. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit" (Romans 8:1). But "he that believeth not is condemned already," because no ransom was ever paid for those who continue in unbelief. The wrath of God abideth on them (John 3:36). They are vessels of wrath, and therefore justly condemned to suffer His eternal condemnation (Romans 9:22).

But for those whom God purposed to deliver, He told Moses to make a brazen serpent and to lift it upon a pole so that all who looked upon it should live. That serpent was made in the likeness of the fiery serpents. How then does that brazen serpent depict the LORD Jesus dying on the cross (John 3:14)? The brazen serpent was made in the likeness of those fiery serpents, but there was no venom in that brazen serpent. Even so with Christ—He was made in the likeness of sinful flesh, but there was no venom or sin in Him: "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:" (Romans 8:3). He came to bear the sin of His people, but in Him was no sin.

There are those today who say that when Christ died on the cross, He died personally guilty for the sin of those whom He came to represent, that somehow His nature was corrupted with their sin, and therefore God put Him to death. That's blasphemy! "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him" (2 Corinthians 5:21). He was made the Sacrifice for sin. He was made the Substitute for sin. He was made the Offering for sin—Who knew no sin. He was made of a woman, bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, but He did not bear the sinful nature of Adam. He was made of a woman, not of a man and a woman. Therefore, His very nature was protected from being sinful by God. That was important because to be the Substitute, He had to be without sin. And yet, the Scriptures say He was numbered with the transgressors: "Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors"(Isaiah 53:12). He was numbered in the sense that He identified with their sin. The serpent of brass had no venom. Christ had no sin. He was tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15).

The cross was a symbol of condemnation—of judgment. The Scriptures say that when He was nailed to that cross, He died as the sinless Sacrifice. That's why He's called the Lamb of God. It required the shedding of the blood of a man as a Substitute. All of the animals that were offered in the Old Testament were powerless to put away sin, because the blood of animals could not answer the justice of God for the sin of fallen men. It had to be The Man, Christ Jesus, representing sinful men of God’s choosing (Hebrews 10:4). Christ the Man—the God-Man—dying on the cross, was the only Sacrifice that God the Father ever accepted for the salvation of those He chose to save and has saved and justified when Christ died. So efficacious was His death that in Colossians 2:14 it says: "Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross."

We see then that by His death, every ordinance that stood against those for whom Christ died—that people whom God purposed to save by His grace—their sin was put away. The animal sacrifices were an "atonement," or a temporary covering. Christ's death was an actual propitiation (1 John 4:10). Consequently, all for whom Christ died were saved at one time, in one place, and by one sacrifice... Christ, and Him crucified.