Nicodemus, a high-ranking rabbi, sought out the Lord Jesus by night because he was very impressed by His deeds and words and wanted to be taught by Him. However, the Lord made it clear that Nicodemus did not need to expand his knowledge or change his way of life, but rather be born again. The birth of water and the Spirit is necessary because the flesh is powerless and incorrigible. A work of God must be done in man so that he can enter the kingdom of God (John 3:1-8).
However, a work is also necessary for him, based on which the holy God can act in favor of sinners. In his conversation, the Lord referred to an incident that Nicodemus undoubtedly knew, but whose figurative meaning he had never heard before: during the wilderness journey, the discouraged Israelites once again spoke against God and Moses, whereupon the Lord sent them poisonous snakes whose bite was deadly. When the Israelites confessed their guilt and cried out for help, God did not take the snakes away, but gave them a means of salvation: a serpent made of copper was raised on a pole. Anyone bitten who looked at this copper serpent remained alive (Num. 21:4-9).
The simple rescue
It was so easy for a doomed Israelite to be given the gift of life! Even a dying man writhing in pain could catch a glimpse of the copper serpent from afar. If the path to salvation was simple on the one hand, there was no alternative on the other. Anyone who tried to heal themselves or relied on medical help was inevitably doomed. God himself ordered only one way to be saved: to look at the lifted-up serpent.
“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” (John 3:14, 15). Every sinner who recognizes himself as lost and helpless and puts his trust in the one who was lifted up on the cross receives eternal life. The wonderful salvation in Christ is easy to attain, but the Lord Jesus is the only Savior. Those who do not look to the crucified one in faith are lost.
The lifted-up serpent
Why did Moses lift up a serpent of copper and not a lamb, a pure animal and a well-known symbol of the suffering Christ? The answer is that the fiery serpent of copper reminded the Israelites of their sin, which had led the fiery serpents to bite them and made their situation hopeless. And when we think of the cross, we see the one who did not know sin and was made sin for us (2 Cor 5:21). In Christ, who came in the likeness of the flesh of sin, sin was condemned in the flesh (Rom 8:3). This is made impressively clear by the raised serpent. Everyone who believes in this crucified Jesus can know that God’s judgment and condemnation of the flesh no longer apply to me, and I have eternal life.
The lifting up on the cross
Some time later, Nicodemus saw the Lord Jesus hanging on the cross with his own eyes and certainly remembered the nightly conversation with Him (cf. John 19:39). What a powerful impression the crucifixion scene must have made on Nicodemus! And today we can look back in admiration and faith to the cross of Christ and see what happened there for our salvation, for those of us who were “poisoned” by sin and deserved death as the wages of sin.
The Lord spoke on two other occasions about his exaltation on the cross: “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself, but as the Father has taught me, this I speak” (John 8:28). Furthermore: “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. (And this he said, indicating what death he was to die.)” (John 12:32, 33).
In all three passages, the Savior spoke of something that the natural man would never associate with a crucified person: The dying man on the cross becomes the source of eternal life! The disgracefully crucified man is none other than the Son of God, who is in complete agreement with his Father! The disfigured man on the cross becomes the center of attraction for the world! Do we not see in this God’s unfathomable wisdom and love? We understand: He who was lifted up on the cross is the incarnate Son of God who draws all to Himself and who gives eternal life to everyone who comes to Him.
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