The bite of these serpents was, as I have told you, mortal. The Israelites could have no question about that, because in their own presence “much people of Israel died.” They saw their own friends die of the snakebite, and they helped to bury them. They knew why they died, and were sure that is was because the venom of the fiery serpents was in their veins. They were left without an excuse for imagining that they could be bitten and yet live. Now, we know that many have perished as the result of sin. We are not in doubt as to what sin will do, for we are told by the infallible Word, that “the wages of sin is death,” and, yet again, “Sin, when it is finished bringeth forth death.” We know, also, that this death is endless misery, for the Scripture describes the lost as being cast into outer darkness, “where their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched.” Our Lord Jesus speaks of the condemned going away into everlasting punishment, were there shall be weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth. We ought to have no double about this, and the most of those who profess to doubt it are those who fear that it will be their own portion, who know that they are going down to eternal woe themselves, and therefore try to shut their eyes to their inevitable doom. Alas, that they should find flatterers in the pulpit who pander to their love of sin by piping to the same tune. We are not of their order. We believe in what the Lord has said in all its solemnity of dread, and, knowing the terrors of the Lord, we persuade men to escape therefrom. But it was for men who had endured the mortal bite, for men upon whose pallid faces death began to set his seal, for men whose veins were burning with the awful poison of the serpent within them–for them it was that God said to Moses, “Make three 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.”
There is no limit set to the stage of poisoning, however far gone, the remedy still had power. If a person had been bitten a moment before, though he only saw a few drops of blood oozing forth, and only felt a little smart, he might look and live, and if he had waited, unhappily waited, even for half an hour, and speech failed him, and the pulse grew feeble, yet if he could but look he would live at once. No bound was ever set to the virtue of this divinely ordained remedy, or to1 the freedom of its application to those who needed it. The promise had no qualifying clause– “It shall come to pass that everyone that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live,”and our text tells us that God’s promise came to pass in every case, without exception, for we read– “It came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he behold the serpent of brass, he lived.” Thus, then, I have described the person who was in mortal peril.
II. Secondly, let us consider THE REMEDY PROVIDED FOR HIM.
This was as singular as it was effectual. It was purely of divine origin, and it is clear that the invention of it, and the putting of power into it, was entirely of God.
Men have proscribed several fomentations, concoctions, and operations for serpent bites: I do not know how far any of them may be depended upon, but this I know–I would rather not be bitten in order to try any of them, even those that are most in vogue. For the bites of the fiery serpents in the wilderness there was no remedy whatever, except this which God had provided, and at first sight that remedy must have seemed to be a very unlikely one. A simple look to the figure of a serpent on a pole-how unlikely to avail! How and by what means could a cure be wrought through merely looking at twisted brass? It seemed, indeed, to be almost a mockery to bid men look at the very thing which had caused their misery. Shall the bite of a serpent be cured by looking at a serpent? Shall that which brings death also bring life? But herein lay the excellency of the remedy, that it was of divine origin; for when God ordains a cure He is by that very fact bound to put potency into it. He will devise a failure, nor prescribe a mockery. It should always be enough for us to know that God ordains a way of blessing us, for if He ordains, it must accomplish the promised result. We need not know how it will work, it is quite sufficient for us that God’s mighty grace is pledged to make it bring forth good to our souls.
This particular remedy of a serpent lifted on a pole was exceedingly instructive, though I do not suppose that Israel understood it.
We have been taught by our Lord and know the meaning. It was a serpent impaled upon a pole. As you would take a sharp pole and drive it through a serpent’s head to kill it, so this brazen serpent was exhibited as killed, and hung up as dead before all eyes. It was the image of a dead snake. Wonder of wonders that our Lord Jesus should condescend to be symbolized by a dead serpent. The instruction to its after reading John’s gospel is this: our Lord Jesus Christ, in infinite humiliation, deigned to come into the world, and to be made a curse for us. ‘Me brazen serpent had no venom of itself, but it took the form of a fiery serpent. Christ is no sinner, and in Him is no sin. But the brazen serpent was in the form of a serpent; and so was Jesus sent forth by God “in the likeness of sin ful flesh.” He came under the law, and sin was imputed to Him, and therefore He came under the wrath and curse of God for our sakes. In Christ Jesus, if you will look at Him upon the cross, you will see that sin is slain and hung up as a dead serpent: there too is death put to death, for “He hath abolished death and brought life and im mortality to light”: and there also is the curse forever ended because He has endured it, being “made a curse for us, as it is written, cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.” Thus are these serpents hung up upon the cross a spectacle to all beholders, all slain by our dying Lord. Sin, death, and the curse are as dead serpents now. Oh, what a sight! If you can see it what joy it will give you. Had the Hebrews understood it, that dead serpent, dangling from a pole, would have prophesied to them the glorious sight which this day our faith gazes upon–Jesus slain, and sin, death, and hell slain in Him. The remedy, then, to be looked to was exceedingly instructive, and we know the instruction it was intended to convey to us.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
