Rethinking the Solution for Sin
By Pastor John Eich Good Shepherd Lutheran Church Alma, MI
Numbers 21:4-9
Number 21:4-9 They set out from Mount Hor along the road to the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom, but the people became very impatient along the way. 5 The people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? Look, there is no food! There is no water! And we are disgusted by this worthless food!”
6 The LORD sent venomous snakes among the people, and the snakes bit the people. As a result many people from Israel died. 7 The people went to Moses and said, “We have sinned, because we have spoken against the LORD and against you. Pray to the LORD to take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed on behalf of the people. 8 The LORD said to Moses, “Make a venomous snake and put it on a pole. If anyone who is bitten looks at it, he will live.” 9 Moses made a bronze snake and put it on the pole. If a snake had bitten anyone, if that person looked at the bronze snake, he lived.
Have you ever been told to do something or believe something so bizarre that you thought somebody had lost their mind even suggesting it? The whole snake-on-a-pole thing must have sounded bizarre to some of the Israelites. Stare at a bronze serpent and you’ll be healed? That sounds ridiculous. It must’ve sounded just silly enough that some Israelites started looking for more reasonable solutions for the snake bites.
God finally had enough. His divine patience with the Israelites’ constant whining had run out. They complained about having to wander in the wilderness, they complained about the heat, they complained about not having enough water, they complained about Moses being their leader and they even complained about God’s miraculous food that appeared on the ground every morning.
What would you expect God to do with those ungrateful Israelites? What do you do with your children when they whine, complain, and talk back to you? You need to get their attention so that they understand that what they are doing is not acceptable. It is disruptive. It is contagious. But, above all, it is a
sin. A sin against you. And especially a grievous sin against their holy and just God.
How do we handle their sin? A time-out. A not-so-stern-talking-to. Taking away electronics. Most often they just back to their sinful ways once the discipline is over. That’s because we haven’t gotten to the root of their problem – sin. Our discipline didn’t lead them to repentance, and, ultimately, forgiveness.
Let us take a journey back in time to see how some of the Israelites might have mimicked us if we were in the same situation.
Some might have tried to ignore the snake bite. They called it by other names. They made it a joke. They claimed it wasn’t real. And to look at a snake on a pole-ridiculous! They died. Today many don’t admit there is such a thing as sin. They laugh at the idea. And to look at a man hanging on a cross as a cure that’s even more laughable than suggesting they are dying from sin’s bite. Like the ancient Israelites, they die.
Others didn’t dream of telling the people that these poisonous vipers were the result of God’s judgment on their bad behavior. They didn’t want to wound people’s self-worth. So instead of directing people to the snake on the pole, they tried to make people feel better about themselves. But they still died. Self-esteem thinking has its place, but it doesn’t deal with the root cause – sin. If a person never sees that they’ve been bitten by sin and are dying they will not look to Jesus on the cross--to be saved.
Others suggested that if the people believed hard enough or worked hard enough that they would recover from the snake bit, they would. So instead of looking at the snake on a pole they looked to their own faith and works. They died. It isn’t the amount of faith that saves, or the amount of work or mindless repetitions that save, it’s what one believes in.
Others denied that God really had said to Moses to do this snake-on-a-pole thing. Any healings that might have taken place could easily be explained by natural causes. So some people looked to other cures. And they died. Denying God’s solution to sin doesn’t spare anyone from dying from sin’s curse.
Another solution was that each person had to decide for themselves if looking at the snake on a pole was the way to go. Everybody’s choice was of equal quality. There was no right way or wrong way. All paths lead to the same cure. Those that chose to not look at the snake on a pole died.
We could go on, there are many more modern-day snake oil cures, but I think you get the picture. When the poisonous snakes attacked, God had set up only one way for the children of Israel to survive. Everything else had to be rejected. They had to look up at the bronze snake that Moses made and placed upon the pole. If they were bitten and did this, they would live; if not, they would die. It didn’t matter what else they did, how they felt, how spiritual they seemed. If they didn’t look at the bronze snake, they would die. For that snake on the pole was how God said He would come to them and save them.
Let’s bring this home. There are many different ideas about how to deal with the venomous bite of satan. His bite injects sin into our lives. And sin kills. It kills a person’s life, the lives of people around them, and it kills their eternity with God. And try as hard as some do to ignore sin, to explain it away, to look to counseling, education or other religions to deal with it, they will die. All who sin will die. It’s time to rethink the cure for sin.
There is only one cure God has given – His Son hanging on a cross. This is how much God loves this snake-bitten world. He doesn’t simply love it abstractly: “Oh, nice world, I love you.” He loves the world in a very specific and personal way. He sent His Son Jesus, who provided the cure by being made in the likeness of that which was wounded. Though He was perfectly free from sin, yet He was sent in the likeness of sinful flesh (Romans 8:3).
Jesus, who knew no sin, was made sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. God laid the sin of the world--your sin and my sin--on His Son made Man. He nailed Him to the wood of the cross and raised Him high--not on a pole, but on a cross--for the entire world to see. Here we see the image of our sin and God’s wrath. The Son hangs dead, forsaken by His Father, cursed and damned in our place. How despicable He looks!
On the cross, Satan’s serpentine fangs sank deep into Jesus’ flesh, pumping the poison and venom of sin into His divine blood. But on that cross, Jesus absorbed the serpent’s strike against His heel so that He might step down hard crushing the Ancient Serpent’s head (Genesis 3:15).
As the bronze snake was lifted up and people could fix their eyes on it and live, so Jesus Christ was lifted up on the cross, so all may fix their eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, and receive life in Him (Hebrews 12:2). Jesus was lifted up and became a spectacle to the world so that the world might be saved through Him.
Jesus is the anti-venom for the snake-bite of the Law; the cure resembles the sickness. Why did God put that snake on the pole? Not just to save the Israelites from death, but to show us how He was going to save this world from death. The snake on the pole pointed forward to Jesus’ crucifixion for our sins. As John 3 says, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.” (John 3:14-15). That’s this story with a New Testament twist!
On the pole, the Israelites saw their healing and God’s mercy. On the cross, we see our healing and God’s mercy. As Isaiah the Prophet wrote, “By His wounds we are healed” (Is.53:5). There but by the grace of God go we. There but by the grace of God goes He for us!
Just as God told the Israelites to look at some bizarre bronze snake hanging on a pole for life, so He tells us to look to seemingly foolish things to find Christ hanging on a tree, and so live.
God says look for the crucified Christ in Water, Words, Bread, and Wine. For as many of you who have been baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (Galatians 3:26-27). You see Christ crucified every time I absolve you of your sin. You see Christ crucified every time you receive the body and blood of the Christ in His holy supper.
In Baptism, the Absolution, and the Lord’s Supper, your pastor makes the sign of the cross over you. I don’t do this because I’m superstitious. I make the sign of the cross to remind you that the forgiveness you are receiving all flow directly from the Christ who hung on the cross for you.
Through such seemingly bizarre ways, God gives to you--not a snake on the pole--but His Son on the cross. Through these means of grace, God gives to you His anti-venom, His medicine of immortality, for the forgiveness of your
sins. For where there is the forgiveness of sins, there is also life and salvation.
When you are tempted by that ancient serpent to deal with your sin by ignoring it, forgetting it, or trying to work it off, rethink the cure for sin. Let nothing--nothing!--turn your attention from your Savior on the cross.
He is the only cure for sin.
Amen.