As the Snake Was Lifted Up: The Bronze Serpent and the Son of Man

Week 2 of 5 in The Gospel in the Old Testament · next: The Day of Atonement: Once a Year, Once for All

Week 1 of 4 in Through John's Gospel · next: The Woman at the Well

Israel is dying of snakebite, and God's remedy is a snake. Not an antidote and not a sacrifice — a bronze copy of the thing killing them, raised on a pole, healing anyone who looks at it. Centuries later, in a night conversation with a Pharisee, Jesus points back at that pole and says it was about him.

In one sentence: Jesus names the bronze serpent Moses lifted up in the wilderness as the picture of His own cross: God's Son made in the likeness of the sin that is killing us, lifted up where everyone can see, so that you, bitten and dying, may look to Him in faith and live.

Key Takeaways

(This section follows the Key Takeaways format — see that page for what each part is for.)

Types & Prophecy

Type. The bronze serpent is a τύπος (typos, G5179) of Christ crucified, and Jesus is the one who identifies it (John 3:14) — a type the reader is not left to spot. Point for point: the object is made in the likeness of the thing killing the people, yet carries none of its venom; it is raised on a pole where the whole camp can see it; it heals by being looked at, with no offering, payment, or ritual attached; and it is God's provision given after confession and intercession, not a cure Israel devised. Jesus applies each of those to his own death.

Prophecy. Genesis 3:15 states in words what the pole shows in pattern: the woman's offspring will take a wound to the heel and crush the serpent's head. The type argues from resemblance; the prophecy argues from a stated prediction coming true. Both land on the same cross.

Lessons about Jesus

• Jesus read his own death out of Numbers 21 before it happened, and read it as something that had to happen — δεῖ, "it is necessary" (John 3:14).
• He took the likeness of what stood under judgment without taking its guilt: made "to be sin for us" (2 Corinthians 5:21, ESV), sent "in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Romans 8:3, ESV), "yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:15, ESV).
• In John's vocabulary his crucifixion is his exaltation. The verb for being raised on the cross is the verb the Septuagint uses for the Servant's glory (Isaiah 52:13).
• What he asks of the dying is a look. "Whoever believes in him" (John 3:15, ESV) is the same shape of response as "everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live" (Numbers 21:8, ESV).

Memory verses

✝️ John 3:14-15 (ESV)

14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

✝️ Numbers 21:8 (ESV)

8 And the LORD said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live."

Be Transformed

• Think. Test what you have quietly added to "look and live." The Israelite bitten in the camp had nothing to bring and nothing to put right first.
• Attitude. Hold God-given things loosely enough that they stay means rather than objects. The bronze serpent was a real gift of God for centuries before Hezekiah had to smash it (2 Kings 18:4).
• Do. Write down the condition you have added to "look and live" (Numbers 21:8). Each day this week, read John 3:14-16 aloud over it, and thank Jesus by name that "whoever believes in him may have eternal life" (John 3:15, ESV).

Prayer

Father, you did not deal with our dying from a distance. You sent your Son into the likeness of the thing that is killing us, and lifted him up where everyone could see. You are the God who provides the remedy and then asks only that we look at it. Teach us to stop bringing you what you never asked for. Turn our eyes to your Son, and let us live.

Study outline

• The two passages. Numbers 21:4-9 and John 3:14-16 in full.
• Genre and setting. Numbers and John as books, the last murmuring episode, and the serpent image from Egypt's uraeus to Hezekiah's Nehushtan.
• Literary context. Where each passage sits, John 3:16 as the continuation of 3:14-15, and "lifted up" as John's word for the cross.
• Word studies. Serpent, bronze, saraph and nes in Hebrew; hypsoō and Isaiah's Servant; ophis from Genesis to Revelation.
• What carries forward, and what doesn't. The one-time object and the lasting pattern.
• Theological principle. The remedy in the likeness of what is judged, and Paul's statement of it.
• Discussion questions. Six, for a group or on your own.

The two passages

✝️ Numbers 21:4-9 (ESV)

4 From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. 5 And the people spoke against God and against Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food." 6 Then the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. 7 And the people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you. Pray to the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people. 8 And the LORD said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live." 9 So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.

✝️ John 3:14-16 (ESV)

14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Jesus makes the connection himself (John 3:14), so the link between the two passages is given rather than proposed. What remains is each passage on its own terms, and then the exact shape of the application.

Genre and setting

Numbers and John

Numbers. Old Testament narrative inside a covenant history. It reports what happened and lets placement and outcome carry the verdict, without stopping to tell the reader what to conclude — so where an episode sits in the book is part of what it means. The events of 21:4-9 fall near the end of the forty years, shortly after Aaron's death (Numbers 20:22-29) and Edom's refusal of passage, which forced the detour "by the way to the Red Sea" (21:4). Authorship is traditionally Mosaic. The book's arc runs from a first generation that dies in the wilderness to a second standing at the edge of Canaan, and it is the second generation the finished book addresses.

John. A Gospel, written late in the first century, with its purpose stated outright: "these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name" (John 20:31, WEB). Two Johannine habits are running in chapter 3: a saying misunderstood by its hearer and then clarified, and a pointer at the cross long before the cross is narrated.

The last murmuring episode

The complaint and the judgment. The grievance is specific — "there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food" (21:5) — and it is aimed at God's own provision, the manna. The serpents of 21:6 answer rebellion against that provision with an immediate, visible consequence.

This is the last of the wilderness generation's murmuring episodes, and Numbers 11:1-3 is its closest match: the people complain, fire falls, they cry to Moses, Moses prays, the fire abates. Numbers 16 runs the same course, ending with Aaron's censer between the dead and the living (16:46-48). The form is not universal. Exodus 16's grumbling draws provision with no judgment at all (16:2-5), and Numbers 14's confession comes after sentence has been passed and is answered with defeat at Hormah (14:39-45).

The serpent image, from Egypt to Hezekiah

Serpent imagery in the ancient world. Serpent symbolism was religiously loaded across the ancient Near East, and Egypt's uraeus — the rearing cobra on Pharaoh's crown, signifying protection and royal authority — is the example Israel had spent generations looking at. God's instruction inverts it. The image to be made is of the creature currently killing them, and the object holds no power of its own: healing comes from looking at what God said to look at.

What became of the object. Centuries on, Israel still had the bronze serpent and was burning incense to it. Hezekiah "broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made... and he called it Nehushtan" (2 Kings 18:4, WEB), destroying it alongside the high places, the pillars, and the Asherah. The Hebrew names it with the same construct phrase as Numbers 21:9 — נְחַשׁ הַנְּחֹשֶׁת — and then reduces it to נְחֻשְׁתָּן, nechushtan, "the bronze thing" (H5180). An object God himself commanded, kept in service past its purpose, ended on the same list as an Asherah pole.

Literary context

Where each passage sits

Numbers 21:4-9 is the final murmuring-and-judgment unit of the wilderness period, sitting where the book turns from wandering to conquest: itinerary notices follow (21:10-20), then the defeats of Sihon and Og (21:21-35). Inside the unit, the point is that trusting God's provided remedy turns judgment into life — for the generation whose entire history has been unbelief.

John 3:14-15 sits inside Jesus's night conversation with Nicodemus (John 3:1-21), after Jesus asks "the teacher of Israel" why he does not understand these things (3:10), implying the Hebrew Scriptures Nicodemus taught should already have prepared him. Three verses intervene before the serpent, and the last of them sets the title: no one has ascended into heaven except the Son of Man who came down from it (3:13). That same Son of Man is the one who "must be lifted up" in 3:14.

John 3:16 continues the sentence

John 3:16 continues 3:14-15. It opens Οὕτως γάρ, "for thus" — a connective pointing back at what was just said — and it reuses the frame of 3:15: ἵνα πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων... ἔχῃ ζωὴν αἰώνιον, "that everyone believing... may have eternal life." The two are not identical. John 3:15 has πιστεύων ἐν αὐτῷ, the Gospel's only instance of pisteuō with ἐν; 3:16 has John's usual πιστεύων εἰς αὐτόν and inserts μὴ ἀπόληται ἀλλά, "should not perish but." What 3:16 supplies is the motive and the cost behind the lifting up: God loved the world, and gave his Son. On the manner reading of οὕτως (G3779, "in this way": God loved the world by giving His Son as Moses lifted the serpent), the most quoted verse in the Bible is the explanation of the bronze serpent. That reading is contested. The CSB and LSB footnote "in this way", and the NLT footnotes "so much", which hears the size of the love. Both readings put the giving of the Son at the centre, and the connection to 3:14-15 holds on either, because 3:16 opens with "for". See Verses Quoted Well for the two readings side by side.

A textual note on 3:15. Translations diverge here because the manuscripts do. The ASV reads "that whosoever believeth may in him have eternal life" (John 3:15, ASV); the WEB reads "that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life" (John 3:15, WEB), carrying a longer reading assimilated to 3:16 in the later Greek text. The ESV quoted above follows the shorter one. Nothing in the typology turns on the difference.

"Lifted up" across John

"Lifted up" is John's word for the cross. The verb returns at 8:28 — "When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he" (John 8:28, WEB) — and at 12:32: "And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself" (John 12:32, WEB), where John adds his own gloss for the reader, "But he said this, signifying by what kind of death he should die" (12:33, WEB). Every one of these is spoken before the crucifixion happens; the Nicodemus conversation is chapter 3 of 21. The word predicts the cross without naming it.

Word studies

The Hebrew words: serpent, bronze, burning one, banner

Nachash / nechoshet. נָחָשׁ / נְחֹשֶׁת ("serpent" / "bronze," H5175 / H5178). Numbers 21:9 says Moses made a נְחַשׁ נְחֹשֶׁת, nechash nechoshet — the noun for the creature in construct with the noun for the metal, "a serpent of bronze." The sound-play is in the Hebrew, not an artifact of translation. What Moses is told to make is an image of the exact thing killing the people.

Saraph. שָׂרָף ("burning one," H8314) occurs seven times in the Hebrew Bible. Five describe serpents — Numbers 21:6 and 21:8, Deuteronomy 8:15, Isaiah 14:29 and 30:6 — and two describe the six-winged beings attending God's throne in Isaiah's temple vision (Isaiah 6:2, 6). The shared sense is "burning," most likely the burning of the bite in the case of the wilderness serpents. Two things sharing a root are not thereby the same kind of being, and the text makes no such identification.

Nes. נֵס ("standard, banner, signal pole," H5251) is what the serpent is set on in Numbers 21:8 and 21:9. It is also what Isaiah's messianic figure becomes: "the root of Jesse, who stands as a banner of the peoples," whom "the nations will seek" (Isaiah 11:10, WEB). One word covers the pole raised for Israel's healing and the ensign the nations come to. The word appears earlier too: after Joshua's victory over Amalek, won while Moses stood on the hill with "the staff of God" and held up his hand (Exodus 17:9-11, ESV), Moses built an altar and named it "The LORD Is My Banner", יְהוָה נִסִּי (YHWH nissi, Exodus 17:15, ESV).

Reading the three as one picture is this study's own reading. No verse cites another, and Jesus names only the serpent (John 3:14). The reading rests on what each nes does in its own context: it is raised where people in danger can see it, over a battle, a dying camp and the nations, and what is lifted up on it saves those who look to it. That is the pattern Jesus claims for His cross. The Names of God reads Exodus 17 in full.

ὑψόω: lifted up and exalted

ὑψόω (hypsoō, "to lift up, exalt," G5312) — the load-bearing term. John uses it twice in one sentence at 3:14: Moses ὕψωσεν the serpent, and the Son of Man must ὑψωθῆναι. John's own gloss at 12:33 fixes what he means by it — the manner of Jesus's death.

Where else the verb appears is what gives the choice its weight. The Septuagint opens Isaiah's fourth Servant Song with it: Ἰδοὺ συνήσει ὁ παῖς μου, καὶ ὑψωθήσεται καὶ δοξασθήσεται σφόδρα (Isaiah 52:13, Brenton LXX) — rendered literally, "Behold, my servant will understand, and he will be lifted up and glorified exceedingly." Behind the Greek the Hebrew stacks three verbs of exaltation, יָרוּם (yarum, H7311), וְנִשָּׂא (venissa, H5375) and וְגָבַהּ (vegavah, H1361): "he will be high, and lifted up, and greatly exalted."

John's vocabulary then splits along a clean line. Every saying about Jesus's death spoken before it happens uses hypsoō: twice at 3:14, again at 8:28, and twice more at 12:32 and 12:34. Once the narrative reaches the event, John writes σταυρόω (stauroō, "crucify," G4717) eleven times in chapter 19, and never uses hypsoō again. The veiled word carries the prediction; the plain word reports the execution. And the veiled word is Isaiah's word for the Servant's glory — which is why, in John, the cross is the humiliation and the enthronement at once.

ὄφις: the serpent from Genesis to Revelation

ὄφις (ophis, "serpent," G3789). The word John uses of the bronze serpent at 3:14 (τὸν ὄφιν) is the word Revelation uses of Satan: ὁ ὄφις ὁ ἀρχαῖος, "the old serpent, he who is called the devil and Satan" (Revelation 12:9, WEB). The chain runs the length of Scripture:

• Genesis 3:14-15 — the serpent cursed, and the woman's offspring promised to crush its head
• Numbers 21 — a bronze image of that same creature, lifted up as the means of healing
• John 3:14 — that image applied to Christ
• Revelation 12:9 — the deceiver named as "the old serpent"

Christ is lifted up in the form associated with the curse and the deceiver, in order to break the curse and defeat the deceiver.

What carries forward, and what doesn't

The literal particulars stay in the wilderness. A specific bronze object on a specific pole, made once, for one generation bitten by actual snakes at a locatable point on the road around Edom: it was never a repeatable rite, and Israel's attempt to keep it in service ended under Hezekiah's hammer.

What carries forward is the pattern Jesus himself carries forward — a remedy God provides, shaped like the thing under judgment, free of the fault that brought the judgment, lifted up in public, and received by looking. Jesus applies each of those to his own crucifixion in John 3:14-15, which is the warrant for reading them as more than a single episode in Israel's history.

Theological principle

God's remedy for sin and death takes the form of the very thing under judgment, without sharing the fault that brought the judgment, and is received by simple trust rather than by further ritual or merit. The bronze serpent had no venom of its own; it was shaped like the thing killing Israel, and anyone who looked at it lived.

Paul states the same principle in his own vocabulary, with no reference to the serpent image: God made Christ, "who knew no sin, to be sin for us" (2 Corinthians 5:21, ESV), and sent his Son "in the likeness of sinful flesh" to "condemn sin in the flesh" (Romans 8:3, ESV). Christ bears the likeness of what is under judgment, "yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:15, ESV). The principle is taught explicitly elsewhere in Scripture, and does not rest on the serpent typology alone.

Discussion questions

1. The language. John uses one verb, ὑψόω (hypsoō), for Moses raising the serpent and for the Son of Man's death (John 3:14), and the Septuagint uses it for the Servant who will be lifted up and glorified (Isaiah 52:13). What does that shared verb tell you about how John sees the cross?
2. The text in its context. Jesus asks Nicodemus, "Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?" (John 3:10), then points him to Numbers 21:4-9. What would a teacher who knew that wilderness story have heard in "so must the Son of Man be lifted up" (John 3:14)?
3. Christ. God made Christ "to be sin who knew no sin" (2 Corinthians 5:21) and sent His Son "in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Romans 8:3). What does a bronze serpent, shaped like the creatures killing Israel yet carrying no venom (Numbers 21:9), show you about what Jesus took on at the cross?
4. The hard part. John 3:16 opens "For God so loved the world" with οὕτως, directly after "as Moses lifted up the serpent" (John 3:14). The word can mean "in this way" or "so much." How does each reading change what John 3:16 says about God's love?
5. Nehushtan. Hezekiah broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, "for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it" (2 Kings 18:4). Which God-given good thing in your life is closest to becoming the thing you trust in place of Him?
6. Be transformed. God's word to the dying camp was "everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live" (Numbers 21:8), and Jesus asks the same of "whoever believes in him" (John 3:15). What have you added to "look and live" as a condition of God accepting you?

Group study sheet for a 40-minute group: two A4 sheets, or one with the guided path

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Group study · 40 minutes

As the Snake Was Lifted Up: The Bronze Serpent and the Son of Man

Numbers 21:4-9; John 3:14-15

The point Jesus names the bronze serpent Moses lifted up in the wilderness as the picture of His own cross: God's Son made in the likeness of the sin that is killing us, lifted up where everyone can see, so that you, bitten and dying, may look to Him in faith and live.

0–5min

Ask: what comes to mind when you hear As the Snake Was Lifted Up? Hear a few answers before anyone reads.

5–12minRead it aloud BSB

Numbers 21:4-9 ⁴Then they set out from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, in order to bypass the land of Edom. But the people grew impatient on the journey ⁵and spoke against God and against Moses: “Why have you led us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread or water, and we detest this wretched food!” ⁶So the LORD sent venomous snakes among the people, and many of the Israelites were bitten and died. ⁷Then the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the LORD and against you. Intercede with the LORD so He will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses interceded for the people. ⁸Then the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and mount it on a pole. When anyone who is bitten looks at it, he will live.” ⁹So Moses made a bronze snake and mounted it on a pole. If anyone who was bitten looked at the bronze snake, he would live.

John 3:14-15 ¹⁴Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, ¹⁵that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life.

12–25minLook closer

What does it say?

What did it mean to them?

What does it mean for us?

As the Snake Was Lifted Up: The Bronze Serpent and the Son of Man

The study in brief

1. The two passages. Numbers 21:4-9 and John 3:14-16 in full.
2. Genre and setting. Numbers and John as books, the last murmuring episode, and the serpent image from Egypt's uraeus to Hezekiah's Nehushtan.
3. Literary context. Where each passage sits, John 3:16 as the continuation of 3:14-15, and "lifted up" as John's word for the cross.
4. Word studies. Serpent, bronze, saraph and nes in Hebrew; hypsoō and Isaiah's Servant; ophis from Genesis to Revelation.
5. What carries forward, and what doesn't. The one-time object and the lasting pattern.
6. Theological principle. The remedy in the likeness of what is judged, and Paul's statement of it.

Notes

As the Snake Was Lifted Up: The Bronze Serpent and the Son of Man

12–17minStep 1 · The two passages

1The hard part. John 3:16 opens "For God so loved the world" with οὕτως, directly after "as Moses lifted up the serpent" (John 3:14). The word can mean "in this way" or "so much." How does each reading change what John 3:16 says about God's love?

17–21minStep 2 · Genre and setting

2Nehushtan. Hezekiah broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, "for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it" (2 Kings 18:4). Which God-given good thing in your life is closest to becoming the thing you trust in place of Him?

21–26minStep 3 · Literary context

3The text in its context. Jesus asks Nicodemus, "Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?" (John 3:10), then points him to Numbers 21:4-9. What would a teacher who knew that wilderness story have heard in "so must the Son of Man be lifted up" (John 3:14)?

26–30minStep 4 · Word studies

4The language. John uses one verb, ὑψόω (hypsoō), for Moses raising the serpent and for the Son of Man's death (John 3:14), and the Septuagint uses it for the Servant who will be lifted up and glorified (Isaiah 52:13). What does that shared verb tell you about how John sees the cross?

Step 5 · What carries forward, and what doesn't

30–35minStep 6 · Theological principle

5Christ. God made Christ "to be sin who knew no sin" (2 Corinthians 5:21) and sent His Son "in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Romans 8:3). What does a bronze serpent, shaped like the creatures killing Israel yet carrying no venom (Numbers 21:9), show you about what Jesus took on at the cross?

As the Snake Was Lifted Up: The Bronze Serpent and the Son of Man

35–40minBe transformed

6Be transformed. God's word to the dying camp was "everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live" (Numbers 21:8), and Jesus asks the same of "whoever believes in him" (John 3:15). What have you added to "look and live" as a condition of God accepting you?

• Think. Test what you have quietly added to "look and live." The Israelite bitten in the camp had nothing to bring and nothing to put right first.
• Attitude. Hold God-given things loosely enough that they stay means rather than objects. The bronze serpent was a real gift of God for centuries before Hezekiah had to smash it (2 Kings 18:4).
• Do. Write down the condition you have added to "look and live" (Numbers 21:8). Each day this week, read John 3:14-16 aloud over it, and thank Jesus by name that "whoever believes in him may have eternal life" (John 3:15, ESV).

Memory verse

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

John 3:14-15 (ESV)

Pray together

Father, you did not deal with our dying from a distance. You sent your Son into the likeness of the thing that is killing us, and lifted him up where everyone could see. You are the God who provides the remedy and then asks only that we look at it. Teach us to stop bringing you what you never asked for. Turn our eyes to your Son, and let us live.

Notes

The whole study, with every verse a tap awayhttps://the-way.lewy.au/jesus/as-the-snake-was-lifted/

Group study · step by step

As the Snake Was Lifted Up: The Bronze Serpent and the Son of Man

Numbers 21:4-9; John 3:14-15

Open Ask: what comes to mind when you hear As the Snake Was Lifted Up? Hear a few answers before anyone reads.

Read it aloud Numbers 21:4-9; John 3:14-15

Step 1The two passages — Numbers 21:4-9 and John 3:14-16 in full.

1The hard part. John 3:16 opens "For God so loved the world" with οὕτως, directly after "as Moses lifted up the serpent" (John 3:14). The word can mean "in this way" or "so much." How does each reading change what John 3:16 says about God's love?

Step 2Genre and setting — Numbers and John as books, the last murmuring episode, and the serpent image from Egypt's uraeus to Hezekiah's Nehushtan.

2Nehushtan. Hezekiah broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, "for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it" (2 Kings 18:4). Which God-given good thing in your life is closest to becoming the thing you trust in place of Him?

Step 3Literary context — Where each passage sits, John 3:16 as the continuation of 3:14-15, and "lifted up" as John's word for the cross.

3The text in its context. Jesus asks Nicodemus, "Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?" (John 3:10), then points him to Numbers 21:4-9. What would a teacher who knew that wilderness story have heard in "so must the Son of Man be lifted up" (John 3:14)?

Step 4Word studies — Serpent, bronze, saraph and nes in Hebrew; hypsoō and Isaiah's Servant; ophis from Genesis to Revelation.

4The language. John uses one verb, ὑψόω (hypsoō), for Moses raising the serpent and for the Son of Man's death (John 3:14), and the Septuagint uses it for the Servant who will be lifted up and glorified (Isaiah 52:13). What does that shared verb tell you about how John sees the cross?

Step 5What carries forward, and what doesn't — The one-time object and the lasting pattern.

Step 6Theological principle — The remedy in the likeness of what is judged, and Paul's statement of it.

5Christ. God made Christ "to be sin who knew no sin" (2 Corinthians 5:21) and sent His Son "in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Romans 8:3). What does a bronze serpent, shaped like the creatures killing Israel yet carrying no venom (Numbers 21:9), show you about what Jesus took on at the cross?

Be transformed

6Be transformed. God's word to the dying camp was "everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live" (Numbers 21:8), and Jesus asks the same of "whoever believes in him" (John 3:15). What have you added to "look and live" as a condition of God accepting you?

• Think. Test what you have quietly added to "look and live." The Israelite bitten in the camp had nothing to bring and nothing to put right first.
• Attitude. Hold God-given things loosely enough that they stay means rather than objects. The bronze serpent was a real gift of God for centuries before Hezekiah had to smash it (2 Kings 18:4).
• Do. Write down the condition you have added to "look and live" (Numbers 21:8). Each day this week, read John 3:14-16 aloud over it, and thank Jesus by name that "whoever believes in him may have eternal life" (John 3:15, ESV).

As the Snake Was Lifted Up: The Bronze Serpent and the Son of Man

The point Jesus names the bronze serpent Moses lifted up in the wilderness as the picture of His own cross: God's Son made in the likeness of the sin that is killing us, lifted up where everyone can see, so that you, bitten and dying, may look to Him in faith and live.

The whole study, with every verse a tap awayhttps://the-way.lewy.au/jesus/as-the-snake-was-lifted/

References & Recommended Reading

• ESV Bible (Crossway) — the two block quotations above and the short quotations marked (ESV).
• World English Bible (WEB) and American Standard Version (ASV, 1901) — quoted where marked, and used for translation comparison. The two diverge at John 3:15: ASV carries the shorter reading of the critical text, WEB the longer reading assimilated to 3:16 in the later Greek text. Numbers 21:4-9 is textually stable across both.
• MACULA Greek Linguistic Datasets (SBLGNT), MACULA Hebrew Linguistic Datasets (WLC), the Westminster Leningrad Codex, and the Brenton Septuagint, queried via this repo's references/build/bible-text.db — source of all morphology, Strong's numbers, occurrence counts, and the Isaiah 52:13 LXX hypsoō text cited above. The English rendering of Isaiah 52:13 given above is a literal gloss of that Greek, not a published translation.
• For the wider Johannine "lifted up"/glory theme beyond this study's scope, consult a critical commentary on John (e.g. D. A. Carson's The Gospel According to John, PNTC/Eerdmans, or Andreas Köstenberger's John, BECNT/Baker Academic).