The Brazen Serpent

Synopsis

When the people again spoke against God and Moses, fiery serpents came among them and many died — a direct consequence of persistent complaint against God's provision. Yet when the people repented and asked Moses to intercede, God's remedy was startlingly simple: a serpent of brass lifted on a pole, and 'it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.' The remedy required no elaborate ritual, no payment, no worthiness — only a look of faith toward the provided cure. Astonishingly, the symbol of the very thing that had brought death (a serpent) became, when lifted up by God's command, the means of life, foreshadowing how Christ was 'made... to be sin for us' though He knew no sin, taking the very form and penalty of our judgment to become our healing. Jesus Himself applied this account directly to His own crucifixion: '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.' The cure for sin's fatal bite is not complicated; it is simply, but decisively, a look of faith to the crucified and risen Christ.