John 3:9-15
Eternal Life
Introduction
There is a man who is selling eternal life. Alex Chiu has invented Eternal Life rings that you where on your fingers and toes at night. By doing this it brings your chi energy into balance and your metabolism increases and your body begins to heal itself while stopping the aging process. I came across this on the internet and thought I’d share that with you. He has a 90 day money-back guarantee. So if you don’t have eternal life within 90 days you can get your money back.
I know someone who bought eternal life and is giving it away – and that’s not a scam. Jesus Christ died on a cross and by doing so He purchased eternal life for us and gives it freely to whoever believes in Him. John 5:24 is my dad’s favorite verse right now, Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my words and believes him who sent me has eternal life.” And eternal life is what were going to talk about today.
We’re going to do that by continuing in John 3 and picking up verses 9-15 today. Jesus has been talking to Nicodemus about the new birth – being born again. He tells him that he must experience the new birth to enter the kingdom of God (v 5). And he tells him that this new birth is accomplished by the Holy Spirit – it’s not something that comes by human effort. Now the focus of those first 8 verses in chapter 3 is the new birth - the word “born” appears 8 times. But, it’s not mentioned again in their discussion after that. Instead, we see Jesus shift the focus to eternal life, which is mentioned 8 times from verses 9-18. Nicodemus was learning that being born again is being born into eternal life.
(Read Passage and Pray)
Eternal Life is for Everyone
Eternal Life is not Exclusive. It’s not only for the religious elite. It’s for everyone. Verses 9 and 10, “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked. “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things?
If anyone in Israel was supposed to “get” what Jesus was talking about, it was Nicodemus. He was a Pharisee and a member of the Jewish ruling council. He was a part of the educated, elite of Israel whose job it was to lead and teach the nation in spiritual matters. But he didn’t get it. For all his education, for all his religion, for all his piety in society, he didn’t understand.
Why didn’t he understand? His problem was that he was religious, not spiritual. Nicodemus understood religious things, not spiritual things.
What do we mean by religious things? Religious things are rituals; but they’re not only rituals, they are the morality and good works that people do to feel like a good person. Listen, religious things are all the efforts that people do to “feel” like they’re right with God.
I give to charity, I go to church, I serve in church, I am a good person, I’m better than that guy, I make mistakes, but, I’m not as bad as that guy, I could or would never do that, my parents were Christians, I was baptized, I take communion, I don’t cheat on my taxes, I don’t cheat on my wife, I don’t drink, I don’t party, I don’t…. and the list goes on.
These are good things, but the problem with all these things is they are self-made righteousness! By doing certain things and not doing certain things, I am trusting in me to get me to God. There is a monument in Cleveland Ohio called the Fountain of Eternal Life. It was built for WWII soldiers who died in battle. It’s 46 foot statue of a man reaching up to the heavens for “eternal peace.” Wikipedia says the sphere from which the man is rising above represents the superstitions and legends of mankind. In otherwords, by man reaching up, and by determination and grit, and by valor and nobility, somehow he can rise above this world to the eternal peace of heaven. Man’s effort to reach heaven. That’s religion. Religious things are good, but, they cannot save. Only faith in Jesus can save.
And boy was that Nicodemus. Was that the Pharisees. They had religion down tight. They had religion down better than anyone else, and because they were better at religion than everyone else they thought they were better than everyone else. Let me give you an example of their arrogance.
First, is John chapter 7. The Jewish temple guards were supposed to arrest Jesus and bring him in, but they didn’t. They get back to the temple, and the chief priests and Pharisees ask in verse 45, “Why didn’t you bring him in?” Their reply was, “No one ever spoke the way this man does”. (In other words, they said, “He is a way better teacher than you guys.” You can hear the punch to their pride.)
But, listen to the arrogant way they talk back to the guards, “You mean he has deceived you also? Has any of the chief priests and Pharisees believed in him? No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law – there is a curse on them.” This mob that knows nothing of religion, they’re so gullible, they’re so foolish, there is a curse on them. We are the elite, we have the law, we have religion, we have traditions, and we haven’t been taken in by this Jesus.
Listen, religious people can’t stand Jesus because Jesus did for them what they are trying to do for themselves but can’t do. Religious people hate Jesus because if Jesus is the only way then their religion isn’t the way. Who wants to admit failure? Who wants to say all that I have believed in and built my hope upon is for nothing? Who wants to count it all as loss and simply accept that someone else did it for them?
Paul, the Example for Nicodemus
I’ll tell you at least one person. His name was Saul of Tarsus, or better known as the apostle Paul. He was a Pharisee and very likely knew Nicodemus. What did he think of all his good works? What did he think of all his religious devotion? Turn to Philippians 3:4-8,
“If anyone thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.”
Paul was an All-Star Pharisee; he was the guy that made the other Pharisees look bad. But Paul goes on to say in verses 7 and 8, listen this is so important: “But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish that I may gain Christ”
Whatever was to his gain, whatever he thought was credited to his account for all his religion and all his good works, he now saw it as a waste. The literal translation of the Greek there is “manure”. That’s what he thought of his religion after being born again.
Spiritual things are not known by religious activity. The Holy Spirit gives understanding. Paul said to the Corinthians, “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.” He would later say to Timothy “Reflect on what I am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all this.” The New Birth and Understanding Spiritual Matters comes from the Holy Spirit. And God freely gives it to everyone who receives Christ.
Eternal life isn’t for a few, the offer is for everyone. “Yet to ALL who received him…” (John 1:12). “For God so loved the WORLD, that he gave his one and only Son, so that WHOEVER believes in him would not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16). “God is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Pet. 3:9). “God our Savior wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” (1 Tim. 2:4). It’s for you and it’s for me. God wants all men to know the truth and to be saved.
Testimonies
Then we see verse 11 where Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony.
It’s interesting that in verse 11 Jesus says “we.” In the immediate context, he is probably referring to his disciples. They have bore witness to Jesus: Andrew called Him the Messiah (1:41), Philip called Him the One Moses and the Prophets wrote about (1:45), Nathanael called Him “King of Israel and the Son of God.”
But I think Jesus is referring to more than just his disciples. I think he is referring to all the OT prophets, from Moses all the way to John the Baptist. Jesus said that the OT Scriptures testified about Him (Jn. 5:39) – that is in prophecies, types, and foreshadows.
He says “you people don’t accept our testimony”. The “you” is plural in the Greek, and Jesus is probably referring to Nicodemus and the rest of the Pharisees and religious leaders. They reject Jesus, and they reject the testimony of the very Scriptures they study which speak of Jesus. “You people” is referring to the religious leaders who rejected Jesus Christ’s testimony and therefore rejected the testimony of the OT prophets in Scripture as well.
That’s what John is talking about later in this same chapter, “The one who comes from heaven is above all. He testifies to what he has seen but no one accepts his testimony.”
Heavenly Things
Verses 12 and 13, “I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven – the Son of Man.”
Jesus came from heaven. He didn’t begin to exist in a manger. He is eternal. “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God.” John 1:1. Jesus says he existed before in eternity when he prays to the Father in chapter 17, “And now Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you BEFORE the world began.” Jesus existed with God as God in eternity past. He can teach Nicodemus about heaven and about God because heaven is where he came from and God is who sent him.
Jesus testifies to what he knows (John 5:19, 20, 30; 8:28; 12:49-50; 14:10, 24, 31; 17:4-8, 26). He does what He sees His Father doing (Jn. 5:19-20), speaks what the Father has told Him to say (Jn. 8:28; 12:49-50; 14:10), does exactly what the Father commands Him to (Jn. 14:31), completed the work the Father gave Him to do (Jn. 17:4), revealed the Father to the disciples (v. 6), gave the Father’s words to the disciples (v. 8).
The Son of Man as the Snake
In verses 14 and 15 Jesus teaches Nicodemus the basis for Eternal Life. “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”
Jesus is speaking of his death here, and this is the second time He has mentioned it so far. He alluded to it in chapter 2 when he said, “Destroy this temple and I will raise it again in three days.” By “temple” he meant his body.
Now he is talking again about his death by referring to something that happened in the OT. It’s quite shocking actually, but, why don’t we read it in Numbers chapter 21, verses 4-9,
“They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, [a] to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; 5 they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!"
6 Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. 7 The people came to Moses and said, "We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us." So Moses prayed for the people.
8 The LORD said to Moses, "Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live." 9 So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.
They sinned against God. God sent a curse and they were going to die because of the curse. But the point Jesus is making is that all they had to do was LOOK at the snake and they would live.
The bronze serpent was lifted up on a pole; Jesus was going to be lifted up on a cross. The Bible says in Galatians 3 that “Christ redeemed us by becoming a curse for us.” In 2 Corinthians 5:21 it says that “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Jesus had no sin. Never, not once. There was no sin in him, yet God made Him to be sin for us.
Isaiah 53 says that God laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He bore our sins in His body and has taken our sins and our guilt away when His blood was shed on the cross. That’s why John the Baptist calls him the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. It’s because he carried our sins and he was slaughtered for our sins.
Listen, the Israelites were dying from the venom of the snakes and all they had to do was look at the bronze snake and they would live. In the same way, all of mankind is lost in sin and will die, but God lifted up His one and only Son and put Him on the cross and put the whole world’s sins on Him. Looking AT Jesus means looking TO Jesus – looking to Him for salvation. Looking to Him and believing in Him will bring eternal life.
Conclusion
The day was January 6, 1850. Spurgeon was not quite 16 years old.
I sometimes think I might have been in darkness and despair until now had it not been for the goodness of God in sending a snowstorm, one Sunday morning, while I was going to a certain place of worship. When I could go no further, I turned down a side street, and came to a little Primitive Methodist chapel. In that chapel there may have been a dozen or fifteen people. . . . The minister did not come that morning; he was snowed up, I suppose.
At last, a very thin-looking man, a shoemaker, or tailor, or something of that sort, went up into the pulpit to preach. . . . He was obliged to stick to his text, for the simple reason that he had little else to say. The text was “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth [Isaiah 45:22].”
He did not even pronounce the words rightly, but that did not matter. There was, I thought, a glimpse of hope for me in that text. The preacher began and said: “My dear friends, this is a very simple text indeed. It says, ‘Look.’ Now lookin’ don’t take a deal of pain. It ain’t liftin’ your foot or your finger; it is just, ‘Look.’ Well, a man needn’t go to college to learn to look. You may be the biggest fool, and yet you can look. A man needn’t be worth a thousand a year to be able to look. Anyone can look; even a child can look.
“But then the text says, ‘Look unto Me’. . . . Many of ye are lookin’ to yourselves, but it’s no use lookin’ there. Ye will never find any comfort in yourselves. Some look to God the father. No, look to him by-and-by. Jesus Christ says, ‘Look unto Me.’ Some of ye say, ‘We must wait for the Spirit’s workin’.’ You have no business with that just now. Look to Christ. The text says, ‘Look unto Me.’”
Then that good man followed up his text in this way: “Look unto Me; I am sweatin’ and great drops of blood. Look unto Me; I am hangin’ on the cross. Look unto Me; I am dead and buried. Look unto Me; I rise again. Look unto Me; I ascend to heaven. Look unto Me; I am sittin’ at the Father’s right hand. O poor sinner, look unto Me! Look unto Me!”
When he had gone to about that length, and managed to spin out ten minutes or so he was at the end of his tether. Then he looked at me under the gallery, and I dare say, with so few present he knew me to be a stranger.
Just fixing his eyes on me, as if he knew all my heart he said, “Young man, you look very miserable.” Well, I did, but I had not been accustomed to have remarks made from the pulpit on my personal appearance before. However, it was a good blow, struck right home. He continued, “and you always will be miserable—miserable in life, and miserable in death—if you don’t obey my text; but if you obey now, this moment, you will be saved.”
Then lifting up his hands, he shouted, as only a primitive Methodists could do, “Young man, look to Jesus Christ. Look! Look! Look! You have nothing to do but to look and live.” I saw at once the way of salvation. I know not what else he said—I did not take much notice of it—I was so possessed with that one thought. Like as when the brazen serpent was lifted up, the people only looked and were healed, so it was with me. I had been waiting to do fifty things, but when I heard that word, “Look!” What a charming word it seemed to me! Oh! I looked until I could have almost looked my eyes away.
There and then the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun; and I could have risen that instant, and sung with the most enthusiastic of them, of the precious blood of Christ, and the simple faith which looks alone to him.”
-----Look to the Son of God and His cross. Look to Him who bore your sins and died for you. You don’t need to be the religious elite to look. You don’t need a diploma or Bachelors degree to look. You don’t need to be rich and accomplished to look. You need to see your sins, you need to see them nailed to the cross. The whole world’s sins. That means yours. Look to Jesus and live. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so to Jesus was lifted up, so that if you believe, you will have eternal life.
Eternal Life
Introduction
There is a man who is selling eternal life. Alex Chiu has invented Eternal Life rings that you where on your fingers and toes at night. By doing this it brings your chi energy into balance and your metabolism increases and your body begins to heal itself while stopping the aging process. I came across this on the internet and thought I’d share that with you. He has a 90 day money-back guarantee. So if you don’t have eternal life within 90 days you can get your money back.
I know someone who bought eternal life and is giving it away – and that’s not a scam. Jesus Christ died on a cross and by doing so He purchased eternal life for us and gives it freely to whoever believes in Him. John 5:24 is my dad’s favorite verse right now, Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my words and believes him who sent me has eternal life.” And eternal life is what were going to talk about today.
We’re going to do that by continuing in John 3 and picking up verses 9-15 today. Jesus has been talking to Nicodemus about the new birth – being born again. He tells him that he must experience the new birth to enter the kingdom of God (v 5). And he tells him that this new birth is accomplished by the Holy Spirit – it’s not something that comes by human effort. Now the focus of those first 8 verses in chapter 3 is the new birth - the word “born” appears 8 times. But, it’s not mentioned again in their discussion after that. Instead, we see Jesus shift the focus to eternal life, which is mentioned 8 times from verses 9-18. Nicodemus was learning that being born again is being born into eternal life.
(Read Passage and Pray)
Eternal Life is for Everyone
Eternal Life is not Exclusive. It’s not only for the religious elite. It’s for everyone. Verses 9 and 10, “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked. “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things?
If anyone in Israel was supposed to “get” what Jesus was talking about, it was Nicodemus. He was a Pharisee and a member of the Jewish ruling council. He was a part of the educated, elite of Israel whose job it was to lead and teach the nation in spiritual matters. But he didn’t get it. For all his education, for all his religion, for all his piety in society, he didn’t understand.
Why didn’t he understand? His problem was that he was religious, not spiritual. Nicodemus understood religious things, not spiritual things.
What do we mean by religious things? Religious things are rituals; but they’re not only rituals, they are the morality and good works that people do to feel like a good person. Listen, religious things are all the efforts that people do to “feel” like they’re right with God.
I give to charity, I go to church, I serve in church, I am a good person, I’m better than that guy, I make mistakes, but, I’m not as bad as that guy, I could or would never do that, my parents were Christians, I was baptized, I take communion, I don’t cheat on my taxes, I don’t cheat on my wife, I don’t drink, I don’t party, I don’t…. and the list goes on.
These are good things, but the problem with all these things is they are self-made righteousness! By doing certain things and not doing certain things, I am trusting in me to get me to God. There is a monument in Cleveland Ohio called the Fountain of Eternal Life. It was built for WWII soldiers who died in battle. It’s 46 foot statue of a man reaching up to the heavens for “eternal peace.” Wikipedia says the sphere from which the man is rising above represents the superstitions and legends of mankind. In otherwords, by man reaching up, and by determination and grit, and by valor and nobility, somehow he can rise above this world to the eternal peace of heaven. Man’s effort to reach heaven. That’s religion. Religious things are good, but, they cannot save. Only faith in Jesus can save.
And boy was that Nicodemus. Was that the Pharisees. They had religion down tight. They had religion down better than anyone else, and because they were better at religion than everyone else they thought they were better than everyone else. Let me give you an example of their arrogance.
First, is John chapter 7. The Jewish temple guards were supposed to arrest Jesus and bring him in, but they didn’t. They get back to the temple, and the chief priests and Pharisees ask in verse 45, “Why didn’t you bring him in?” Their reply was, “No one ever spoke the way this man does”. (In other words, they said, “He is a way better teacher than you guys.” You can hear the punch to their pride.)
But, listen to the arrogant way they talk back to the guards, “You mean he has deceived you also? Has any of the chief priests and Pharisees believed in him? No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law – there is a curse on them.” This mob that knows nothing of religion, they’re so gullible, they’re so foolish, there is a curse on them. We are the elite, we have the law, we have religion, we have traditions, and we haven’t been taken in by this Jesus.
Listen, religious people can’t stand Jesus because Jesus did for them what they are trying to do for themselves but can’t do. Religious people hate Jesus because if Jesus is the only way then their religion isn’t the way. Who wants to admit failure? Who wants to say all that I have believed in and built my hope upon is for nothing? Who wants to count it all as loss and simply accept that someone else did it for them?
Paul, the Example for Nicodemus
I’ll tell you at least one person. His name was Saul of Tarsus, or better known as the apostle Paul. He was a Pharisee and very likely knew Nicodemus. What did he think of all his good works? What did he think of all his religious devotion? Turn to Philippians 3:4-8,
“If anyone thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.”
Paul was an All-Star Pharisee; he was the guy that made the other Pharisees look bad. But Paul goes on to say in verses 7 and 8, listen this is so important: “But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish that I may gain Christ”
Whatever was to his gain, whatever he thought was credited to his account for all his religion and all his good works, he now saw it as a waste. The literal translation of the Greek there is “manure”. That’s what he thought of his religion after being born again.
Spiritual things are not known by religious activity. The Holy Spirit gives understanding. Paul said to the Corinthians, “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.” He would later say to Timothy “Reflect on what I am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all this.” The New Birth and Understanding Spiritual Matters comes from the Holy Spirit. And God freely gives it to everyone who receives Christ.
Eternal life isn’t for a few, the offer is for everyone. “Yet to ALL who received him…” (John 1:12). “For God so loved the WORLD, that he gave his one and only Son, so that WHOEVER believes in him would not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16). “God is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Pet. 3:9). “God our Savior wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” (1 Tim. 2:4). It’s for you and it’s for me. God wants all men to know the truth and to be saved.
Testimonies
Then we see verse 11 where Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony.
It’s interesting that in verse 11 Jesus says “we.” In the immediate context, he is probably referring to his disciples. They have bore witness to Jesus: Andrew called Him the Messiah (1:41), Philip called Him the One Moses and the Prophets wrote about (1:45), Nathanael called Him “King of Israel and the Son of God.”
But I think Jesus is referring to more than just his disciples. I think he is referring to all the OT prophets, from Moses all the way to John the Baptist. Jesus said that the OT Scriptures testified about Him (Jn. 5:39) – that is in prophecies, types, and foreshadows.
He says “you people don’t accept our testimony”. The “you” is plural in the Greek, and Jesus is probably referring to Nicodemus and the rest of the Pharisees and religious leaders. They reject Jesus, and they reject the testimony of the very Scriptures they study which speak of Jesus. “You people” is referring to the religious leaders who rejected Jesus Christ’s testimony and therefore rejected the testimony of the OT prophets in Scripture as well.
That’s what John is talking about later in this same chapter, “The one who comes from heaven is above all. He testifies to what he has seen but no one accepts his testimony.”
Heavenly Things
Verses 12 and 13, “I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven – the Son of Man.”
Jesus came from heaven. He didn’t begin to exist in a manger. He is eternal. “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God.” John 1:1. Jesus says he existed before in eternity when he prays to the Father in chapter 17, “And now Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you BEFORE the world began.” Jesus existed with God as God in eternity past. He can teach Nicodemus about heaven and about God because heaven is where he came from and God is who sent him.
Jesus testifies to what he knows (John 5:19, 20, 30; 8:28; 12:49-50; 14:10, 24, 31; 17:4-8, 26). He does what He sees His Father doing (Jn. 5:19-20), speaks what the Father has told Him to say (Jn. 8:28; 12:49-50; 14:10), does exactly what the Father commands Him to (Jn. 14:31), completed the work the Father gave Him to do (Jn. 17:4), revealed the Father to the disciples (v. 6), gave the Father’s words to the disciples (v. 8).
The Son of Man as the Snake
In verses 14 and 15 Jesus teaches Nicodemus the basis for Eternal Life. “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”
Jesus is speaking of his death here, and this is the second time He has mentioned it so far. He alluded to it in chapter 2 when he said, “Destroy this temple and I will raise it again in three days.” By “temple” he meant his body.
Now he is talking again about his death by referring to something that happened in the OT. It’s quite shocking actually, but, why don’t we read it in Numbers chapter 21, verses 4-9,
“They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, [a] to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; 5 they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!"
6 Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. 7 The people came to Moses and said, "We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us." So Moses prayed for the people.
8 The LORD said to Moses, "Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live." 9 So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.
They sinned against God. God sent a curse and they were going to die because of the curse. But the point Jesus is making is that all they had to do was LOOK at the snake and they would live.
The bronze serpent was lifted up on a pole; Jesus was going to be lifted up on a cross. The Bible says in Galatians 3 that “Christ redeemed us by becoming a curse for us.” In 2 Corinthians 5:21 it says that “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Jesus had no sin. Never, not once. There was no sin in him, yet God made Him to be sin for us.
Isaiah 53 says that God laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He bore our sins in His body and has taken our sins and our guilt away when His blood was shed on the cross. That’s why John the Baptist calls him the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. It’s because he carried our sins and he was slaughtered for our sins.
Listen, the Israelites were dying from the venom of the snakes and all they had to do was look at the bronze snake and they would live. In the same way, all of mankind is lost in sin and will die, but God lifted up His one and only Son and put Him on the cross and put the whole world’s sins on Him. Looking AT Jesus means looking TO Jesus – looking to Him for salvation. Looking to Him and believing in Him will bring eternal life.
Conclusion
The day was January 6, 1850. Spurgeon was not quite 16 years old.
I sometimes think I might have been in darkness and despair until now had it not been for the goodness of God in sending a snowstorm, one Sunday morning, while I was going to a certain place of worship. When I could go no further, I turned down a side street, and came to a little Primitive Methodist chapel. In that chapel there may have been a dozen or fifteen people. . . . The minister did not come that morning; he was snowed up, I suppose.
At last, a very thin-looking man, a shoemaker, or tailor, or something of that sort, went up into the pulpit to preach. . . . He was obliged to stick to his text, for the simple reason that he had little else to say. The text was “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth [Isaiah 45:22].”
He did not even pronounce the words rightly, but that did not matter. There was, I thought, a glimpse of hope for me in that text. The preacher began and said: “My dear friends, this is a very simple text indeed. It says, ‘Look.’ Now lookin’ don’t take a deal of pain. It ain’t liftin’ your foot or your finger; it is just, ‘Look.’ Well, a man needn’t go to college to learn to look. You may be the biggest fool, and yet you can look. A man needn’t be worth a thousand a year to be able to look. Anyone can look; even a child can look.
“But then the text says, ‘Look unto Me’. . . . Many of ye are lookin’ to yourselves, but it’s no use lookin’ there. Ye will never find any comfort in yourselves. Some look to God the father. No, look to him by-and-by. Jesus Christ says, ‘Look unto Me.’ Some of ye say, ‘We must wait for the Spirit’s workin’.’ You have no business with that just now. Look to Christ. The text says, ‘Look unto Me.’”
Then that good man followed up his text in this way: “Look unto Me; I am sweatin’ and great drops of blood. Look unto Me; I am hangin’ on the cross. Look unto Me; I am dead and buried. Look unto Me; I rise again. Look unto Me; I ascend to heaven. Look unto Me; I am sittin’ at the Father’s right hand. O poor sinner, look unto Me! Look unto Me!”
When he had gone to about that length, and managed to spin out ten minutes or so he was at the end of his tether. Then he looked at me under the gallery, and I dare say, with so few present he knew me to be a stranger.
Just fixing his eyes on me, as if he knew all my heart he said, “Young man, you look very miserable.” Well, I did, but I had not been accustomed to have remarks made from the pulpit on my personal appearance before. However, it was a good blow, struck right home. He continued, “and you always will be miserable—miserable in life, and miserable in death—if you don’t obey my text; but if you obey now, this moment, you will be saved.”
Then lifting up his hands, he shouted, as only a primitive Methodists could do, “Young man, look to Jesus Christ. Look! Look! Look! You have nothing to do but to look and live.” I saw at once the way of salvation. I know not what else he said—I did not take much notice of it—I was so possessed with that one thought. Like as when the brazen serpent was lifted up, the people only looked and were healed, so it was with me. I had been waiting to do fifty things, but when I heard that word, “Look!” What a charming word it seemed to me! Oh! I looked until I could have almost looked my eyes away.
There and then the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun; and I could have risen that instant, and sung with the most enthusiastic of them, of the precious blood of Christ, and the simple faith which looks alone to him.”
-----Look to the Son of God and His cross. Look to Him who bore your sins and died for you. You don’t need to be the religious elite to look. You don’t need a diploma or Bachelors degree to look. You don’t need to be rich and accomplished to look. You need to see your sins, you need to see them nailed to the cross. The whole world’s sins. That means yours. Look to Jesus and live. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so to Jesus was lifted up, so that if you believe, you will have eternal life.
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