Year 1, Day 136: Numbers 21

A Favorite Story

Alright, today we have the bronze serpent story – so let’s talk about that first.  Notice that the Hebrew people specifically grumble against God and then they are said to grumble against Moses.  In the New Testament, specifically in Matthew 24:37-40 and its corresponding passages in Mark and Luke, Jesus says the two greatest commandments are to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  The Hebrew people within this passage break both of these commandments.  They speak against God and then they speak against Moses.

Now the question becomes: what will God do with these people who have yet again rebelled against Him?  The answer is simple.  God will do what only a just God can do.  God judges them as they deserve.  They have sinned against an infinitely good God and thus are deserving of an infinitely just punishment: death.  The judgment is decreed.

However, we also get a glimpse of God’s grace, too.  God judges; God provides mercy in the bronze serpent.  Although people are dying when they are bit by the fiery serpents, they can live if they simply look at the bronze serpent.

Here’s another neat element of the serpent.  Do you realize that even after God provides a way out, the people still keep getting bitten by these snakes?  Just because they have freedom from the death doesn’t mean they have been spared the judgment!  Just because they have been spared from death doesn’t mean they don’t continue to live in a world that is uncomfortable and may bring them harm!

This is precisely why Jesus lifts up this story in John 3:14 during His conversation with Nicodemus.  Jesus is saying that everything in the story that we have in Numbers is also true about His own position in relationship between God and the world.  So, let’s go down the list.

·      Broken commandments to love God and neighbor?  Check.

·      God does the only thing a just God can do to sinners: sentence death? Check.

·      God provides a way out of death for those who are willing to look upon it for salvation? Check.  Look to the cross, people!

·      Although we have the cross (as well as the promise of eternal life), we still feel the judgment of death upon us? Check.

That is why I love this story.  The story of the bronze serpent helps us really understand what God is doing for us through Christ Jesus.  We are no different that the rebellious Hebrew people.  We rebel.  We sin against God.  We even look back upon them and wonder how they could be so foolish while we yet do the same thing!  We are indeed not only the same, but hypocritical about seeing them through eyes of judgment!  We deserve death, and we get it.  But thanks be to God that He has provided a way out through Jesus Christ.  You can have a way out, just look to the cross!  You can feel the promise of eternal life.  Just look to the empty tomb after looking upon the cross for salvation!

Salvation by Grace

Oh, here’s another interesting tidbit about this story.  Notice that the solution wasn’t based on anything the people could do.  There wasn’t any medicine with which they could treat the bites.  Beating the snakes and killing them wouldn’t even solve their problem.  The only solution was to look in faith towards God’s provision and live.  So it is with us.  We like to think we can fix ourselves.  We like to think we can beat sin out of us with enough pious living.  No.  The only solution to our sin is to look to Christ and live.

Early Stories of the Conquest

Moving beyond the story of the Bronze Serpent, let’s not ignore completely the stories of conquest.  While the defeat of the native peoples is certainly seen as judgment – and we should not revel in the real judgment of human beings when we all know that our own time of judgment is coming – we can also say that these are victory stories for the Hebrew people.  So in meaning no disrespect to the judged Canaanites who were destroyed, let’s look at what these stories mean for the Hebrew people.

If nothing else, these victory stories show us the grace of God.  Although the rebellious people are not going to see the Promised Land, God is gracious enough to give them a taste of the promise.  God allows them to have victories across the Jordan River so that they can see that God will deliver the promise of Canaan to the next generation.  God could have let them wander until they were all completely dead, but God imparts some grace on them before they die.  In some respects, this grace is exactly like the grace of the bronze serpent and all the other implications of grace in the Bible.  Judgment remains, but judgment does not dominate.  Grace is woven through the deserved judgment.  That is something we can hold dear for ourselves, too.  Even in our rebellion, grace is present.

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