Lifted Up

Lifted Up

In Numbers 21, the Israelites were dying from snakebites in the wilderness — a consequence of their rebellion. God instructed Moses to make a bronze serpent and lift it on a pole; all who looked at it would live. It was simple, counterintuitive, and dependent entirely on trust. The dying person only had to look. Jesus uses this incident to explain the meaning of His own lifting up on the cross. He would become, like the bronze serpent, the thing lifted up for all to see — carrying the very death that was killing everyone who looked at Him. And the cure would be as simple and counterintuitive as looking: believing.

John 3:14 is the sentence that precedes John 3:16 — the famous verse about God's love. Without verse 14, verse 16 lacks its mechanism. God loved the world and gave His Son (3:16) in the same way that Moses lifted up the serpent (3:14): so that anyone who looks — anyone who believes — would not perish. The cross is the lifting up. It is not only Jesus dying; it is Jesus bearing the poisonous death that had infected humanity, raising it up where all can see, so that the act of looking — of believing — becomes the means of life. As we approach the cross in this season, this is its meaning: He was lifted up so that you could look and live. Have you looked? Are you looking?