Tag: Bronze Serpent

Getting it Twisted

One of the more surprising things in the Gospel of John is when Jesus says that He must be lifted up by God in the same way that Moses lifted up the snake in the desert. If we go back to that snake in the desert, we see that God used the instrument of destruction to bring about healing. We call that “redemption”. But here we see that King Hezekiah (the most righteous king of Judah) had to DESTROY the bronze serpent because people began to worship it. Seems like we will worship just about ANYTHING, if it doesn’t get the in way of us doing exactly what we want to do. And so the people took a thing originally designed for good and twisted it for evil. To the point where it had to be destroyed for the salvation of those very people.

Just because something was designed for good or accomplished good, doesn’t mean it will always be good for all time. We still need to evaluate those things. I know as a pastor I have done events that were a huge success the first time, but didn’t yield the same results the following year. I think it’s important that we bring everything back to God. And if that event, or job, or thing, or dream that God gave you has become twisted… it might be time to destroy it and start fresh.

The Tale of the Bronze Serpent

This particular episode in Numbers is a fascinating one, I think, especially considering this incident with the snake statue is cited by Jesus himself immediately before the most famous verse in all of Scripture, John 3:16. So the question becomes: what’s with the snake idol? And why did God choose that as the thing to bring healing?

The funny thing is that the snake as a form, I think is only to remind the people of what caused this issue. The actual healing is the cool part of this. It seems at first blush like some weird voodoo magic thing. But — as I love to highlight — our God is super practical.

Turns out that when a snake bites you (depending of course on how much venom was injected) your body will try to fight off the venom by itself, but typically people will freak out, which raises their heart rate. Not good. And the temptation might also be to try and get somewhere or do something, which also would bring the heart rate up. Also not good. So what does our practical God do?

He tells the people to look upon (רָאָה) the snake. This word means to gaze upon, to consider, to ponder. This is God having the people stop, focus, slow their circulation rate and let their bodies work to heal the poison. Now it’s certainly possible that God also provided some miraculous intervention, and while I do not discount this, I also don’t think it’s necessary.

I think this is a good reminder of what an amazingly practical God we serve, and how he has designed us from the beginning with thoughtfulness, foresight, and care.

Numbers 19-21 | 064/365