Serpent in the Wilderness – John 3:9-15

The National Center for Biotechnology Information, which advances science and health by providing access to biomedical and genomic information, says this:  “Anthropologists have documented a rich array of healing practices employed in different parts of the world…[that] shed light on the universal elements of healing as well as culture-specific features…. all systems of healing share some theory of affliction, defined roles for patient and healer, a circumscribed place and time for healing rituals, specific symbolic actions with healing efficacy, and consequent expectations for recovery….Practitioners able to work in concert with these complementary medical systems and sources of healing will be better able to serve their patients.”  Jesus has a divine theory of our need for healing and an action that provides healing efficacy.

Nicodemus answered and said, “How can these things be?”  Jesus answered, “Are you a teacher of Israel and you don’t know these things?  Truly, truly I say to you that we speak what we know and what we have heard we bear testimony to, and you don’t receive our testimony.  If you don’t believe the earthly matters I’ve told you, how will you ever believe the heavenly matters?  No one has gone up to heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of Man.

And even as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that all who believe in him might have eternal life.  (John 3:9-15)

Nicodemus resists the truth and so Jesus mildly rebukes him and challenges him, speaking in the plural “we” of him and his disciples, though he is the most knowledgeable in his testimony.  And in evidence of that he tells Nicodemus that he has ascended into and descended from heaven as the Son of Man.  How Nicodemus processes this statement we do not know, but Jesus seems clearly to be referring to Daniel 7 where it is prophesied that one like a son of man will receive a kingdom from the Ancient of Days that will overthrow all other kingdoms and establish a kingdom that will last forever.

If that is not enough, Jesus also likens himself to the serpent that was lifted up on a pole in the wilderness by Moses to cure the poisonous snake bites inflicted on the Israelites by God for their rebellion (Numbers 21:6-9).  Moses is instructed to make a bronze representation of one of the snakes and put it on a pole.  Whoever looks to it will be healed.  Jesus will be lifted up on a pole and become sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him and all we must do is look in faith toward him, trusting he is our rescue like the Israelites trusted God’s word about looking to the bronze serpent for their rescue.  Our healing is eternal life.

Discussion Questions

1. What experience have you had of someone trying to explain something to you and you just didn’t get it?
2. Why do you think Nicodemus does not get what Jesus is telling him?
3. Would you respond to Nicodemus like Jesus did?  Why or why not?
4. When do you think Jesus is referring to himself going up to and coming down from heaven?
5. Why do you think God instructed Moses to put the cause of the Israelites’ suffering, the snake, on a pole?  What do you think it symbolized?
6. How would you use Jesus’ illustration of him being lifted up like the serpent on the pole to share the gospel with someone?

For further study: Why We Can Believe in Jesus, message by Tim Keller