“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.”
The children of Israel had been grumbling. They probably didn’t think their grumbling was that big of a deal – they probably thought they were justified to grumble. Then the fiery snakes came and bit them, and they knew they were going to die painfully. But a way of salvation was given – God has Moses put a serpent on a pole, and if you looked at the serpent, you would live. That was just how it would work.
We can forget that our sin is vile and deadly. We often brush off what our anger and cruel words do, what impacts our greed and lust have, but in reality, they kill. They are deadly. But we don’t want to believe that. We want to say that what we do isn’t so bad, or that we had good reason, or that at least it’s not as bad as “those people.” And our denial of our own sin just makes our lives and relationships get worse and worse.
So God lets our sin bite us sometimes. God lets the impact of our sin be painfully obvious. Why? Not because He’s simply annoyed with us or because He’s out to get us. No, we feel the weight of sin so that we would be driven to repentance and see Christ. Jesus was lifted up upon the cross for real sins. Our sin isn’t dealt with by our excusing it or brushing it off, but by Jesus taking the full, real, nasty deadly sin onto Himself and crucifying. This is how He loves you – He takes your sin from you and puts it to death, and in return He gives you eternal life. He does everything required for you to have eternal life. You don’t have to justify yourself or downplay your sin – Jesus takes it all for you.
