"Once bitten....."
Then Moses raised his hand and struck the rock twice with the staff, and water gushed out. So the entire community and their livestock drank their fill. (Numbers 20:11 NLT)
So Moses made a snake out of bronze and attached it to a pole. Then anyone who was bitten by a snake could look at the bronze snake and be healed! (Numbers 21:9 NLT)
The Bible is about the gospel. The gospel is about Jesus. Therefore, the Bible is about Jesus. Jesus explained to the men on the road to Damascus how the messiah must suffer. The Bible says that he started with Moses & explained all of these things to them. Moses there refers to the books attributed to Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, & Deuteronomy.
Now, this doesn't mean that every reference to wood in these books reveals a cross, as Tony Merida cautions. It does mean, however, that every one of these first five books of the Old Testament & every book of the Bible are ultimately about Jesus.
We see this in a couple of specific places in today's reading. Sometimes when we read the Old Testament God seems unjust. I use the word seem because God is never unjust. He is always just. But he seems unjust to Moses here.
Moses has put up with the people for so long & listened tirelessly to their complaints & bitterness against him. He has endured their rebelliousness & criticism with such humility & dependence on the Lord. So what's the big deal about hitting a rock? Why would that lead to his inability to enter the land? He has blown it one time to the people's one thousand times. Where is his grace? Where is his intercessor? What's the big deal with hitting a rock?
First Corinthians 10:4 gives us some insight. "And all of them drank the same spiritual water. For they drank from the spiritual rock that traveled with them, and that rock was Christ" (1 Corinthians 10:4 NLT). See, God told Moses to SPEAK to the rock, not strike it. He had already struck it once before, picturing the death of Christ. God said speak to it & Moses in his anger struck it again. This would picture the death of Christ a second time, something that would not & could not happen. "Christ suffered for our sins once for all time. He never sinned, but he died for sinners to bring you safely home to God. He suffered physical death, but he was raised to life in the Spirit" (1 Peter 3:18 NLT).
Christ died one time for all times. He was crucified & offered himself in our place. God takes his holiness seriously. God takes the gospel seriously. God takes any picture of the gospel seriously. This is why marriage is so crucial, not just for our lives or for our kids but for the gospel. When our marriages fail, we taint the gospel & say things about it with our lives that aren't true. This is why Moses was not allowed into the promised land. Christ is the rock because he gives people living water that they cannot obtain themselves. Without the rock in the wilderness the people die. Without Christ & the life giving water he supplies, we die eternally without him. Come drink deeply of this water & never thirst again (see the woman at the well event in John 4)!
We also see another picture of the gospel here in Numbers. The people rebel again against God & he sends snakes to bite them. The bite is fatal & leads to the death of many. Moses intercedes for the people & God tells them that all they have to do is look at the bronze snack & they will not die but be saved. Jesus told Nicodemus "And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life" (John 3:14, 15 NLT).
The gospel often seems so complex. Faith, repentance, justification, sanctification, glorification, mortification of the flesh, atonement, & propitiation are just a few of the amazing realities we see in salvation. It includes the sovereignty of God & the responsibility of man. It includes Jesus' death to satisfy the wrath of God as well as the adoption of sinners & rebels as children of God. It includes the resurrection of God's Son from the dead, something that is completely unprecedented. And yet, in the midst of such complexity, this passage in Numbers teaches us that all we need to do is look. To realize we cannot save ourselves on our own. We cannot do anything to change our situation. We have nothing to offer in return for life. All we have to do is look! Look upon the crucified Son of God. Look with eyes of repentance. Look with eyes of faith. Look with eyes of hope & utter dependence. The call of God to the hearts of the human race is look unto him! He is the only one who can save, change, transform, convict, love, & accept!!
God's invitation stands to sin bitten, death infected sinners, come & find life by looking upon the crucified Son of God.
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