Sermon Discussion Questions:
1. Read John 3:1-15 for context. Try to put yourself in Nicodemus' shoes. What would be confusing for you if you were him?
2. "If our religion is something objective, then we must never avert our eyes from those elements in it which seem puzzling or repellent; for it will be precisely the puzzling or the repellent which conceals what we do not yet know and need to know.” - Lewis, Weight of Glory. What would you tell someone to do when they find something "puzzling or repellent" in the Bible?
3. Why does Jesus bring up the story of the bronze serpent here (see John 3:14-15, Numbers 21:4-9)? What is the similarity between Nicodemus and the Exodus generation? And us?
4. As Jesus uses the story of the bronze serpent, why doesn't He compare himself with Moses or God? Why does He compare Himself with the serpent?
“The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.”
Maybe you’ve heard that line before.
Aleksander Solzhenitsyn was a faithful communist. Born one year after the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, Solzhenitsyn was raised by his mother in the Russian Orthodox Church, yet he embraced the Marxism of the state as his religion and ideology—even though that ideology led to his family’s farm being collectivized when he was 12 years old, pushing them to the brink of poverty. During WWII, he became a decorated commander in the Red Army, receiving two medals for bravery, serving on the front line for three years. Yet, much to his surprise, in February 1945, a few months before the war was over, Solzhenitsyn was arrested by the secret police for anti-Soviet propaganda. Aleksander didn’t believe it; he thought it was a mistake.
For proof of his crime, the police produced a letter Solzhenitsyn wrote to a friend where (twice) he spoke disrespectfully of Stalin. And for that, he was sentenced to eight years of forced labor in a gulag. At the end of his sentence, he was then exiled from his home country. His years of imprisonment not only led him to return to his childhood faith, but revealed to him how morally bankrupt communist ideology was.
What’s impressive about Solzhenitsyn’s story is his willingness to not only criticize communism and Stalinism, but to see himself and his own sins.
“There is nothing that so assists the awakening of omniscience within us as insistent thoughts about one's own transgressions, errors, mistakes. After the difficult cycles of such ponderings over many years, whenever I mentioned the heartlessness of our highest-ranking bureaucrats, the cruelty of our executioners, I remember myself in my Captain's shoulder boards and the forward march of my battery through East Prussia, enshrouded in fire, and I say: 'So were we any better?'"
The Russian author and dissident, wrote, “If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being,” (The Gulag Archipelago, Part I). We need salvation from the evil that lies in here just as much (if not more) then the evil out there.
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9 Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 10 Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? 11 Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. 12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life
- John 3:9-15
Our authority, problem, hope
Our Authority
Why does Nicodemus not understand what Jesus is saying? Jesus says because we are limited by our own perspective: we speak of what we know, we bear witness to what we have seen. What you see depends on where you stand. Jesus taught Nicodemus a few verses earlier: flesh gives birth to flesh, Spirit gives birth to Spirit (John 3:6). Nicodemus has not yet been born again, so he is constrained by the flesh. Jesus is speaking about the work of the Spirit; describing the beauty of Light to a blind man (cf. “night” in John 3:2).
Jesus is using an earthy analogy with his metaphor of “born again.” The gift of regeneration is like being born again—Nicodemus misses the analogy and asks how an old man can enter his mother’s womb a second time. Like many other outsiders in John’s gospel, Nicodemus can’t see past the literal meaning of Jesus’ words to the deeper, spiritual meaning that Jesus implies—think of “destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” or, “unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you cannot be my disciple.”
Jesus tells Nicodemus that if the earthly analogy confuses him, he certainly won’t understand the other “heavenly” realities that have no earthly analogy available. That’s what I think ‘heavenly things’ means—the elements of God’s truth to which there is no immediate earthly analogy, the weightier, heavier matters of doctrine, while “earthly things” are the basic truths of God. Nicodemus is the teacher of Israel, yet he is struggling to understand the very ABC’s of faith.
But here Jesus turns on this idea of heaven and earth.
No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. - John 3:13
“No one has ascended in heaven.”
Jesus alone has ascended into heaven, which means He alone can distribute these heavenly truths, so we ought to listen to Him.
We may glean a great deal of wisdom and insight about ourselves and life from other people; doctors, historians, psychologists, sociologists, friends, parents. None of us can know ourselves or the world accurately on our own, we all have blindspots and limitations, and the wider you read and the better you are at listening and asking questions and receiving critical feedback, the more you will know.
But we are in a glut of information now. It can feel overwhelming to sift through it all, to parse it, to discern which source is accurate or reputable. Your family, friends, your favorite authors and podcasters…all of them are limited by their perspective.
There are three categories of knowledge:
- The known knowns (What you know you know)
- The known unknowns (What you know you don’t know)
- The unknown unknowns (What you don’t know you don’t know)
It is that last category that is most critical that contains our greatest dangers. It is one thing for a sailor to venture across the Atlantic knowing where major icebergs are, and knowing that he will not know where all of them are—this awareness of ignorance prepares him to be on guard. But if he sets sail and doesn’t even know that there is such a thing as icebergs? He is in great danger.
All of us are hemmed in by ignorance, limited by perspective. There is only one Person who has the perspective of Heaven. No one else has ascended to heaven but he who has descended from heaven, the Son of Man, Jesus Christ. So His Word should by our highest authority and brightest star.
Practically:
The real test of where our highest authority lies not when the words of Jesus align with our preferences, but when they cut against them. When we, like Nicodemus, hear Jesus’ words and say: That doesn’t make any sense. What do you do then?
“If our religion is something objective, then we must never avert our eyes from those elements in it which seem puzzling or repellent; for it will be precisely the puzzling or the repellent which conceals what we do not yet know and need to know.” - Lewis, Weight of Glory
What do you do when you encounter something in God’s Word and think: I don’t like that. It may be something intellectual, or it may be something God is telling you to do, like Repent, Submit, Wait, Be Patient, Rejoice, Love One Another, Forgive One Another.
One of the vows we take as members of this church is: “Do you believe that God’s Word has supreme authority over the faith and practice of your life and the life of this church?”
In our own speech and conversations and internet posting—we should have different gears in our gearbox for how we speak. We should reserve our highest level of confidence for sharing God’s Word, what we know to be true. When sharing our own opinions, we should down-shift into more reserved language.
As a Church, we must speak the truth in love to one another and so grow in every way into Him who is the head. Discipleship in our church takes place when the members of our church speak God’s Word to one another.
Our Problem
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up. - John 3:14
Two questions: When did Moses lift up a serpent in the wilderness? And, why does Jesus bring this up here?
Let’s start with the first question: The book of Numbers is the sad conclusion to the epic of the Exodus. God’s people start out so good! And end so, so badly…
There are seven stories in the book of Israel’s complaints and rebellions. This story is the last of the seven:
4 From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. 5 And the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food,” (Num 21:4-5).
Why have you brought us up out of Egypt? Because they cried out to be delivered from Egypt. They were slaves in Egypt, Pharaoh was throwing their babies into the river, demanding bricks but giving them no straw. How could they possibly speak about Egypt with anything but relief that they aren’t there anymore? Well, look again at what they say: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food,” (Num 21:5).
Throughout the book of Numbers, the people repeatedly complain that they are going to die in the wilderness from starvation or dehydration...despite God repeatedly providing both food and water. The illogic of their posture is evident in their very statement: “there is no food…and we loath this worthless food.” So, there is food—it is the very food that God has sent down from heaven—they just don’t like it. In their eyes, what God has provided is “worthless.”
“Then the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died,” (Num 21:6).
It is easy to read the story of the Exodus generation and think: What’s wrong with these people? If I had been there and seen those kind of miracles, I wouldn’t have any problem trusting God.
Would you?
Imagine you are part of the caravan of Israel, wandering through a desert. If you were to ask “How do we know where to go?” the only answer you would get would be: “God will show us the way.”
“How will we be protected from bands of marauders and armies?” ”God will protect us.”
Because you are continually on the move, you don’t have time to plant a garden or fields. If you were to ask: “How will we eat?” “God will provide.”
You are in a desert wilderness, unfamiliar with where water sources are. “What are we to drink?”
“God will provide.”
In the stories of this generation we have God’s people put in what feels like a remarkably precarious position where they must rely on faith. And God shows up and provides in remarkable ways! He makes water gush forth from rocks! He makes bread fall from the sky! He leads His people by cloud and fire. But despite the remarkable provision of God, Israel cannot abide by this relationship of faith. Faith requires you to be in a passive posture, to say that God must be the primary Actor, not us; He is the One who knows everything, we don’t. Faith says: God, I trust You.
And this is why I think Jesus brings up this story right here in the middle of his conversation about the new birth with Nicodemus. Nicodemus has seen the signs and miracles Jesus has performed and tells Jesus that he knows God is with Him. And Jesus, surprisingly, says You do not actually believe in me until you have been born again. And then Jesus cites this story; the final story of the final book of Israel—who has been given every reason to trust God through the signs and miracles He has performed for them, yet they do not believe, do not trust God, do not have faith.
Faith is not natural to fallen man, even if it seems rational. As you read the story, Israel seems illogical—God has taken care of them, why can’t they trust Him?
They want certainty. They want control. They want to know—where are we going, how long will it take, how will we handle the logistics, food, water, security.
They want to know all the things we would want to know, because we would struggle with the exact same things. We don’t like being in the position of not knowing what tomorrow brings, how we will provide, where our life is going—we hate it when we don’t know that; we get anxious and depressed and scared when life feels uncertain.
One of the reasons that I think God sends serpents as a punishment is to remind Israel (and us) that their problem (our problem) is the same problem Adam and Eve faced in the garden when tempted by the serpent: the temptation to be like God.
This is what is wrong in us, the evil we carry, and why we need the healing of the new birth.
Our Hope
“14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” John 3:14-15
The consequences of Israel’s unbelief was the plague of fiery serpents, and so they were healed by the bronze serpent being lifted up and looking at it. Jesus then says, in the same way, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
“And the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you. Pray to the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people,” (Num 21:7)
The consequences of their sin compel them to confess: we have sinned. Honest, simple, forthright. And then they ask God’s mediator to intercede for them: pray for us Moses, take away the serpents.
“And the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live,” (Num 21:8-9).
Now, we know that Jesus thinks this story has something to do with his discussion with Nicodemus about faith, believing, and being born again. The problem that caused this story is the same problem that Nicodemus (and all of us naturally) have—we are allergic to trusting God, to faith. There are two ways Jesus uses this story: one makes sense, the other does not.
What Makes Sense: Look to Jesus
In the story in Numbers, the people are healed by looking at the bronze serpent. Earlier, Jesus used sight as a metaphor for believing. How does one begin to believe? Look at Christ. How does one grow in their faith? Look to Christ. How does one find healing from the poison of lies the serpent brings? Look to Christ.
Sometimes, we can fill our eyes and our minds with lots of other things besides Jesus. Those wanting to explore Christianity may want to study its history, its affects on society and culture, or ideas/arguments about Jesus Christ.
Thoughts are but coins. Let me not trust, instead
Of Thee, their thin-worn image of Thy head.
Where do we begin with looking to Christ? We begin by looking at His book; feast on the Word and look to Him. Look at His kindness, His justice, His purity, His righteousness, His patience, His holiness, His gentleness, His compassion, His zeal. In a world of grey, numb fog and black perversity, Jesus Christ is a great blast of Light.
Your holiness in Christ will never exceed your knowledge of Christ’s Word because it is in His Word that He is revealed.
What Doesn’t Make Sense: The Supreme Revelation of Christ
As Jesus reflects back on this story, who does He identify with? Remember, Jesus is God in the flesh. He could have used this story to remind everyone that He was the one who sent the fiery serpents as the judgment. He could have identified with Moses, the righteous mediator who prays for wayward Israel. He could have used the story to scold everyone that they are just like their forefathers in their rebellion and complaining. All of those things are true! But how does Jesus use the story? Who does He point to and identify with?
The image of the dead snake.
If you are anything like me, that seems odd. Here is what I was expecting when I was first studying this: Jesus calls Himself the “Son of Man” here. This is a title of authority from the book of Daniel. In Daniel 7, after God destroys a series of Satanic, dragon-like beasts, the whole earth falls under the dominion and rule of the Son of Man who is exalted up to the throne of the Ancient of Days. Jesus even uses this idea of exaltation: “the Son of Man must be lifted up.” The more I thought about this passage, the more I expected Jesus would have said that just as the bronze serpent pointed forward to the day when Satan would be crushed, now He had arrived to crush Satan—I’m the snake killer. But that isn’t what Jesus did with the story. Jesus said: just as the bronze serpent was lifted up, so too will I be lifted up.
What does that mean? When is Jesus lifted up? Four times in John’s gospel, Jesus refers to being lifted up or exalted, and every time it refers to Him being hoisted up on a block of wood, nailed to it like a sinner.
The bronze serpent, hoisted up on a pole, was a symbol of sin. It represented the consequence of Israel’s rebellion and, paradoxically, the means by which they would be healed of it.
“By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,” (Rom 8:3). God sent His Son, Jesus, “in the likeness of sinful flesh.” Jesus never sinned, He upheld the Law. Yet, the Law states that anyone who is killed the way Jesus was killed is cursed by God, is a wretched sinner (Gal 3:13). Jesus’ death sure looked like the death of a sinner. And that’s because it was. The Bible tells us when He is lifted up on the cross, Jesus “became sin” (2 Cor 5:21); He becomes the repository for our judgment, our guilt, our condemnation. Jesus is the snake crusher, He has come to kill the serpent. But how? By becoming a willing substitute. By becoming a sponge by which the sins of the world are heaped onto Him, by having the venom of the serpent so fill his veins, by having the fiery serpent of Satan so assault him that He becomes like a serpent, the very image of God’s enemy—He stands in our place and is crushed, is destroyed.
Jesus crushes the serpent by being crushed Himself.
This is how eternal life can be given to those whose sins have earned eternal death.
And, critically, this is the supreme revelation of what Jesus is like. For us to believe, we need to first be born again. God must give us life. He must make dead bones come alive. He must act. Yet, in the mysterious ways of God, He also tells us: Look to Christ and believe. You must be born again, so look to Jesus, but not just Jesus in general—look to Him as He is willing to die for your sins.
The gospel heals our heart’s ancient sickness that remains allergic to trusting God.
