With the start of this section we see a reference by Christ to Moses lifting up the serpent. Dr. Sproul takes us back to look into the Old Testament source quote found in Numbers 21:4–9 that related an incident where the Israelites complained about being fed with manna and the ensuing result. Dr. Sproul then brings us back to the relationship this has to Nicodemus and discusses John 3:16 correcting common distortions of the verse.

I begin reading this morning from John 3:9–21:

Nicodemus answered and said to Him, “How can these things be?”

Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things? Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

“He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”

He who has ears to hear the Word of God, let him hear. Shall we pray?

Father, as we continue to give our attention to this discussion that Jesus had with a member of the Sanhedrin, we ask that what is there for our instruction may pierce our souls and our hearts. For we ask these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.

The Son of Man Lifted Up

Last time, I spoke briefly on John 3:10 and following, ending at verse 13: “No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven.” Now, in this discussion with Nicodemus, Jesus uses His favorite title for self-description: the title Son of Man.

That title has its origin in the book of Daniel in the Old Testament, where the Son of Man is a heavenly being who attends the throne of the Ancient of Days. When Jesus refers to Himself as the Son of Man, this is not simply an expression of humility by which He identifies with our fallen humanity. Rather, He is referring to a title that has a rich history in the Old Testament. Jesus is saying to Nicodemus: “You’re talking to the One who has come down from heaven. You are talking to the Son of Man in person, and you don’t understand these basic truths that My Father revealed in the Old Testament.”

After making this claim, Jesus answers Nicodemus’ question, “How can these things be?” Jesus directs him back to the pages of the Old Testament when He says in verse 14, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”

Fiery Serpents

The reference in John 3:14 has to do with an event that took place with the Israelites in the wilderness, recorded for us in the book of Numbers. Numbers 21:4 says, “Then they journeyed from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom; and the soul of the people became very discouraged along the way.” Does that sound familiar? That is a description of the daily attitude of the children of Israel during the wilderness experience.

Numbers 21 continues: “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 our soul loathes this worthless bread.’ So the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died” (Num. 21:5–6).

Do you get the picture? God has delivered these people from slavery, from bondage. He has supernaturally provided for their physical needs with manna. Now these people are so ungrateful that they begin to speak against God and Moses. They say: “Why have you brought us out of Egypt? Why have you brought us to this terrible desert, this dreadful wilderness, with this stinking manna that has become loathsome to us, which we have to collect every day in order to live?”

God responds to the rebellion of His people by sending a plague on them. This time, the plague is not against the Egyptians. It is against them. He sends an infestation of poisonous snakes, whose venom is described as being “like fire.”

I do not know if you have ever contemplated this particular episode in redemptive history. I can think of few things that are worse than being thrown into a pit of vipers, where all around you are fiery serpents, one bite of which could be fatal. When you begin to graphically understand what is going on here, it is like something out of Temple of Doom or Raiders of the Lost Ark. Again, this is God’s judgment against His own people.

Numbers 21:7: “Therefore, the people came to Moses, and said, ‘We’ve made some bad choices here.’” That is what the next edition of the Old Testament in our culture might say, but that is not what is in Numbers. It says:

“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.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived. (Num. 21:7–9)

What is left unstated in this narrative is the number of people who, in their agony, in the throes of the terror and pain inflicted by these serpents, died anyway. They were preoccupied with their own circumstances. God gave them a way of escape, instructing Moses to make this bronze serpent, attach it to a pole, and lift it up in the middle of the camp, saying, “If anyone wants healing, redemption from this plague, or rescue from My judgment and wrath, let them simply look at this, and they will be healed.” The implication of the text is that some looked and some did not.

What a strange incident in the life of the Jewish people. We are told later in the Scriptures that Hezekiah had to destroy the bronze serpent, which had been preserved by the people, because they turned it into an idol. God once used it as a symbol of His grace and mercy. But human nature being what it was, before long, they started worshiping the bronze serpent, just like they worshiped the golden calf at the base of Mount Sinai.

Lifted Up on the Cross

Nicodemus is listening to this discussion about the second birth and seeing and entering the kingdom of God. Nicodemus says, “How can this happen?” Jesus says: “Remember what happened to those people in the Old Testament who were bitten by the serpents? Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.”

If you look at John’s gospel and pay close attention to the way in which Jesus uses language, you see in this text that He uses an expression that carries more than one meaning. There is a kind of thinly veiled symbolism in this, a hidden meaning in the way He says it, because in Scripture, the primary understanding of being “lifted up” is to be exalted: “Lift up your hearts,” “Lift up your voices,” “Lift up your hands.” All through Old Testament liturgy and worship, exaltation and glorification are communicated along with the idea of being lifted up.

Jesus says, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so now must the Son of Man be lifted up.” We could easily take the end of that statement to mean simply, “So must I be exalted; so must I be glorified, because that’s what it’s going to take to accomplish the kingdom that I’ve just announced to you.”

When Jesus uses this phrase “lifted up,” I think He certainly means that no one will get into the kingdom of God who does not exalt Christ. We must lift Him up, but Jesus is speaking directly to what has to happen for people to enter His kingdom. He must be lifted up upon a cross; He must be the substitute serpent, if you will. He has to take upon Himself the sting of death. He has to take upon Himself the poison of sin on the cross.

There is little doubt in the minds of commentators that when Jesus says to Nicodemus, “I, the Son of Man, must be lifted up, even as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,” He is referring not simply to His glorification and exaltation, but primarily to the cross.

When we began our worship in the sanctuary of Saint Andrew’s Chapel, we sang a particular hymn. Remember that the architecture of this building follows the medieval cruciform. The building is in the form of a cross, with the arms of the cross off to each side and the center of the cross down the middle of the nave. We begin our worship with the procession of the cross, and we sing, “Lift High the Cross,” because we are a people who are snake-bitten. We have a poison that goes into the depths of our souls in our fallen humanity, and our only hope is the cross. That is why, when we come into the sanctuary, our mind is on the cross and on the One who was lifted up for us and for our sins.

“That’s your answer, Nicodemus. Just like Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must I, the Son of Man, be lifted up.”

Whoever Believes Will Not Perish

Jesus goes on to say in verse 15 that the Son of Man must be lifted up “that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”

The word order is significant in John 3:15: “That whoever believes in Him shall have eternal life”? No, what is stated first is the negative: Whoever believes in the One who is lifted up will not perish.

Do you see how that draws an exact parallel to the situation in the wilderness? The people who were bitten by the poisonous snakes were going to die. They were in a predicament where they were bent on perishing. The remedy God gave was to preserve them from certain destruction.

What Jesus is saying to Nicodemus is that we are in the same state by nature. Apart from Christ, apart from the cross, we are as exposed to death and destruction as those Old Testament people who were bitten by deadly snakes. Jesus said, “As many who believe in Me, they won’t perish, just as those in the Old Testament did not perish if they looked to the bronze serpent.”

The Most Famous Verse in the New Testament

We come now to John 3:16—there is something unusual about the Bible I am using here: It is a red-letter edition. I do not know who invented the idea of a red-letter Bible. I did not order this Bible because I wanted a red-letter edition. But the idea is that they write in red what was said by Jesus.

I notice that almost the whole page is in red. Verse 15 is in red, as is verse 16. Have you ever heard of John 3:16? Good. In this Bible, it is in red letters, and I do not think it ought to be. I do not think that Jesus said to Nicodemus, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him”—I do not think He said that.

Jesus may have said that, but it is difficult to tell where in the text Jesus stops talking and John’s editorial comments begin. Usually, commentators see John 3:16 as an editorial comment made by John as he recounts this episode. That does not make it any less the Word of God or any less true because John says it rather than Jesus. I am just saying, in all likelihood, this is John speaking, not Jesus.

Let us look at what John or Jesus says in verse 16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” This is surely the most famous verse in the New Testament. It is the one that people dye their hair all different colors so people will look and then they hold up on signs at sporting events with this verse, John 3:16. It is probably the most distorted verse in the New Testament, because people who love the universality of this verse hate the particularity of this verse.

John 3:16 begins by saying something about the love of God and the object of His affection. “God so loved” what? The world. Let me finish this for you according to the contemporary understanding of John 3:16: “God so loved the world that He gave Christ and saves everyone in the world.” People draw from this text a doctrine of universal salvation, that God loves the world so much that He saves everyone.

Obviously, that is not what the text says. Those who are particularists and Arminians say that God loved the world enough to provide a way of salvation for everyone in it. Sometimes this text is used to say, “Let’s get rid of this doctrine of election and predestination.” John 3 does not say that either. What John 3 says is that God’s love is so deep and so profound that He loved the world enough to send His only begotten Son.

Only One Savior

Let me tell you what John 3:16 does not mean. God did not love the world enough to send four saviors—Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius—yet our culture tells us that if God were really loving, He would provide avatars galore. He would provide a smorgasbord of salvation, where everyone can believe their own religion, and that is okay because God loves the whole world enough that He is not so narrow-minded, so exclusive as to require faith in Christ.

Does the Bible not say that God loves the world? Yes, the Bible says that He loves the world. He loves the world how much? Enough to send His monogenēs, His one and only Son. I warn people that at the end of their life, as they stand before God, they should not say, “God, why were you not loving enough to provide fifteen saviors for the world?”

Can anyone read the story of Christ against the background of fallen humanity, the constant opposition to God the Father that is raised by fallen creatures in His world? I tell people to consider this scenario: Suppose there actually is a God in heaven, and suppose this God created the whole world and everyone in it. Suppose among the birds and the fish and the animals, He gave the most exalted position in all of creation to human beings, those to whom He gave His image. He says to them, “You will be holy, even as I am holy.”

Suppose that fifteen minutes after God makes them, they revolt against Him. After He says, “If you do this, you will die,” and they do it, He says, “I’ll tell you what: I’m going to provide a way to escape that judgment.” He speaks to Abraham, brings him out of paganism to Himself, and says, “I’m going to make you the father of a great nation.”

Suppose He does that. He blesses all the descendants of Abraham and expands them into a whole nation. He says, “Through this nation I’m going to bless the whole world,” but the nation repeatedly turns against God. So, God sends prophets to these people and tells them to come back to Him as an unfaithful spouse returns to their partner—and they kill the prophets.

Finally, God says, “I’ll tell you what: I love you so much that even though you are a stiff-necked people, I’m going to send My eternal, only begotten Son into this planet, and I’m going to subject Him to you.”

He sends His Son, and the people rise up against His Son and crucify Him. Yet, God loves them enough that while they’re in the act of killing Him, God takes the sins of His people and transfers them to His own Son. He says, “If you’ll put your trust in Him, if you’ll confess your sins and believe in Him, if you turn your gaze upon Jesus, you will have no ultimate death and no punishment. I’m going to give you eternal life with no pain, no tears, no evil, and no darkness.”

Suppose God did all of that. Would you have the audacity to come up to God and say, “God, You haven’t done enough for this world that hates You”?

Are you one who gets angry when you hear there’s only one way to God? The question is, Why should there be one way to God? The question is not, Why is there only one? The real question is, Why is there one at all? God loves the world enough to send the only One. He does not love the world enough to say you can ignore the only One. We need to understand that, because everything in our culture says, “If God only provides one way of salvation, one Savior, then God doesn’t really love the world.”

Think about the depths of love that God has displayed by giving us Christ, beside whose name Muhammad, Buddha, Confucius, or anyone else are not worthy to be mentioned. God has one Son, who from all eternity beheld the glory of the Father. Yet, as the creeds say, for us and for our salvation, He came from the bosom of the Father to be lifted up on a cross, that anyone who puts their trust in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Children of Darkness

“For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” Then verse 18: “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already.” If you do not put your faith and trust in Christ, you are like one of those people in the Old Testament who has been bitten by a snake, writhing on the desert floor in the wilderness, and there is no serpent pole for you to look at. You will die, and you will perish in your sins if you do not embrace the One whom God has sent. John continues:

He who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.

Do you understand? This is our natural state. We are in the darkness, and there is nothing that terrifies us more than the appearance of light. But Jesus is introduced as the light of the world in the very first chapter of this gospel, and this light shines into the darkness. The light shines into people who are groveling in pain, perishing in their sin, and who love the darkness because their deeds are evil.

That is our nature, we are told. We are by nature children of darkness. It is against the nature of a child of darkness to come to the light because we know what the light represents. It represents exposure. It represents humiliation.

Do you know the story about the man who sent a letter to twenty-five men in his town? “All has been exposed. Flee at once.” Twenty-five men left town. What would happen if you got a letter like that? “All is exposed. Flee at once.”

Even as Christians, we still have that tug at our hearts to look for a place to hide in the darkness, rather than seek the light of Christ. God said: “This is My condemnation. I sent the light, but you did not want the light. But all who are of the light, who come to the light, who embrace the light, will not perish but have everlasting life.” In a nutshell, that is the gospel Nicodemus heard in the darkness of the night. Let us pray.

Father, You have lifted up Your Son upon the cross for us, and then You have lifted Him into heaven. Father, we lift high the cross because we turn our eyes upon Jesus, for by gazing at Him and trusting in Him, we are redeemed. Father, we know that He is Your only begotten. There are no others. Give us fidelity to Him. For we ask it in His name. Amen.

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.