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by Woodrow Oliver

21 June 2006

 

Galatians 2:20:  I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.  Paul came to the point in his ministry that he could say that he only preached Christ and him crucified (1 Cor 1:23), and did not want to know anything but Christ crucified (1 Cor 2:2).  What was Paul teaching about the cross that we need to know today?  Whatever it was had brought him to believe that the Son of God loved him and gave himself for him, and resulted in Paul living by the faith of Christ.

 

This study combines and updates three old ones, which includes addressing of what the brass serpent is a figure (Num 21:8-9) and what it means for an individual to take up their cross and follow Christ.

 

The Serpent

 

Gen 3:1: Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?  Sin began because of a subtle, crafty, sly snake, and sin will be purged from this planet when the serpent is cast in the lake of fire at the end (Rev 20:2, 10).  Meanwhile, we have to deal with the serpent, or serpents, and the only way we can is to understand what it is, or represents.

 

Many of the characteristics of a serpent fit the human nature: A snake makes itself crooked to move on the earth; their dens are in holes in the earth; most have excellent eye sight, but not ears to hear; they kill prey by poison or suffocation.

 

Eve=s mind was corrupted by the craftiness of the serpent (2 Cor 11:3), and Jesus referred to the religious leaders of his day as serpents, a generation of vipers (Mt 23:33).  Notice how this Psalm describes the wicked: Ps 58:1-5:  1. Do ye indeed speak righteousness, O congregation? do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men? 2. Yea, in heart ye work wickedness; ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth. 3. The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies. 4.  Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that stops her ear; 5. Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely. (Cf Ps 140:1-5).  So, the serpent is a figure or type of something very deadly.  Someone suggested that it represented evil.  Defining it more closely, it is the nature of a person separated from God.

 

Jesus said: Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: (Mt 23:34).  The righteous are always persecuted by the spiritually dead.  Mk 16:18: They (the righteous) shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them...  Because truth seekers will not accept poisonous doctrines based on traditions of man, nor will they allow religions to squeeze out of them (suffocate) the Spirit of God, they become targets of character assassination, and even physical harm.

 

Jer 46:20, 22: 20 Egypt is like a very fair heifer, but destruction comes; it comes out of the north.  22 The voice thereof shall go like a serpent; for they shall march with an army, and come against her with axes, as hewers of wood.   Egypt, a type for the world, is like a fair heifer compared to the corrupt understanding of Babylon, today, a type of corrupt religious thinking.  Pr 23:31‑32:  Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his color in the cup, when it moves itself aright. 32 At the last it bites like a serpent, and stings like an adder.  The stinging poison of the serpent is a type of the wine (teachings) of Babylon.  Her confused teachings are like the voice of the serpent, full of poison, which destroy the soul.  Rev 18:3:  For all nations (denominations) have drunk of the wine (doctrine) of the wrath of her fornication (adultery against God), and the kings of the earth (those following their own way) have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth (spiritual teachers with human understanding) are waxed rich (in self=s knowledge, not God=s) through the abundance of her delicacies.  The great city, Babylon, is a woman (Rev 17:5), is a mind-set of evil.  We were born with a sin nature, so all have sinned and come short of the Glory of God (Rom 3:23).  However, God provided a way into the Kingdom through His only-begotten son.

 

The Brass Serpent

 

The way God provided is presented with a positive aspect of a serpent in an experience of Israel while in the wilderness. The people began to complain against Moses and God about the way they had to travel (Num 21:4-6), and the Lord sent fiery serpents among them, so that many died from snake-bite.  When the people began to repent, God instructed Moses to, 8. ...Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looks upon it, shall live. 9. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.

 

Copper is molten out of rock and mixed with other metals to make brass, or bronze as it is often called today. This impure metal is a type of impure thoughts derived from earthly concepts (rocks).  Impure thoughts bring us into bondage to sin which war against the soul, and manifest conflict with others, even literal war, all of which bring much suffering.  If a serpent is a type for evil and brass is impure thoughts, why would looking at a brass serpent on a pole cure a snake bite?

 

Jn 12:31-33: 31. Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. 32. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. 33. This he said, signifying what death he should die.  Jn 3:14:  And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: The prince of the world about to be cast out was the >old man=, the sin nature passed down from Eve, the mother of all living.  Jesus carried the sin nature of humanity (Rom 8:3; Heb 2:14-18), yet without sin, and he put it to death on the cross.  At the cross, Jesus became author and finisher of our faith (Heb 12:2; 5:8-9).  Life is in the Son, hear him!

 

Take Up Your Cross

 

Lk 9:23: And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take ⁽¹⁴²⁾ up his cross daily, and follow me.  From the Greek Interlinear: ...If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and let him lift ⁽¹⁴²⁾ up the cross of him daily, and let him follow me. All humanity has been >snake-bit=, and by looking at, and considering the cross we can live.  In type, we lift the Son of man into the heavens and look at his sacrifice from the Father=s perspective.  How does this help? By realizing that the Father loves us as much as His son, and has never condemned us (Jn 3:16; 2 Cor 5:19).  The Son gave his own life in our behalf because of the joy set before him (Heb 12:2).  What was that joy?  Jesus understood from his Father that by his sacrifice humanity would be able to see and experience the Father=s love as did he.  By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities (crookedness) (Isa 53:11), and with his stripes we are healed (Ibid verse 5).