Sin's Poison. God's Antidote.

We’ve all been bitten by sin. All of us. You. Me. Everyone. Sometimes we know when it has dug its fangs into our flesh, and sometimes we don’t. And because its poison long ago infected our souls, we say and do things that hurt others. Sometimes deeply and irreparably. And sin’s bite is the reason others say and do things that hurts us. Sometimes deeply and irreparably. I thought of sin’s sinister nature when I read again the Lord’s comment in John’s gospel: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.” John 3:14-15. Jesus’ audience immediately recognized the historical context to which He referred. It’s from Numbers 21. Israel grumbled against God and Moses one time too many. Here’s a portion of the narrative: "The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.” When they begged Moses to intercede for them, he prayed that the Lord would remove the serpents. And the Lord told him, “Make a [bronze] fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live.” And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived.” Come back again to that passage I cited at the beginning. Jesus told His audience: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life." The Savior said what He said because He knows – better than any of us know – sin has poisoned us. It is slowly and inevitably killing us. And the ONLY antidote to its poison is the antidote God provided: Look in faith to the One God lifted up on that cross, the One who BECAME sin for us, so we could be healed of the otherwise inevitable result of sin’s poison. (See Isaiah 53, and 2 Corinthians 5:20-21). Listen! Please hear this. I repeat it for emphasis. We are slowly and inevitably dying from the bite of sin – for which there is only one remedy: Looking in faith, and following in obedience, the one God lifted up on that cross. That’s why the Savior followed His references to Moses’ bronze serpent with these words of promise: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” (John 3:16-17)