John 12:22-32.

The Saviour. "If I Be Lifted Up"

Introduction.

These words of Jesus our Saviour are well known among the believing church of God. What do they mean and to whom are they addressed? What relevance have they today before we go into that let ask you to please turn whit me to some more verses which related to this one and the subject that we are looking at.

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. -John 3:14-15

So the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died. Therefore 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 fromus." 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, whenhe looked at the bronze serpent he lived. -Numbers 21:6-9.

When Christ, in John 12:32, alluded to Moses lifting up the serpent, He was referring to this passage in Numbers 21. In both cases, the purpose was to save men from perishing. When 'the effects of the serpent’s bite go unchecked, it means the death of the body; and when sin is left unpardoned and uncleansed from the heart it spells the ruin of the soul. Christ is lifted up so that sinners, believing in Him, should not perish but have eternal life."

In this context, "Perish" cannot mean annihilation, Rather, it must be the opposite of "eternal life," which is clearly much more than eternal existence. Eternal life must be eternal happiness-real life in the sense of exquisite enjoyment. The counterpart of this, eternal misery, falls under the term "'Perish." It is common in the Scriptures to find a state of endless misery contrasted with one of endless happiness. In examining this subject, we can see two points of similarity between the bronze serpent and Christ.

First, Christ must be lifted up as the serpent was in 'the wilderness. Look more closely at the passage from John 12: "And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself, This He said, signifying by what death He would die" (vv. 32-33). It is obvious that this refers to Christ's being raised up from the earth upon His cross at His crucifixion.

Second, Christ must be held up as a remedy for sin, even as the bronze serpent was held up as a remedy for a Poison. It is not uncommon in the Bible to see sin represented as an illness. For this illness, Christ had healing power. He claimed throughout His ministry, to be able to forgive sin and to cleanse the soul from its moral pollution. He continually claimed to have this power and encouraged men to rely upon Him and to resort to Him for its application. In all His personal instructions, He was careful to hold Himself up as having this power, and as capable of providing a remedy for sin. (See, for example, Matthew 9:2-7.) A fact, and a claim that the religious of the day frowned upon.

In this respect, the bronze serpent was a type of Christ. Whoever looked upon this serpent was healed. In the same way, Christ heals not only from punishment, for the analogy of healing is less pertinent to this-but also and especially from sinning. He heals the heart from its tendency to sin; He heals the soul and restores it to health. So it was said by the announcing angel, "You shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins" (Matt. 1-21). His power avails to cleanse and purify the soul.

1. Christ Our Remedy

1. A Sure Remedy.

Both Christ and the bronze serpent were held up as a remedy, and let it be noted that both were held up as a full and adequate remedy. The ancient Hebrews, bitten by fiery serpents, were not to mix up medicines of their own invention to help out the cure. It was all-sufficient for them to look up to the remedy that God had provided. God wanted them to understand that the healing was altogether His own work. The serpent on a pole was the only external object connected with their cure; they were to look to this, and in this simple way, only by an expecting look, indicative of simple faith they were to receive their cure.

2.. A Present Remedy.

Christ is to be lifted up as a present remedy. So was the serpent. The cure that came about then was present, immediate. It involved no delay.

3. The Appointed Remedy.

This bronze serpent was God's appointed remedy. Christ, too, is a remedy, appointed by God, sent down from heaven for this specific purpose. It was indeed as much in divine purposes and plan that God appointed a bronze serpent for such a time as that. It is no less wonderful that Christ was lifted up in agony as a remedy for both the punishment for sin and the power of sin over the heart.

The bronze serpent was a divinely certified remedy, not a human concoction with a high sounding name, but a remedy prepared and brought forth by God Himself, under His own guarantee of its ample healing powers. So was Christ. The Father testifies to the perfect adequacy of Jesus Christ as a remedy for sin. Jesus Christ must now be held up from the pulpit as one crucified for the sins of men. His great power to save lies in His atoning death. If anyone or anything else is held up it not only robs God of the glory but it will result in confusion of mind and heart and in the destruction of the soul.

Now this is very important to note. The account has to do with whom? The pagans or Gentile nations? No. It has to do with His, own chosen people. However applicable it might be to the lost this account should be embraced and lessons learned by His own people. Now, He must not only be held up from the pulpit, but this exhibition of His person and work must also be endorsed, not contradicted, by the experience of those who behold Him. Let me explain.

Suppose that, in Moses' time, many who looked upon the bronze serpent were seen to be still dying. Who could have believed the declaration of God through Moses, that "everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live"? Undoubtedly, the Hebrews had many living witnesses who had been bitten and bore the scars of those wounds, but who had been healed by looking. Every such case confirmed the faith of the people in God's word and in His power to save. It is the same with the Gospel. Christ must be represented in His fullness, and this representation should be powerfully endorsed by the experience of His friends. Christ presents Himself as One ready and willing to save. Therefore, this is the thing to be shown. must be sustained by the testimony of His living witnesses.

2. The Look of Faith

As the first point of similarity is the lifting up of the object to be looked upon, the second is the looking itself.

Men looked upon the serpent, expecting divine power to heal them. Even those ancient men, in that comparatively Dark Age, understood that the serpent was only a type, not the cause of salvation in itself.

There is something very remarkable in the relationship of faith to healing. Take, for example, the case of the woman who had a flow of blood. She had heard something about Jesus and somehow had caught the idea that if she could only touch the hem of His garment; she would be made whole. (See Luke 8:43-48.) Imagine her pressing her way along through the crowd, faint with weakness, pale, and trembling. If you had seen her, you would perhaps have cried out, "What will this poor dying invalid do?"

She knew what she was trying to do. Unnoticed by all, she reached the spot where the Holy One stood. She put forth her feeble hand and touched His garment. Suddenly He turned around and asked, "Who touched Me?" (v. 45). The disciples, astonished at such a question under such circumstances, replied, 'Master, the multitudes throng and press You, and You say, 'Who touched Me?'" (v. 45).

The fact was, somebody had touched Him with faith to be healed, and He knew that the healing power had gone forth from Himself to some believing heart. How beautiful an illustration this is of simple faith! And how wonderful the connection between the faith and the healing! In the same way, the Hebrews received that wonderful healing power by simply looking toward the bronze serpent. No doubt this was a great miracle and a mystery to them, yet it was no less a fact. Let them look; the looking brought the cure, although not one of them could tell how the healing power came. Likewise, we are to look to Christ and in looking, to receive the healing power. It does not matter how little we understand the mode by which the looking gives us the remedy for sin.

Looking Away from Ourselves

This looking to Jesus implies that we look away from ourselves. There is to be no mixing up of counterfeit medicines with the great remedy. Such a course is always sure to fail. Thousands fail in just this way, forever trying to be healed partly by their own stupid, self-willed works, as well as partly by Jesus Christ. There must be no looking to man or to any of man's doings or man's help. All dependence must be on Christ alone. This is true not only in reference to pardon for sin, but also in reference to sanctification.

Sanctification is accomplished by faith in Christ. It is only through faith that you get the divine influence or power- that comes by the Spirit of God- which sanctifies the soul; and this divine power, in some of its manifestations, was the power that healed the Hebrews in the wilderness.

Looking to Christ implies looking away from ourselves in the sense of not relying at all on our own works for the cure desired, not even on works of faith. The looking is toward Christ alone as our all-prevalent, all-sufficient, and present Remedy.

There is a constant tendency in Christians to depend on their own doings, and not on simple faith in Christ. The woman who had the flow of blood seemed to have toiled many years to find relief before she came to Christ. No doubt she had tried everybody's prescriptions and had taxed her own ingenuity to its utmost capacity, but all was of no avail. At last she heard of Jesus. He was said to do many wonderful works. She said within herself, "This must be the promised Messiah, who was to bear our sicknesses and heal all the diseases of men. Oh, let me rush to Him, for if I may just touch the hem of His garment, I will be whole." She did not stop to philosophize upon the mode of the cure; she depended on no man's philosophy and had none of her own. She simply said, "I have heard of One who is mighty to save, and I will hurry to Him."

The same is true of being healed of our sins. Losing hope of all help in ourselves or in any other name than Christ's, and being assured that there is power in Him to work out the cure, we expect it of Him, and we go to Him in order to obtain it.

Has anyone ever come to you with the question, "Can I be saved from my sins-actually saved-so that I will not fall again into the same sins, and under the same temptations?" What would reply be? I believe that both the truth and the terrible tragedy lies in the words of Christ that we have read in our text.

Let me ask you a simple question, "Have you ever tried looking to Jesus?" "Yes." "But have you expected that you will be actually saved from sin by looking to Jesus, and will be filled with faith, love, and holiness?" "No, I did not expect that."

Now suppose someone had looked at the bronze serpent as a kind of experiment. He had no faith in what God said about being cured by looking, but he was inclined to try it. He looked a little and paid attention to his feelings, to see how it affected him. He did not believe God's word, but since he did not absolutely know whether it was true or false, he agreed to try it. This is not looking at all in the sense of our text. This would not have cured the bitten Israelite; it cannot heal the poor sinner. There is no faith in it. Sinners must look to Christ, with both the desire and the intention of being saved. Salvation is the thing for which they look. Suppose one had looked toward the bronze serpent, but with no willingness or intention to be cured. This would have done him no good. Nor can it do sinners or erring saints any good to think of Christ except as a Savior, and a Savior for their own sins.

All sinners must look to Christ as a remedy for all sin. To wish to make some exception, sparing some sins but agreeing to abandon others, indicates pure rebellion of the heart. This approach can never move the All-seeing One. There cannot be honesty in the heart that seeks deliverance from sin only in part. Are you such a one? Do you find yourself making the excuse that it is up to God and everyone else to change but not you!

Sinners may look to Christ at once, without the least delay. They need not wait until they are almost dead under their illness. For the bitten Israelite, it was of no use to delay his looking to the serpent until he found himself in the jaws of death. He might have said, "I am clearly wounded, but I do not see much swelling yet; I do not feel the poison spreading through my system. I cannot look at the bronze serpent yet, for my personal situation is not yet desperate enough. I could never hope to receive mercy of the Lord in my present condition; therefore, I must wait." There would have been no need for such delay in this case. Nor is there any need for it in the sinner's case now.

We must look to Christ for blessings promised -not to works, but to faith. It is interesting to see how many mistakes are made on this point. Many people think that there must be great mental agony, long periods of fasting, many bitter tears, and strong crying for mercy before deliverance can be looked for. They don’t seem to know that all their displays of grief and distress can do no good, because such displays are not simple faith or any part of faith. Indeed, grief and distress are in no way needed in order to gain the sympathies of the Savior. Suppose under the serpent-plague of the wilderness, men had concocted fake remedies, creating various gauzes, ointments, and purifiers of the blood. All this treatment could do no good, for there was only one effective cure: if a man were bitten and knew it, he needed only to look to the bronze serpent for his cure.

The case of the sinner is similar. If one is a sinner and knows it, he is prepared to come to Jesus. It will do him no good to go about getting counterfeit prescriptions or mixing up remedies of his own, when God has already provided the great Remedy. Yet many people have a constant tendency toward this very thing, toward relying on a variety of counterfeit spiritual remedies. See how the sinner toils and agonizes! He would circle heaven and earth to work out his own salvation, in his own way, to his own credit, by his own works. See how he worries himself in the multitude of his own plans! Before he arrives at simple faith, he finds himself in the deep mire of despair. "Alas," he cries, "there can be no hope for me! Oh, my soul is lost!"

But at last the gleam of light breaks through the thick darkness, and the sinner declares, "Possibly Jesus can help me! If He can, then I will live, but not otherwise, for surely there is no help for me but in Him. " There he is in his despair-bowed down in weariness of soul and worn out ith his vain attempts to help himself in other ways. Now the sinner looks for help from above. "There is nothing else I can do but cast myself utterly, -in all my hopelessness, upon Jesus Christ. Will He receive me? Perhaps He will, and that is enough for me to know." The sinner thinks a little further, "Perhaps, yes, perhaps He will. No, more than that, I think He will, for they tell me He has done so for other sinners. I think He will-yes, I know He will-and here's my guilty heart! I will trust Him-yes, 'though He slay me, yet will I trust Him' (Job 13:15)."

Have any of you experienced anything like this? Perhaps He will admit my plea, Perhaps will hear my prayer.

This is as far as the sinner can dare to go at first, but there is no need for any perhaps. Soon you hear him crying out, "Christ says He will; I must believe Him!" Then faith gets hold and rests on promised faithfulness, and, before he is aware, the sinner's soul is "like the chariots of Amminadib" (Song 6:12), and he finds his heart full of peace and joy as one on the borders of heaven.