The older book
The Serpent
This is a weird story.
As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.
Genesis 3:1-19 · Numbers 21:4-9 · John 3:14-16 · John 12:32-33
The scene
There is no point pretending this isn't strange.
Israel is travelling through the wilderness when the people become impatient and start speaking against God and Moses. They complain that they have been brought out of Egypt to die and say they hate the food God has given them.
Then Yahweh sends venomous snakes among them.
The Israelites realise what they have done.
"We have sinned, because we have spoken against Yahweh and against you."Numbers 21:7
They ask Moses to pray that God will take the snakes away, and Moses does.
God gives a strange answer. People are dying from snakebite and he tells Moses to make a serpent and put it on a pole.
Moses obeys. He makes the serpent out of bronze, puts it on a pole, and when someone is bitten and looks at it, they live.
If that were the end of the story, I don't think any of us would have guessed what God was doing.
But centuries later, Jesus is talking to Nicodemus and brings up this strange old story.
"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
And then comes the verse almost everybody knows:
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only born Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life."John 3:16
John 3:16 doesn't appear out of nowhere. It comes immediately after Jesus has brought up dying people looking at what Moses lifted up and living.
In the wilderness, serpents bring death to rebellious people. God tells Moses to lift up a serpent, and dying people look at it and live.
Then Jesus says that is the picture he wants us to use to understand what will happen to him.
The point
As Moses lifted up the serpent, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.John 3:14
Sit with this
Look and live.