Jesus and the Snakes

Numbers 21:4-8 gives a seemingly odd episode from the Israelites' wanderings. The Israelites, as they often did, complained that God was just leading them around "to die in the desert," grumbling that they had no food or water. As an unusual form of punishment, God sends poisonous snakes that begin biting and killing them. After this goes on for a bit, the Israelites quickly ask Moses to pray to God to take the snakes away. Interestingly, God didn't take the snakes away; rather, He told Moses to make a "bronze snake" and put it up on a pole, and that if anyone is bitten by a snake, they could look at the bronze snake and live.

Flash forward several centuries. In John 3:1-15, Jesus is explaining to Nicodemus, a certain Pharisee who believed that Jesus had come from God, that men must be born again to enter God's Kingdom. Nicodemus asks, "How can this be?" to which Jesus tells him that since he has not understood earthly things, then neither does Jesus expect him to understand heavenly things. And then, he says something interesting in verses 14-15: "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life."

I am continually amazed by how intimately everything in the bible is connected. After some consideration, I came to the following conclusions as to the meaning of what Jesus is revealing here. Notice that in the Numbers account, God sent the snakes. Jesus prophesied that there would be many false teachers; and, given what we know about snakes in the bible, my best analysis is that these snakes are false teachers whose false instruction, their "bite," causes death. God is preparing a time of great distress to come on the earth, which will cause everyone to cry out to be saved as the Israelites did. God has lifted up Christ, so that all who will look to Him rather than to the false teachers will live, though they have been bitten by false doctrines. At that time, people will be given understanding that Nicodemus lacked, both of earthly and heavenly things.