The Son of Man Must Be Lifted Up
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Are you one of those that gets angry when you hear there's only one way to God? The question is, why should there be one, not why is there only one? It's why is there one at all? Well, God loves the world enough to send the only one. He doesn't love the world enough to say you can ignore the only one.
You have heard that complaint, haven't you? That it's not fair that there's only one way. That it's arrogant for the Christian to make that claim. But it's not arrogant. It's the truth. And it's a loving thing to tell a fallen sinner. Hi, I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and welcome to the Sunday edition of Renewing Your Mind. As we come to the final sermon in this short series from John's Gospel, we continue Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus, in which he tells him that the Son of Man must be lifted up. And we come to the famous and often misunderstood text, John 3.16. As this is the final time that we'll be in, John, it's also the final day that you can request R.C. Sproul's commentary on John. Before midnight tonight, give a year-end gift of any amount in support of Renewing Your Mind at renewingyourmind.org, and we'll get this hardcover volume to you as our way of saying thank you. Every gift between now and December 31st makes a difference and will be used to help fuel the global outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Well, here's Dr. Sproul in John chapter 3.
Now, Jesus, in this discussion with Nicodemus, uses this title, Son of Man. And He's saying to Nicodemus, Nicodemus, you're talking to the One who has come down from heaven. You are talking to the Son of Man in person, and you don't understand these basic truths that my Father has revealed in the Old Testament. And now after having this claim, he answers the question that Nicodemus had raised, how can these things be? And Jesus now directs him back to the pages of the Old Testament when He says in verse 14, 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. Well, this reference back to an event that took place in the wilderness experience with the Israelites in the Old Testament is recorded for us in the book of Numbers. In Numbers chapter 21, beginning at verse 4, then they journeyed from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom. And the soul of the people became very discouraged along the way. Does that sound familiar?
That's the daily description of the attitude of the children of Israel during the wilderness experience. And so the people spoke against God and against Moses. saying, why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There's no food, no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread. And so the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, and many of the people of Israel died. You get the picture. God has delivered these people from slavery, from bondage. He's now provided for their physical needs supernaturally with the manna on the floor. And now these people are so ungrateful that they begin to speak against God and they speak against Moses and they say, why have you brought us out of Egypt? Why have you brought us to this terrible place, this dreadful wilderness, terrible desert with this stinking manna that has become loathsome to us? that we have to collect every day in order to live.
And so God responds to this rebellion of His people by sending a plague on them. This time the plague's not against the Egyptians, it's against them. He sends an infestation of poisonous snakes whose venom is described as being like fire. I mean, I don't know if you've ever contemplated this particular episode in redemptive history. I can't think of a few things that are worse than imagining being just thrown into a pit of vipers where all around me are these fiery serpents, one bite of which can be fatal. It's something like out of the Raiders of the Lost Ark when you begin to graphically understand what's going on here. Therefore, the people came to Moses and said, we've made some bad choices here.
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