The Place Ascends On

The initials INRI represent the Latin inscription, Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.

 

The question continues on. Is this not the same for you and me, God’s new and now Israel? We too have rebelled against Father God and our sins have come to ’bite’ us and bring us sure death. God has continued to be the Saviour of His sinful children and He has sent Messiah to bring us salvation from the death of sin. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wide, open place, for everyone to freely see the snake, high and lifted up, so too with Messiah Jesus. Messiah was lifted up in a place where all could look to Him.

This image has held me no end, for what I see, totally crushes all that I have been believing, or more accurately, what I have not been speaking, thinking and believing. In that public place, that free accessible place, accessible to all people - priest or pauper, rich or poor, male or female – all people were looking up to a dead snake. In fact when one looked at it, it was lifeless and powerless to them.

Living snakes, hundreds of them no doubt, were let loose on the ground, with power to cause all kinds of panic, destruction and even death. In stark contrast, one dead snake was lifted up on a pole, so that one doomed to destruction, one carded to die, could simply lift his or her eyes to that bronze serpent or snake and be free from the snake’s bite. Look at this part of the verse again. So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Dare you look at it with different eyes?

So Messiah Jesus, made a Beloved Son, put Himself up on a Cross. We can confidently say this because Jesus openly reported thus. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life – only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father. John 10: 17 - 18

Now look again. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived. The living truth is that we will only live also and know the salvation from the death of sin, by looking at the Sacrifice on the Cross. When Jesus spoke to Nicodemus, did He not tell him, Just as Moses lifted up the snake, does it not mean, in the same way, in like manner or in similar fashion? Moses, God’s servant lifted up a powerless, dead, helpless snake on the pole. In other words, what Moses lifted up shows a dead snake. You see, all the snakes around them were living and doing their power works against the people of God.

God brings the same image of a snake, but this one snake shows that its sting has been removed. The powerful venom of the snake to kill, has been crushed. The victory the snake once could boast of and claim, has been totally wiped away, so that it stands in full defeat. The snake the people looked up to on the pole, was one that not only saved them, but one that showed the snake defeated for life. Is this not just like the Son of God?  Raised up on the cross is sin. The dead Body of Jesus is sin, the sin of the world, which He bore in His Body.

You see, sin is all around us, living and doing evil, power works against the people of God. God brings the same image of sin, but there on the cross, its sting has been removed. The powerful venom of sin to kill, has been crushed. The victory that sin once could boast of and claim, has been totally wiped away so that the evil one stands in full defeat. The Son of Man, all covered with sin, whom people looked to and still look to, on the cross, is one that not only saves sinners, but one that shows sin, death, hell and the grave, defeated for life.

Earlier, this was quoted for us from the book of Numbers. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived. Are we to understand the same with Jesus? When anyone is bitten by sin, and looks at dead and defeated sin on the cross, will he or she live?  In the John text quoted for us, we are told this. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. Is not to believe, to look to Jesus? Are we not looking, like the saved thief on his cross of sin, to Jesus on the cross, lifted up? He was looking at Messiah full of sin, victoriously killing and devastating sin in His Body, through death.

Why have we spent all this time looking at, The place where Jesus was crucified was near the city? It is because it is the place of freedom for all sinners to have the opportunity to look to Jesus and live. Inside the holy Mecca, inside the great city of Jerusalem, inside the temple, only a certain selection and set of people will have access to the cross. But on the place outside the city, God’s salvation grace is accessible and attainable to every kind of sinner who would believe. 

The question for us all is this. What do free open places, outside holy places, do for us? It is quite common for us to see crosses and crucifixes, all over the place and even on the person of all kinds of people. When we see those places, do we turn our minds away or do we take them back to the reality of the common, public, degrading, humiliating, death of Jesus who was crucified as a common criminal? 

Never forget that it is precisely because of the public, humiliating, outside place of the cross, you and I, have the privilege to look to Jesus and live. 

May the Lord give us hearts and minds of genuine gratitude and deep humility, as we ever remember the willingness of our Loving Saviour to be placed where you and I, sinners, can have full access to Him, our Eternal Life. Amen!