There are many stories in the bible which happened before the birth of Christ, in the old testament, which are symbolic of Jesus, the coming Messiah, and help to prophesy and pinpoint God’s plan for mankind’s redemption. One such story of the serpent of bronze.
There was a time when the people of Israel, while being led out of Egypt by Moses, sinned against God, and God punished them by sending fiery serpents to bite and kill them.
(Related: In a Multitude of Words, Sin is Not Lacking.)
The people soon repented and begged Moses to intercede on their behalf and ask God to remove the punishment. After Moses prayed, God instructed Moses to make the image of a serpent out of bronze and put it up on a pole.
(Related: God can be reasoned with.)
Whoever looked at the serpent of bronze, even though they were bitten, did not die, but were saved.
But what “scientific method” was used to save the people in this instance? None. It was a miracle from God; a salvation and healing by divine providence. When the people looked at the serpent of bronze on the pole, no medicine flew into their eyes, entered their bloodstreams, or otherwise made contact with them. It was simply the releasing of faith. And not just faith, the salvation of God, which he set up there to save whoever trusts in him.
In a similar way, Jesus, our savior, was crucified on a cross to save us from the deadly bite of the devil which he inflicted us with in the garden of Eden. This biting to the offspring of the entire human race, and all life on earth, took place when the devil deceived Adam and Eve into the first act of disobedience, into sinning, which led to diseases, death and imperfection.
(Related: The first act of sin: they didn’t hurt anyone, but they still hurt everyone.)
But God himself took up the burden of delivering his children, and those who choose to “look to the cross” for salvation from the deadly bite of the serpent. He Himself came down and gave his life as a ransom.
Today, we are invited to “look to the cross” just as the people in Moses’ time looked to the bronze serpent and were saved.
God promised on the very day when the devil, through the snake, deceived man in the garden of Eden, that “you shall bruise His heel, but He shall bruise thy head”.
(Related: Your adversary the who?)
When Jesus died on the cross, His “heel” was bruised by the devil, but the devil’s “head” was now bruised by Jesus, because he, the devil, no longer can exercise his powers of death and destruction to those who “look to the cross” for salvation, to those who put their trust in Jesus.
Did you look to the cross for salvation today?
