NUMBERS 21

[Josh]

Post your comments and questions about Numbers chapter 21 as replies to this post.

[Josh]

The story of the Bronze Snake in Numbers 21:4-9 has several cool extensions, parallels, and applications to the New Covenant in Christ.

First off, in the beginning of the chapter (Numbers 21:1-3), God grants this new generation a victory against their enemies. If you recall, God was pretty tolerant of these greenhorn’s complaints about water in the previous chapter. But after this military success, I sense that God is expecting them to begin to step out in faith. Instead, they begin to complain again, and this time there are dire consequences in the form of deadly snakes.

The suffering inflicted by the snakes brings about the repentance of the people, who look to Moses for their salvation. God instructs Moses to do something somewhat unusual: construct a bronze snake, hang it on a pole, and have the Israelites look to it for their healing.

Snakes in the ancient world represented both death and healing. We find a very interesting parallel to this story in Greek mythology where Asclepius was said to heal others by the same method. Asclepius’ rod is in fact the symbol of the American medical association and other medically related groups.

To the Hebrews, of course, the snake had another meaning as well, representing the vehicle through which evil was first brought into this world. Satan is pictured several times in the Scripture as a serpent.

So, here are some questions about this passage that I’ll be addressing on Sunday:

What is it that is really bringing about the healing in this passage- God, faith, or the bronze serpent?

Isn’t the idea of a bronze serpent idolatrous in the first place?

Why use a snake, the symbol of evil, to heal God’s people?

How did Jesus see this passage as prophetic of His mission?

What does this passage say about the life of the Church?

More lata….

[Josh]

So, picking up where I left off, I'll try to summarize the points I made on Sunday for those who missed it or for those who have further thoughts (or for future use-- you know, 30 years from now when we go back through Numbers):

What is it that is really bringing about the healing in this passage- God, faith, or the bronze serpent? Isn’t the idea of a bronze serpent idolatrous in the first place?

On Sunday we talked about how God likes to use physical things-- tangible created things like water, rocks, bronze snakes, etc.. to serve as points of contact for his miraculous work. I borrowed loosely from Catholic terminology and talked about sacraments and sacramentals.

Sarcaments are physical rituals/ ordinances wherein God promises to routinely make contact with us or bestow daily grace on us through. At the least we would put Communion and Baptism in this category, but could include other physical expressions of our faith in which God consistantly shows up (fasting, certain kinds of prayer, etc..)

Sacramentals would be mundane, everyday, physical actions or objects things which on certain occasions God uses as points of contact for healing, conviction, prayer, and other expressions of his power. These are things that God has not promised us He will always act through, but things through which He chooses to act on special occasions. In Scripture we might look to talking donkeys (later on in Numbers), or healing handkerchiefs (Acts), or bronze snakes. I used the example of how the wooden sword Sarah and Brian gave me served as a sacramental to me (and has on several occasions)- at certain times God has conveyed a fresh dose of grace to me through it, though I know better than to always expect God to use that medium or to begin to think magically about that medium.

I think that's what we have here with the bronze snake. God chose a physical object to serve as a sacramental to the Israelites- an object which would have symbolic power to it (as we'll see in a moment).

In regard to Sacramentals, some Christians take extreme stands. Some reject the notion of sacramentals altogether, seeing them as idolatrous. Thus, you see some branches of Christianity eschew crosses or even sacred art as idolatrous. The danger there is a false dichotomy between the spiritual and the physical- as if God is only interested in our souls and only reveals himself to us in some cerebral way, and not through the everyday physical objects around us.

On the other hand, other Christians go so far the other way that they begin to attribute too much power to particular items or rituals, expecting that God will always act a certain way if we do a certain thing to the point of it all degenerating into a magical transaction. I can think of some examples coming out of extreme forms of the Word of Faith movement where the focus is more on the power of our words than the sovreignty of God, or the focus might be on the latest ritual craze, whether it be smearing blood on your doorpost, the sending in of a love gift, or patting your head while hopping on one leg.

Interestingly, though God used the bronze serpent powerfully in this passage, 2 Kings 18:1-4 relates to us how the Israelites eventually ended up using this very same bronze snake in an idolatrous way. You see, they took a sacramental and turned it into a magical fixation devoid of relationship with God.

In short, God uses many mediums to speak to us, to heal us, to convict us, but beyond the clear sacraments we need to realize that just because He acts through an object or action in one instance doesn't mean He will always act that way through that medium.

Ultimately, faith and reliance on God are much more important than the medium, although openness to God using anything to affect us is a mark of healthy faith.

[Josh]

How did Jesus see this passage as prophetic of His mission?

In John 3:1-21, Jesus says that just like the bronze serpent was lifted up for the healing of the Israelites, so he too must be lifted up for the salvation of the world. The paraellels are strak: rod= cross, lifted up= crucified. Jesus clearly saw this passage as pointing ultimately to him.

But, why use a snake, the symbol of evil, to heal God’s people?

This is fascinating, in my opinion.

So, the snake, as we've established, represented sin and death in Scripture. See Genesis 3 and 1 Cor. 15:56-67 for more on that. If that's true, then how could a snake represent Christ on the cross. I think our answer is found in 2 Cor. 5:17-21, esp. verse 21:

17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Here we see that Jesus became sin for us on the cross. How more powerful of a foreshadowing of this fact can we have than for God to ask Moses to make the symbol of the Israelites healing a snake dangling from a rod!

Further comments/ questions?

Next I'll post a thought or two on what this all means for us as the Church.