"deliver him to the Gentiles, to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him." And with full consciousness of this termination of his earthly ministry, he declared to Nicodemus, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up." The prophecy, thus delivered by Christ, appears also to illustrate the previous narrative of the sacred volume. There seems to be no assignable connection, between the lifting up of a brasen serpent, and the cure of those who had been bitten. It is not necessary to suppose, as some have done, that looking upon the serpent of brass would have naturally aggravated the deadly symptoms. But it is evident, that to cast a look upon such a representation had no intrinsic effect in producing the cure. To account for the benefit received, it might be sufficient to refer to the uncontrollable will of God, who will have mercy upon whom he will have mercy, by the means which his sovereign wisdom dictates. But it has pleased him, even in his miraculous acts, often to render his ways in some degree visible and intelligible: to work by means, to which He has attached some ordinary efficacy. To purify the waters of Marah by casting into them a tree," or those of Matt. xx. 18, 19. u Exod. xv. 25. Jericho by infusing salt; to heal a leprosy by washing in the waters of Jordan,' or a grievous boil by the application of a vegetable preparation, were all instances, among many others, in which the immediate power of God was exhibited by preternaturally augmenting the effect of the natural means employed. Upon other occasions, the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man was immediately answered, by the cure of the sick, or the restoration of the dead to life the blessing, ordinarily promised to the prayer of faith, being thus increased, and bestowed in an extraordinary manner. But in the desert it pleased the Almighty to appoint an instrument, which in itself had manifestly no influence in producing the cure. The thing which the wounded Israelites saw could never save them. If the serpent had no reference to any future event, there is no apparent connection between the means and the end. If we conceive it to have designedly prefigured the lifting up of Christ upon the cross, this connection is supplied. Although they who were bitten could not be cured by the thing which they saw, they might be, and on this supposition they were, cured by Him who is the Saviour of all. * 2 Kings ii. 21. y 2 Kings v. 14. Isai. xxxviii. 21. From the mode, then, in which Christ introduces the mention of the brasen serpent, from the manner in which the very peculiar prophecy of his own death is connected with it, from the accurate resemblance in the external circumstances, and from the absence of all other assignable connection between the means employed and the cure effected, it seems highly probable, that the lifting up of the serpent in the wilderness, was intended to prefigure the lifting up of the Son of man. The conclusion, thus deduced from the correspondence in the external acts of the two events, is confirmed by the similarity in the effects which were produced, expressly pointed out by Christ: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life." By the sin of our first parents, all mankind were far gone from original righteousness. In Adam all died. The sting of death, sin, was deeply fixed in our nature; and man lay exposed to the wrath of God, unable, by his own power, to raise himself from this state of misery aptly represented by the fainting Israelites, extended upon the desert, dying with the mortal bite of the fiery serpents. But behold the mercy and loving-kindness of God. While we were yet sinners, God sent into the world the promised seed of the woman, who should bruise the serpent's head. He gave his own Son to be made sin for us, although himself without sin," to take upon him our nature, to pass a life of privation and suffering; to bear our griefs and carry our sorrows; to be despised, and rejected, and buffeted, and scourged, and to suffer death upon the cross: that as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so the Son of man should be lifted up; and that when so lifted up, he should draw all men unto him. And the means, by which, as in Adam all died, even so in Christ all should be made alive, were precisely similar to those by which the brasen serpent, erected by Moses, was made efficacious to heal the Israelites. It was an act of faith, to which the wisdom of God attached an exclusive blessing. No other remedy was provided for the wounded Israelites, than to look upon the sign which Moses lifted up. Salvation is now proposed by no other means than by faith in the blood of Christ, who was in like manner lifted up upon the cross. All who looked upon the serpent of brass lived. All who believe in Christ shall not perish, but have eternal life. They who tempted and rebelled a 2 Cor. v. 21. against Christ in the wilderness, were destroyed of the serpents." They who now tempt and rebel against him, by neglecting his revealed word, have no promise, and, therefore, can have no ground for hope, that they will be enabled effectually to resist "that old serpent, which deceiveth the whole world." C Without pursuing the comparison by a deduction of any more minute coincidences, these resemblances are sufficient to shew a remarkable correspondence, between the effects produced by the elevation of the serpent in the wilderness, and the lifting up of Christ upon the cross. And the correspondence, being predicted by Christ himself, arises from no ingenious accommodation of circumstances accidentally similar. Christ, while delivering an undoubted prophecy, clearly fulfilled, points out the lifting up of the serpent in the wilderness, and the cure performed by it, as an event to which the circumstances and consequences of his own death should be like. In order, therefore, to fulfil the prophecy, as it was fulfilled, the two series of events were, by the Providence of God, to be made to correspond. And it is difficult to conceive any correspondence, unless, either the serpent, when it was so lifted up, intentionally prefigured the future death of Christ upon b 1 Cor. x. 9. Rev. xii. 9. |