Whoever believes in Him should not perish.
“No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so, must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life” – John 3:13-15.
Jesus revealed to Nicodemus that He was the Son of Man. Jesus was now sharing heavenly details with Nicodemus. He said in John 3:13, “No one has ascended into heaven but He who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.”
Jesus is the true Jacob’s Ladder (John 1:51). The story of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9) reveals our inability to reach God. The story of Bethel, where Jacob saw a ladder coming from Heaven, (Genesis 28:10-22), shows that God is reaching down to us. Jesus promises that He is the ladder. He is the one who bridges the gap between God and men (John 14:6) (1 Tim. 2:5).
No man has ascended into heaven to learn the mind of God and then descended to teach men. The Son of Man descended from heaven to earth and then back again.
Jesus told Nicodemus no man could fully know and teach these heavenly things unless He had existed eternally in heaven and then sent down to the earth to that end.
Jesus likened Himself to the ladder in Jacob’s dream. In the dream, Jacob saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching heaven. He also saw angels of God ascending and descending on the ladder.
Jesus, the Son of Man, came down from heaven to reveal heavenly things to humanity and share eternal truths with His Apostles and Nicodemus.
This verse, John 3:13, contradicts all other religious systems that claim to get special revelation directly from God. Many false religions and false teachers claim to have special revelations, teachings, and healing powers from God. Jesus presented Himself as the sole medium of communication between heaven and earth. He also proclaimed Himself as the medium of healing and life to a sinful world.
Jesus had been speaking of a rebirth, the work of God’s Holy Spirit, who sovereignly brings about new life. This rebirth comes “from above.”
If anyone could ascend into heaven, he must first descend from heaven. Only the Son of Man could return to heaven because He eternally resides there. Therefore, salvation is “from above.”
Enoch and Elias
According to the Bible, Enoch and Elijah are the only two people God took to heaven without them dying. Gen. 5:24 tells us, “Enoch walked with God; then he was no more because God took him away.” Second Kings 2:11 tells us, “Suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind.”
Nicodemus also probably thought about Enoch and Elias. Both did not experience death and were taken up to heaven by the power of God. They, however, did not return to earth to teach divine truths.
Jesus insisted that no one has ascended to heaven in such a way as to return and talk about heavenly things. Only He was in heaven before His incarnation, and, therefore, only He has the correct knowledge regarding divine truth and wisdom.
Jesus pointed to Proverbs 30:4, “Who has gone up to heaven and come down? Whose hands have gathered up the wind? Who has wrapped up the waters in a cloak? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is His name, and what is the name of His Son? Surely you know!”
Nicodemus did not know His name. He did not understand that he was sitting across from the Son of Man, the Messiah. Jesus gathered the wind in His hands and wrapped up the waters in a cloak. He established the earth.
Proverbs 30:4 is a prophetic announcement of the Messiah who came down from heaven to be the great Rabbi and Savior. He then ascended into heaven to be the Advocate. The Messiah is distinct from the Father, but His name was secret in the Old Testament – it was the name of Jesus.
Messiah comes down from heaven
Jesus declared to Nicodemus that He is the Son of Man, the Messiah. “No one has gone up but He that came down, even He who is at once both up and down.”
God became a man. He descended to earth as the Son of Man to be the “Lamb of God,” the perfect sacrifice on the cross for the sins of mankind. He would conquer death by His resurrection on the third day after His crucifixion, thus providing eternal life to His elect. He would again return to heaven.
Jesus told Nicodemus that no other men, including the leading religious leaders, were qualified to speak of heavenly things. They did not have His deity and knowledge.
While Jesus, the Son of Man, was on earth conversing with Nicodemus, He declared that He was “at the same time” in heaven. Nicodemus must have been bewildered. It was another heavenly thing that man cannot explain.
Jesus had two natures – His “divine nature” in heaven and His “human nature” on earth. He was in heaven, while on earth. He had a divine nature that was equal to God the Father.
Jesus reveals His mission to Nicodemus
So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live ( Numbers 21:9).
After Jesus shared with Nicodemus that He was the Son of Man, He also spoke about His mission in John 3:14-15. “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so, must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.”
In Numbers 21, the bronze serpent story foreshadowed the salvation that God provides by the “Son of Man.”
Jesus again used the Old Testament Scriptures to teach Nicodemus. In Numbers 21:4-9, it states, “Then they set out from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the people became impatient because of the journey. The people spoke against God and Moses, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this miserable food.’
“The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people so that many people of Israel died. So, the people came to Moses and said, ‘We have sinned, because we have spoken against the Lord and you; intercede with the Lord, that He may remove the serpents from us.’ And Moses interceded for the people. Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten when he looks at it will live.’ And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard, and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived.”
Jesus gave Nicodemus an example of how God offers salvation to His disobedient people. Some of the people escaped certain death because of His love and forgiveness.
They deserved to die
God commanded Moses to make a bronze serpent and put it on a pole. God smote the snake-bitten Israelites because of their sins. They deserved to die. God provided a merciful remedy. God healed all the Israelites who looked up after the serpents bit them. They would have died apart from His provision of the bronze serpent on the pole. The Israelites who did not look up to Moses and the bronze serpent perished.
Looking up to the bronze serpent was an act of faith. The Israelites could not see or understand a direct link between the snake bite they had received and the healing for which they hoped. However, it was the means God provided for their salvation, as Moses declared. It was the only way God said He would save His snake-bit people in the wilderness.
Israel’s healing in the desert illustrated the salvation that God was about to accomplish through His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.
Jesus said, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so, must the Son of man be lifted up …”
As the serpent was lifted up, and thus became a source of salvation, so the Son of Man must be “lifted up.” Those who look to Jesus in faith can also be saved from God’s wrath. This brazen serpent was a type of Christ.
Jesus told Nicodemus the new birth was necessary for those He would save. In John 3:14-15, Jesus connected the serpent, which is lifted on a pole, with His imminent death when He would be lifted on the cross. Jesus told Nicodemus He would save people from the penalty of their sins when they “look up” to Him for salvation.
Jesus, like the bronze serpent in the wilderness, would later be “lifted up” on a cross. He also was lifted up” in His resurrection and ascension. In so doing, God exalted Him for His sacrificial obedience on the cross. All those who “look up” to Him in faith, trusting in Him to remove the judgment for their sin, will be saved.
Repentance and faith were the points of this Old Testament illustration. Nicodemus must have understood it was God’s healing power through the act of faith. It was looking at the brass serpent that led men and women to trust in God.
The Suffering Servant
Jesus allowed Nicodemus to be a witness to the threshold of Christ’s ministry, and later a witness at His death and resurrection. From the beginning, Jesus knew His sacrifice on the cross would be His mission on earth. He must die and be raised from the dead because He must save and because He loved humanity, His creation.
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. (John 3:14-15).
Jesus’ statement, “the Son of Man be lifted up,” is a hidden or veiled prophecy of His death on the cross. Jesus told Nicodemus the Messiah would soon suffer and die. The reference to the serpent further veils the crucifixion of the Messiah. The fiery snakes’ venom shooting through the veins of the rebellious Israelites was spreading death through the camp because of their sin. Today, sin remains a deadly venom for the lost.
God provided divine miracles
Bitten by deadly serpents, healing came by faith, looking at a bronze serpent, having at a distance the same appearance. Cursed by sin and spiritual death, man’s redemption came from the death and resurrection of the Son of Man. In both cases, God provided a divine miracle.
Romans 8:3 says, “For what the law could not do, in that, it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.”
Both miracles, the brass serpent, and Christ’s resurrection, are difficult for the natural man to understand. How could deadly poison dry up in a body by merely looking at a pole with a brass serpent? How could Jesus allow Himself to be sacrificed and crucified to deliver all who would believe in Him from eternal hell?
As the bronze serpent was God’s cure for the Israelites bitten by the snakes, so is Christ for the salvation of every perishing sinner.
Jesus used this example to illustrate men are sinners, and there is no cure by human means for the eternally damned soul. Sin is deadly. It can be removed only by looking to the one who overcame the death on the cross, Jesus.
The cross is Christ’s sovereign manifestation of love and power to save a sin-stricken world. He knows the hearts and wills of rebellious and restored men and women. That is why He went to the cross. He was the “Lamb of God,” the true sacrifice for the sins of the world. He came to give His life a ransom for many.
Nothing restrained Christ to the cross but His desire to save us. It was the yielding of His own will to do what was needed for man’s salvation.
I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.” He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written:
king of kings and lord of lords. (Rev. 19:11-21).
Saved by faith alone in Jesus Christ
The sinner has hope only in Jesus’ saving work on the cross … “Whosoever believes in Him has everlasting life.”
Eternal life means a life in union with God, full of blessedness, purity, satisfaction, desire, and aspiration.
Salvation is a new state of heart and mind. It is a new relationship with God. The change anchors a person’s trust in Jesus Christ, the uplifted Son of Man. It is a new birth and a new life with no proclivity to death.
Eternal life is bestowed at the time of salvation. It is a gift that comes to a person here and now. It may happen to any man or woman the instant he or she looks to Jesus Christ.
The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. Jesus shed His blood on the cross for the remission of all our sins (I John 1:9).
Eternal life refers to eternal quantity and the divine quality of life. It means, “life of the age to come” and refers to the resurrection and heavenly existence in perfect glory and holiness.
Life for believers in the Lord Jesus begins before they go to heaven. It is the life of God that is in every believer at the moment of salvation. The Bible says, “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself” (Philippians 3:20–21).
(E-Book: Born from Above; Introduction; Chapter 1; Chapter 2; Chapter 3; Chapter 4; Chapter 5; Chapter 6; Chapter 7; Chapter 8; Chapter 9; Chapter 10; Chapter 11; Chapter 12; Epilogue)