Bible Passage: John 3:14-21
Pastor: Joel Jenswold
Sermon Date: March 10, 2024

Bulletin March 10, 2024

In the name of, and to the eternal glory of, Jesus,

We have the opportunity this morning to consider something very important in our Bibles, and that is types of Christ in the Old Testament.  What exactly is a “type of Christ”?  A type of Christ is something God used in the Old testament – maybe an object or a person or an animal –  to teach the people some truth about the Savior who was to come.  For example, the Passover lamb was a “type of Christ.”  That lamb that was killed, whose blood was painted on the doorpost and meant life for those inside the house. Another type of Christ was Jonah.  Jonah spent three days in the belly of a fish and Jesus spent three days in a tomb.  “Types of Christ” are like a shadow of Jesus.

We have a type of Christ in our text today.  And that is the bronze serpent we heard about in our Old Testament lesson today.  The bronze serpent Moses lifted high on a pole.  The bronze serpent that had a promise of God attached to it.  The bronze serpent that brought dying people life.  The story of the bronze serpent is a story of God’s love lifted high for his people.  The real story of Love Lifted High is Jesus.

Our text jumps right into Jesus speaking about this bronze serpent.  Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (v. 14-15)  Jesus says these words to a man named Nicodemus.  Nicodemus was a man who knew his Old Testament Bible stories so Jesus uses one to teach about himself.  Jesus knew Nicodemus knew the story of the snakes God had sent into the camp of Israel when they were wandering in the wilderness.  God had sent the snakes to discipline the people when they grumbled and complained against the Lord.  Many people died of snakebite.  The people ask Moses to intercede for them.  He does.  God gave the instructions.  Moses is to fashion a snake out of bronze and lift it up high on a pole.  Then God made a promise.  It was a promise of life.  Anyone who was bitten and looked at the snake lifted up on the pole would live.  In a sense, God’s love for his people was lifted on that pole.

Now Jesus fully unfolds this “type” for Nicodemus.  The next words out of Jesus’ mouth are perhaps the most well-known words of the Bible of all time:  For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (v. 16)  “God so loved.”  That is often understood, “God loved the world sooooo much.”  That is true!  But the word “so” in the Greek really has more the idea of “like this, thus, in this way.”  As Moses lifted up that snake to save those desperate and dying people, that’s the way God loved the world!  He sent his Son, his One and Only Son into it.  And then he lifts his Son up on a stick, on a cross.  And he promises, “You dying people, look to my Son!  Believe in my Son and you will live!”  And all who do, live!  Here, on the cross, is God’s love lifted high for all to see!

Isn’t “whoever” a comforting word?  It doesn’t draw lines.  It doesn’t ask questions.  It doesn’t limit and exclude.  Just the same as every man, woman, and child in Israel’s camp who was bitten by a snake and looked at the snake on the stick lived, so also “whoever” looks to Jesus and believes in him will live eternally!  Every man, woman, child.  Whatever your sin has been.  Whether you have largely been a sneaky sinner, committing the bulk of your sins in the secrecy of your heart, or you have done hard time at the stony-lonesome, these words remain true:  …whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

This love of God lifted high on the cross is all the more amazing, because we might expect that God would have sent his Son to judge this sinful world, not die for it.  But Jesus says, For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through him. (v. 17)  How thankful we can be that THE identifying feature of our faith is Jesus lifted up on a cross to die for us, and not Jesus in a black judge’s robe with a gavel in his hand!

Truth of the matter is, the verdict in your case is already in and on file in heaven.  Jesus says, The one who believes in him is not condemned (v. 18)  “Is not condemned.”  That means right now!  At this moment, the verdict is already in.  On Wednesday night I did the Lenten service at Zion.  One of the hymns we sang was “He Stood before the Court.”  The one verse makes this point so poetically:  “Shall we be judged and tried?/In Christ our trial is done/We live, for he has died/Our condemnation gone.” (CW 115:4)  “In Christ our trial is done.”  That is what we see lifted high on the cross.  That is our conviction, our death sentence!  Our trial is done.  The converse is also true.  Jesus says the one who does not believe in him stands condemned already.

Jesus spends a moment on those who do not believe.  He says:  The light has come into the world, yet people loved the darkness rather than the light. (v. 19)  This is a shocking thing Jesus says!  The word for “love” is the same word Jesus used of the way God feels about the world.  “God so loved the world.”  This word for love is always used of God’s love.  It is love of choice and purpose and intention.  But here it is used of the people of this world!  The intense love-of-choice God has for this world is the way the people of this world love the darkness!  You wonder why people can be so attached to sin.  It is because they are in love!  They don’t want to stand in the light of the cross.  They know what will happen.  They will be exposed.

But we are not afraid of the cross!  We are not afraid of its light.  The one who does what is true comes toward the light, in order that his deeds may be seen as having been done in connection with God. (v. 21)  We stand before the love of God lifted high on the cross.  We are exposed before it.  We are exposed for what we are.  As the choir sang earlier, “I’m just a sinner saved by grace.”  Let the world see it all!  Am I a sinner?  Yes!  Did Jesus die for me?  Yes!  Am I God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works?  Yes!  Nothing to hide.  Nothing to prove.  Just living our lives in God’s light, looking in faith at God’s love lifted high, in Jesus!

Amen.