The Light of the World (John 3:14-21)

John writes of the interaction between Jesus and Nicodemus. Where Jesus has said that human beings must be "born again" in order to "see" and "enter" the kingdom of God. Nicodemus was baffled by Jesus' teaching and Jesus chided him for not understanding this teaching; Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a Rabbi of Rabbis and he did not understand what Jesus was saying. He taught the Torah, and not even he knew this teaching.

But Jesus felt compassion for him and explained the things of God to him. To answer Nicodemus's question, Jesus pointed him back to the Old Testament, saying, "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." (vv. 14-15). Jesus referred to an event that happened in the book of Numbers during Israel's years in the wilderness. Numbers tells us: "From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. And the people spoke against God and against 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 worthless food." Then the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died." (Numbers 21:4-6)

God delivered the people from slavery in Egypt, then provided for their physical needs by having manna from heaven fall to the ground, but as the journey continued and lengthened, the people became impatient and spoke out against God and Moses. They expressed their unhappiness of spending so much time out in the desert only being sustained with manna. This was nothing short but rebellion and their disregard for God's provision. God responded by sending a plague on the people. This plague was not unto Egypt, but unto Israel. He sent a swarm of venomous snakes, whose venom was described as being like fire. Many Israelites died from these snakes. Have we ever stopped to contemplate this episode in Numbers and its connection to redemptive history?

Thankfully, God's chastisement had its intended effect... repentance ...so He prescribed a remedy:

"And the people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live." 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 21:7-9).

What is left unstated in this narrative is the number of people who died despite this remedy that God provided. Some clearly repented, but the implication from the text is that there were some who did not look. Even in their agony, in the burning fiery pain from those serpents, they would not trust God's prescribed course... even though the cure rate was one hundred percent.

We are told later in the scriptures that King Hezekiah of Judah had to destroy the bronze serpent (2 Kings 18:4). They had preserved it for hundreds of years, but the people turned it into a idol. God used it once as a symbol of His grace and mercy, and humans being who we are twisted it, and worshiped the bronze serpent, just like they had with the golden calf.

What was Jesus' point in relating this story of the bronze serpent to Nicodemus? Jesus was making a comparison. After asking Nicodemus to recall this event in the Old Testament, Jesus declared, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up." (v.14). Jesus used another expression in these verses, "to be lifted up" often meant, "to be exalted". Such as in Isaiah's vision of the throne where the Lord was sitting, "High and lifted up" (6:1). This would be easy to deduce that Jesus is saying "I will be exalted", but Jesus is making a more direct comparison. He was saying what had to happen for people to enter His kingdom... He must be lifted up on a cross; He must become like the bronze serpent. He leaves little room about His referring not primarily to His exaltation, but His crucifixion.

Going on to say that He must be lifted up on the cross so "that whoever believes in him [the Son of Man] may have eternal life." (v.15). This parallels the situation with the Israelites in the wilderness. The people who were bitten were going to die, so God gave them a remedy to preserve them from certain destruction. Jesus is saying this to Nicodemus and to us that we, too, are in such a state; that apart from Christ, apart from the cross, we are exposed to death and destruction.

Looking to Jesus in His lifted-up state would effect a cure, just as looking to Moses' bronze serpent did, but the cure to be obtained by looking to Jesus would be deeper and better. Looking to Jesus would cure the problem of spiritual deadness wrought by sin, and it would do so for eternity.

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." (v.16). John 3:16 is most likely without much argument the best-known verse in the New Testament. Yet, it is also one of the most distorted. Why? Could it be that those who love the apparent universality of this verse hate the undeniable particularity of it. The verse begins with saying something of the love of God and the object of God's affection. God so loved what? "The World".

The contemporary understanding of this verse is something like this: "God so loved the world that He gave His Son in order to save everyone in the world." Some use this text and draw from it a doctrine of universal salvation; they believe that it teaches that God loves the world so much that He saves everyone. But if we see the text and read what it says; it is not saying that. Others may say instead that God made a way of salvation for everybody; but that is not what the text says either. So what does this verse actually say?

God did not love the world so much that He sent multiple saviors. Yet, we hear today in our culture that if God were really loving, He would have provided endless avatars the options would have been so many that everyone could practice their own religion. He would not have been so narrow-minded and exclusive that He requires faith in Christ alone.

Yet it does say that God loved the world. But, how much did He love it? He loved it enough to send His one and only Son. "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned" (vv.17-18a). John's meaning here could not be any clearer: Jesus came into the world to save people. We are like those people writhing and reeling in pain on the desert floor in the harsh wilderness, having been bitten by venomous serpents, but there is a remedy. Just as they could look up to the bronze serpent, we can look up to Christ. Those who look to Him will not perish in their sins and face eternal condemnation.

However, verse 18 continues with a horrific alternative. There is a but, John writes, "But whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God." (v.18b). Those who look to Christ escape condemnation, but those who refuse to trust Him are as good as condemned already.

This seems unimaginable, we may wonder why anyone would refuse to look to Christ and live. John has the answer, "And this is the judgement: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God." (vv.19-21). This is our natural state. We are in darkness, so nothing terrifies us more than the appearance of the light.

Jesus is introduced as the Light of the World in the beginning of John's gospel. This light shines into the darkness, but people love the darkness because their deeds are evil. That is our nature... we are children of darkness. It is against the nature of a child of darkness to come to the light, because we know the light brings exposure and humiliation.

Even as Christians we feel the pull to hide in the darkness than seek the light of Christ. We are like Adam and Eve, aware of our nakedness and shame and attempt to mask it with self-knitted coverings. Then we hide from our creator, as we would rather hide than face God.

God has said through John: "This is my condemnation, I sent the light, but you did not want it. But all who are of the light, who come and embrace it, will not perish but have eternal life." That was the gospel that Nicodemus heard from Jesus in the darkness of night. It is the good news that people struck by venomous snakes, poisoned to their souls, can look up to the cross and be saved.