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THE KING’S BUSINESS
heaven, had been eye witness of the things in heaven, and therefore spoke with unerring accuracy of heavenly things. So we may place absolute faith in all that He says about heaven and rest with unlimited confidence on all the promises that He makes. While Nicodemus and his associates Were not ready to receive His witness (v. 11) none the less it was His mission to declare the heavenly things. They could be revealed through no other channel; for no one else had ascended into heaven. Vs. 14, 15. “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but (omit, not per ish, but ) have eternal life.” Here we apparently have some of the heavenly things to which our Lord had referred in v. 12. The “and” with which verse 14 begins connects it in the closest way with what has gone before. Our Lord finds a point of contact between His teaching and that of the Old Testament with which Nicodemus was familiar and which he accepted. He gives an interpretation of this incident in Jewish history which was doubtless new to Nico demus but which unquestionably was the original intention of the incident. The serpent on the pole was intended by God Himself to be a type of the Messiah on the cross. Nicodemus could not have understood the words at the time but at a later date he would see their meaning. They may have been more or less fully under stood by him when he assisted Joseph in taking the Saviour’s body down from the cross (ch. 19:38-40). In the wilderness the serpent had been “lifted up” and made to all the strick en people so conspicuous an object that all could see it and looking upon it could find life, so too Jesus de
clares that He, the Son of man, the Christ, was to be lifted up in order that all who looked to Him might find life. How this lifting up was to be brought about Jesus does not make clear at this time. A close point of connection is made between verses 13 and 14 by the repetition of the title the “Son of man,” in verse 14. The word “must” is to be carefully noted. The crucifixion of Christ was an ab solute necessity, it was unavoidable. It was not a mere incident of His in carnation. There was a Divine neces sity for it. Our Lord does not here state what was the ground of that necessity. But it is clearly stated else where in Scripture (Gal. 3:10, 13; 2 Cor. 5:21). There could be no eter nal life for us without the death of Christ on the cross. This is hinted by the “that” with which verse 15 begins. The Son of man was lifted up that we might have eternal life and only through His lifting up could we have it. It is full of significance that the Greek word translated “lifted up” in this passage and in chapter 8:28 and in chapter 12:32-34 to signify the lift ing up of our Lord on the cross is elsewhere used in reference to His as cension and glorification (Acts 2:33; 5 :31; Phil. 2 :9). It was through His being lifted up on the cross to die as an atoning sacrifice that our Lord was exalted by His resurrection and as cension and given a name which is above every name that “in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:10, 11, R V.). The serpent on the pole was a re markable and wonderfully significant type of our Lord Jesus on the cross: (1). The serpent which Moses made was of brass and formed in the
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