THE SAVIOR LIFTED UP & FAITH

"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 have eternal life."-John iii. 14, 15.

"And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. (This he said, signifying what death he should die.)"-John xii. 32, 33.

IN order to make this subject plain, I will read the passage referred to-Num. xxi. 6-9. "And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD, and against thee; pray unto the LORD, that He take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived."

This is the transaction to which Christ alluded in the text. The object in both cases was to save men from the bite of the serpent, its influence being unchecked, is the death of the body: the effects of sin, unpardoned and uncleansed from the heart, are the ruin of the soul. Christ is lifted up, to the end that sinners, believing in Him, may not perish, but may have eternal life. In such a connection, to perish cannot mean annihilation, for it must be the antithesis of eternal life, and this is plainly much more than eternal existence. It must be eternal happiness -- real life in the sense of exquisite enjoyment. The counterpart of this, eternal misery, is presented under the term "perish." It is common in the Scriptures to find a state of endless misery contrasted with one of endless happiness.

1. Christ must be lifted UP as the serpent was in the wilderness. From the passage quoted above out of John xii. it is plain that this refers to His being raised up from the earth upon His cross at His crucifixion.

2. Christ must be held up as a remedy for sin, even as the brazen serpent was as a remedy for a poison. It is not uncommon in the Bible to see sin represented as a malady. For this malady, Christ had healing power. He professed to be able to forgive sin and to cleanse the soul from its moral pollution. Continually did He claim to have this power and encourage men to rely upon Him and to resort to Him for its application. In all His personal instructions He was careful to hold up Himself as having this power, and as capable of affording a remedy for sin.

In this respect the serpent of brass was a type of Christ. Whoever looked upon this serpent was healed. So Christ heals not from punishment only, for to this the analogy of healing is less pertinent -- but especially from sinning -- from the heart to sin. He heals the soul and restores it to health. So it was said by the announcing angel, "Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins. His power avails to cleanse and purify the soul.

Both Christ and the serpent were held up each as a remedy. and let it be specially noted -- as a full and adequate remedy, The ancient Hebrews, bitten by fiery serpents, were not to mix up nostrums of their own devising to help out the cure: it was all- sufficient for them to look up to the remedy of God's own providing. God would have them understand that the healing was altogether His own work. The serpent on a pole was the only external object connected with their cure; to this they were to look, and in this most simple way -- only by an expecting look, indicative of simple faith, they received their cure.

Christ is to be lifted up as a present remedy. So was the serpent. The cure wrought then was present, immediate. It involved no delay.

This serpent was God's appointed remedy. So is Christ, a remedy appointed of God, sent down from heaven for this express purpose. It was indeed very wonderful that God should appoint a brazen serpent for such a purpose such a remedy for such a malady; and not less wonderful is it that Christ should be lifted up in agony and blood, as a remedy for both the punishment and the heart-power of sin.

The brazen serpent was a divinely-certified remedy; not a nostrum gotten up as thousands are, under high-sounding names and flaming testimonials; but a remedy prepared and brought forth by God Himself, under His own certificate of its ample healing virtues.

So was Christ. The Father testifies to the perfect adequacy of Jesus Christ as a remedy for sin.

Jesus Christ must now be held up from the pulpit as one crucified for the sins of men. His great power to save lay in His atoning, death.

He must not only be held up from the pulpit, but this exhibition of His person and work must be endorsed, and not contradicted by the experience of those who behold Him.

Suppose that in Moses' time many who looked were seen to be still dying; who could have believed the unqualified declaration of Moses, that "every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live?" So here in the Gospel and its subjects. Doubtless the Hebrews had before their eyes many living witnesses who had been bitten and yet bore the scars of those wounds; but who, by looking, had been healed. Every such case would go to confirm the faith of the people in God's word and in His own power to save. So Christ must be represented in His fullness, and this representation should be powerfully endorsed by the experience of His friends. Christ represents Himself as one ready and willing to save This, therefore, is the thing to be shown. This must be sustained by the testimony of His living witnesses, as the first point of analogy is the lifting up of the object to be looked upon, the second is this very looking itself.

Men looked upon the serpent, expecting divine power to heal them. Even those ancient men, in that comparatively dark age, understood that the serpent was only a type, not the very cause in itself of salvation.

So is there something very remarkable in the relation of faith to healing. Take, for illustration, the case of the woman who had an issue of blood. She had heard something about Jesus, and somehow had caught the idea that if she could but touch the hem of His garment, she should be made whole. See her pressing her way along through the crowd, faint with weakness, pale, and trembling; if you had seen her you would perhaps have cried out, What would this poor dying invalid do?

She knew what she was trying to do. At last unnoticed of all, she reached the spot where the Holy One stood and put forth her feeble hand and touched His garment. Suddenly He turns Himself and asks, Who was it that touched me? Somebody touched me: who was it? The disciples, astonished at such a question, put under such circumstances, reply -- The multitude throng Thee on every side, and scores are touching Thee every hour; why then ask -- Who touched me?

The fact was, somebody had touched Him with faith to be healed thereby, and He knew that the healing virtue had gone forth from Himself to some believing heart. How beautiful an illustration this of simple faith! And how wonderful the connection between the faith and the healing!

Just so the Hebrews received that wonderful healing power by simply looking toward the brazen serpent. No doubt this was a great mystery to them, yet it was none the less a fact. Let them look; the looking brings the cure, although not one of them can tell how the healing virtue comes. So we are really to look to Christ, and in looking, to receive the healing power. It matters not how little we understand the mode in which the looking operates to give us the remedy for sin.

This looking to Jesus implies that we look away from ourselves. There is to be no mixing up of quack medicines along with the great remedy. Such a course is always sure to fail. Thousands fail in just this way, forever trying to be healed partly by their own stupid, self-willed works, as well as partly by Jesus Christ. There must be no looking to man or to any of man's doings or man's help. All dependence must be on Christ alone. As this is true in reference to pardon, so is it also in reference to sanctification. This is done by faith in Christ. It is only through and by faith that you get that divine influence which sanctifies the soul -- the Spirit of God; and this in some of its forms of action was the power that healed the Hebrews in the wilderness.

Looking to Christ implies looking away from ourselves in the sense of not relying at all on our own works for the cure desired, not even on works of faith. The looking is toward Christ alone as our all-prevalent, all-sufficient and present remedy.

There is a constant tendency in Christians to depend on their own doings, and not on simple faith in Christ. The woman of the blood-issue seems to have toiled many years to find relief before she came to Christ; had no doubt tried everybody's prescriptions, and taxed her own ingenuity bee sides to its utmost capacity, but all was of no avail. At last she heard of Jesus. He was said to do many wonderful works. She said within herself -- This must be the promised Messiah -- who was to "bear our sicknesses" and heal all the maladies of men. O let me rush to Him, for if I may but touch the hem of His garment, I shall be whole. She did not stop to philosophize upon the mode of the cure; she leaned on no man's philosophy, and had none of her own; she simply said -- I have heard of One who is mighty to save, and I flee to Him.

So of being healed of our sins. Despairing of all help in ourselves or in any other name than Christ's, and assured there is virtue in Him to work out the cure, we expect it of Him and come to Him to obtain it.

Several times within the last few years, when persons have come to me with the question, Can I anyhow be saved from my sins -- actually saved, so as not to fall again into the same sins, and under the same temptations? I have said -- Have you ever tried looking to Jesus? O yes.

But have you expected that you should be actually saved from sin by looking to Jesus, and be filled with faith, love, and holiness? No; I did not expect that.

Now, suppose a man had looked at the brazen serpent for the purpose of speculation. He has no faith in what God says about being cured by looking, but he is inclined to try it. He will look a little and watch his feelings to see how it affects him. He does not believe God's word, yet since he does not absolutely know but it may be true, he will condescend to try it. This is no looking at all in the sense of our text. It would not have cured the bitten Israelite; it can. not heal the poor sinner. There is no faith in it.

Sinners must look to Christ with both desire and design to be saved. Salvation is the object for which they look.

Suppose one had looked towards the brazen serpent, but with no willingness or purpose to be cured. This could do him no good. Nor can it do sinners any good to think of Christ otherwise than as a Savior, and a Savior for their own sins.

Sinners must look to Christ as a remedy for all sin. To wish to make some exception, sparing some sins, but consenting to abandon others, indicates rank rebellion of heart, and can never impose on the All-seeing One. There cannot be honesty in the heart which proposes to itself to seek deliverance from sin only in part.

Sinners may look to Christ at once -- without the least delay. They need not wait till they are almost dead under their malady. For the bitten Israelite, it was of no use to wait and defer his looking to the serpent till he found himself in the jaws of death. He might have said -- I am wounded plainly enough, but I do not see as it swells much yet; I do not feel the poison spreading through my system; I cannot look yet, for my case is not yet desperate enough; I could not hope to excite the pity of the Lord in my present condition, and therefore I must wait. I say, there was no need of such delay then and no use of it. Nor is there any more need or use for it in the sinner's case now.

It's a quote from the book. It's a 'Jewish' book. Jews and Israelites are typically lumped together in both Jewish and Christian writings, as you know. I just don't happen to think that 'lost tribes' historical research is all that necessary. I'm not saying that such research is false - most may be true - but I can't always verify the information. I prefer to observe the obvious. Not all Jews live in Israel but the state nonetheless represents the House of Judah, secular or not. Ergo, not all of the House of Israel lives in the U.S. and not all are of one religion, but it seems to me that if one country represents Ephraim [Eze 37], America 'the melting pot' aka 'coat of many colours' is the one.

Maybe most of the lost tribes are from the Anglo-Saxon peoples, but percentages aren't terribly relevent. They could be English, Polish, Chinese, German, Indian, or whatever. Sons of the *free* woman have been drawn here to be free. At least that was the original concept, anyway. A gathering out of the nations, indeed.

Overall, from what I've seen of your posts, we are pretty much on the same page. Disclaimer: I used the watch the Doc back in the mid/late 80's when I still lived in CA, and after returning to the States I finally located him on shortwave and the net about 3 years ago. However, I haven't listened in the last couple of years... the personality cult was just too much to take.

At this point you have me wondering if I even understand the Trinity...I do not believe God is the author of confusion! 141 Posted on 09/09/2001 17:00:34 PDT by RnMomof7

No, He's not.

With your man-glorifying "theologies", what on earth makes you think you are listening to God on these matters?

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

As I have said before: If you imagine a doctrine of Predestination which makes any part of Salvation a matter of God's Choice depending upon the Man, then your doctrine of Predestination Is Wrong.

For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?

Stop loving the deceitful, Man-glorifying confusion created by the wicked, deceitful "theologies" of Humanists, designed to find approval with the hearts of Men.

Paul's doctrine of Predestination is not confusing at all. It is supremely Objectionable of course (he says so himself) -- but only to the stiff-necked and deceitful heart of Man. Stop being Paul's Objector.

Your confusion results from the fact that you will not trust God's Authorship on these matters. God is not the author of confusion; your Sovereignty-denying heart, however, most certainly is the author of your confusion. And you will not let your confusion go. You are in love with it.

You have let your conception of Man sit in the "driver's seat" of your theologies for far too long.
It is time to stop answering back to your Maker, clay, and Let God be God.

i>>To: RnMomof7

>So like that other scoundrel, 2Sheep, you quote the Word of God, in this case from the book of Hebrews with no understanding of the
irony involved in what you say. In which case, madame, you prophesy falsely and are a danger to yourself and others.

>This * prophet now says to you: ...

You do error, having omitted the word "false" before the word "prophet" in the line above at *.

2 Timothy 3:7 (KJV) Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
8 Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith.
9 But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also was.

Your folly is manifest, peg. You were formerly outed as "peg the FALSE prophet" here and here but now because you continue to falsely accuse us (2 Tim 3) and not put our name on the "to" line (less than that can get a thread pulled), we will call you "peg the cowardly FALSE prophet." Your activities are quite well understood by those who have been involved in deliverance ministries.

Jezebel in the O.T. pursued Elijah. Then and now the spirit of Jezebel hates the the spirit of Elijah. We bring the most simple gospel message ever -- "Repent, hear the Lord and do what He says" -- and you despise us...just like Jezebel.

Keep looking up. However, except you repent, I have a surety that it is your judgment and not your redemption that draweth nigh. The Lord hates the workers of iniquity, the prophets of Jezebel and Kabbalistic witchcraft.

Best seek the Lord and repent while there is yet time.

At this point you have me wondering if I even understand the Trinity...I do not believe God is the author of confusion! 141 Posted on 09/09/2001 17:00:34 PDT by RnMomof7
No, He's not.
With your man-glorifying "theologies", what on earth makes you think you are listening to God on these matters?
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
As I have said before: If you imagine a doctrine of Predestination which makes any part of Salvation a matter of God's Choice depending upon the Man, then your doctrine of Predestination Is Wrong.

You know Uriel I have prayed and spend much time reading and trying to grasp the essentials of Calvinism..I have read a little of Calvin..the confession,visited web sites from Reformed churches....etc etc..

Meanwhile here at FR there is name calling,condemnation,judgement if one does not accept a certain reading of Romans 9 (or whatever)..but being called a heretic or a fool or what ever has no weight..

..To all that read my words think on this..it doesn't matter!

There is great freedom in reaching that understanding

If the Reformed (predestination-Calvinists) folks are right..it just doesnt matter..eithor you are selected before the foundation of the earth or you are not.

If you are what you believe doesn't matter,correct understanding of Romans or John or the Westminister Confession..just doesn't matter..God will see to your damnation or your salvation..one way or another.

Uriel there is great freedom in that ...no matter what I do or say or believe God has already decided..so the theology or interpretation is of relative unimportance in the scheme of things..

I can be a saved Weselyan,or a saved Pentacostal, or a saved Southern Baptist..what I believe is a "work"...(interesting thought to me)

>Overall, from what I've seen of your posts, we are pretty much on the same page.

Thanks! I appreciate that, and had sensed it from your other posts.

My concern is largely with the misuse of the word Israelite and it's implications. Israelite is a multi-purpose word that means different things in different places in the Bible. Context makes all the difference, but the contextual subtlety is usually ignored. Every time you see the word "Israelite" you have to stop and think about the context, and the approximate time it is appearing in the stream of history.

That changes the way most people understand the Bible, and requires a level of intellectual rigor few seem willing to undertake. But I think it is the duty of Clergy and others who would quote the Bible to exercise that extreme care and precision of thought. (If they can't get even that right, how much else are they screwing up?)

The frequent interchanging of the words Israelite and Jew is a classic case of sloppy thinking. I don't think there is anything deliberate or malicious about it, but it happens all the time. The historic facts are so simple, really Kindergarden level stuff, that there should be nothing controversial about it, yet many don't seem to want to read Genesis (and the rest) the way it is written. It is basic procedure in any field to first learn who the players are, and how to distinguish between them.

A little mis-quote involving the words Israelite or Jew can lead to a huge misunderstanding. I think a lot of the seeming nastyness between Jews and their cousins is related to misuse of the words.

This subject of The Lost Tribes of Israel and every other historical and Biblical subject is cursed with the fringe nuts who take from it what makes them feel good and leave the rest of the facts behind. I try very hard to stay close to the facts and not get drawn off them. Ultimately, truth is where you find it.

I've spent the past nearly 25 years researching the subject of the Lost Tribes of Israel. Just something I became interested in while noting the frequent misuse of the word Israelite. One thing led to another, and I ended up doing a summers Post-Doctoral work at Oxford. Europeans have a much better sense of these things than we do, and I was encouraged by a Jewish Professor there to continue to pursue the subject. Later spent a summer at Trinity College Dublin doing more.

Anyway, with so much information now available, it seems to me that everything from the appearance of the early Israelites up through the Northern Tribe diaspora in Assyria seems pretty cut and dried. It's when the House of Israel leaves that captivity and heads on out that things get real interesting.

-Regards

Let's make this real simple: We shall grant the Biblical admission of wesleyanism that Man is, by nature, hopelessly depraved; and we shall even, for this example, suppose the Truth of the UnBiblical wesleyan notion of "universal" prevenient Grace. Now, Answer me these questions, True or False: Does not our Omniscient God foreknow, with perfect and absolute precision and clarity, just what certain choices a Man will make in response to His creation and ordination of certain conditions, and what different choices a Man will make in response to His creation and ordination of different conditions? And in regard to these Graces of God, does not our Omniscient God foreknow with perfect and absolute precision and clarity just "how much" soup He is putting in the kettle?

Nor shall we permit Wesley's foolish dodge into the supposition that:

"Natural free-will, in the present state of mankind [in original sin], I do not understand: I only assert, that there is a measure of free-will supernaturally restored to every man".

Wesley proposed a ludicrously wrong answer because he did not even understand the question. There is not "need" to "restore" to Man a "measure" of Free-Will. Man has a perfectly, absolutely, completely and utterly Free Will NOW. Man does not need his "Free Will" restored to him; he possesses the tool already, inviolate, utterly complete!! The same Free Will which freely chooses to curse God as an Unregnerate unbeliever, that very same Free Will freely chooses to praise God as a Regenerate believer but a moment later.

The Problem is not with Man's Will.

In legal terms, Wesley didn't even come to the right courtroom, let alone try the case correctly.

Man's Will does not need to be "supernaturally restored", in part or in whole; he exercised his Will quite Fully and most Freely in the Garden when he ran from God, hid himself from God, then blamed first his helpmeet and then God Himself for his Sin!!

Man's Problem is not in His Will (which is wholly Free and, contra Wesley's carnal foolishness, does not need to be "restored"); Man's Problem is in his Wants (which are Totally Depraved).

And God, whose Omniscience is perfect and precise in regard to all possible dispensations of Grace and Man's responses thereto, knows exactly how much Grace will be required to change the Man's Wants sufficiently to soften and turn the man, and how much will be insufficient to change his Wants, resulting in the man's rejection of God and further hardening. And God ordains to show Road-to-Damascus dispensations of Grace to some, and not others.

So, answer me these two questions, True or False:

Does not our Omniscient God foreknow, with perfect and absolute precision and clarity, just what certain choices a Man will make in response to His creation and ordination of certain conditions, and what different choices a Man will make in response to His creation and ordination of different conditions?
And in regard to these Graces of God, does not our Omniscient God foreknow with perfect and absolute precision and clarity just "how much" soup He is putting in the kettle?

True, or False.

Does not our Omniscient God foreknow, with perfect and absolute precision and clarity, just what certain choices a Man will make in response to His creation and ordination of certain conditions, and what different choices a Man will make in response to His creation and ordination of different conditions? And in regard to these Graces of God, does not our Omniscient God foreknow with perfect and absolute precision and clarity just "how much" soup He is putting in the kettle?

Wesleyans do not have a doctrinal stand on God's foreknowlege,so some will say God has "suspended" his foreknowlege to allow man the choice..others will say (as has been my traditionl position)that God has perfect foreknowlege.That forknowlege is the basis of Gods predestined plan fo each of us..

Now you throw into the mix (or soup if you will*grin*) a question...is His forknowlege in itself not predestination.Rather than the predestination flow from the forknowlege..is the foreknowlege itself the predestination..

Uriel double predestination troubles me..I have to say that upfront...I am trying to look at this ,not from my perspective as a woman..but from God's sovereign position...

Is a failure to act the same as acting Uriel?

To your questions..my very non orthodox Weselyan answer would be yes I do think God has total knowlege

I am not a great fan of Spurgeon's choice of terminology herein (perhaps because I am no great fan of baseball, or for that matter - I confess - of any competitive sport); Actually, "umpire" is understood in the sporting sense only as the secondary meaning, according to Merriam-Webster. The primary meaning is that of a judge of a dispute, as in a labor dispute. I don't know the full etymology of "umpire" but I doubt that Mr. Spurgeon was any greater fan than either you or I are of any activity in which men compete in short pants and while wearing backless elastic undergarments.

I wanted to relieve you of a concern that Mr. Spurgeon had any enthusiasm for modernist entertainments which draws men's passions toward ungodly and worldly pursuits. He wrote often enough about racetracks and gambling activities as well as the influence of habituating in taverns that I think we can soundly defend his avoidance of any worldly entertainments which provide a stumbling block to so many.

I am very glad for your posting on this. Sound as always on this matter. If you have any time, perhaps you could offer any necessary corrections to my previous rather speculative posts if you feel I have done any inadvertent damage to the Reformed position.

Again, thanks.

But these Prisoners are stiff-necked and prideful, loving evil and hating righteousness, and there are none who desire to be Reformed; they hate me and they hate my father the Prison-Warden, and would choose death over reformation. This sounds a little familiar. Our Warden is indeed most kind. Fortunately, all who are Reformed are "sentenced" to eternal life.

Good analogy. Some of your stuff is so good, I keep wondering if you get it from books I've never seen or if you are this good with crafting your own analogies. Having read you for quite a while now, I'm thinking this is your own stuff.

I like how the free-offer comes out so clearly in what you wrote here. Oops, I forgot, some of the Armenians told us that we "Calvinists" can't make a free-offer of the Gospel. I wonder what they're going to say when the Father points out to them that it is indeed His sovereign choice who will become His son or His daughter by adoption through Christ. But then, they don't seem to worry much about robbing the Father of His sole glory in making vessels of His mercy from us, who are by our nature no more than vessels fitted for destruction.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.