Posted on 09/07/2001 3:24:04 PM PDT by RnMomof7
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.
We may observe two points of analogy between the brazen serpent and Christ.
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.
The Father's 'sole sovereignity' as opposed to the Son and the Holy Spirit. Gee, I always thought they were coequal? How about that! Is that one of those 'scholastic formulations' that 'doc' claimed I was ignorant of? I think that the idea of the Father's pre-emininence in the Godhead is not limited to Calvinists. I could, I think, raise a whole nest of thorny questions on the idea of an absolute co-equality of Christ and the Father if that is your position. But I don't desire to do that because scripture doesn't reveal it strongly enough for me to be comfortable disputing it. It is important that we know what the Bible does teach us about the Trinity absolutely and to avoid the heresies of the past. It's just as important to know what the real limits of knowledge are. I don't think my ideas on a few of these topics endangers my faith but helps guard me. And I don't go looking for such questions. Nor do I think your ideas of co-equality between the Father and Son are a problem. If they are and you belong to Christ, He will sort it out. I know it. It may merely be that these are two aspects of the Godhead that we can't see. Given the tone you're taking here, I suggest that this is exactly the sort of profitless speculation which can divide the brethren against which Paul warned Timothy so soberly.
I'd like to point out that if men were capable of fulling knowing and understanding the Godhead fully, we would then be like the angels, with a direct knowledge of God. So I don't think any man on the earth except Jesus has ever understood the full nature of the Godhead. We are not given to know the mind of God in this life. Personally, I've suspected that one of the reasons we will be given new bodies in heaven is because no human body can see God and live. We cannot see God in the weak vessels of this flesh. It's a sobering thought.
As far as those "scholastic formulations", well, I'm too ignorant to know exactly what they are though I do know in general a little about the Scholastics and their influence. You'd better take it up with doc. If you ask nicely, he probably would give you a good explanation of it.
And Calvin had Servitus burned at the stake for HIS definition of the Trinity! How you clutch this to your breast like a beloved child. Calvin had no civil authority in Geneva and never did. If Servetus was wrongly executed, it was not by any power held by Calvin. He objected to the cruelty of burning and tried to spare Servetus that agony. Your words are a stronger indictment against you than they are against Calvin.
If Jesus is who He says he is (thus indicating He knew who he was and is)or He was a liar.
The question is did Jesus retain the knowlege of the Godhead as He walked this earth?
I believe that He had all knowlege,or much of what He says makes no sense.
When He says in John 10:30 "I and [my] Father are one." was that a good guess? if they ARE one then would He not have his Fathers knowlege
I see a nationalist center to the verses on the sheep...but for the purpose of discussion here read it from a Calvinist perspective
Read John 10:27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:..
That is current tense GW...Not I will know them I do know them.So IF you take this as a predestination quote...it indicates CURRENT knowlege.
Look at Luke 10:18 And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven
That along with many prophetic statements indicates to me that Jesus had perfect knowlege..
Luke 8:43And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any,
8:44Came behind [him], and touched the border of his garment: and immediately her issue of blood stanched.
8:45And Jesus said, Who touched me? When all denied, Peter and they that were with him said, Master, the multitude throng thee and press [thee], and sayest thou, Who touched me?
8:46And Jesus said, Somebody hath touched me: for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me.
8:47And when the woman saw that she was not hid, she came trembling, and falling down before him, she declared unto him before all the people for what cause she had touched him, and how she was healed immediately.
8:48And he said unto her, Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.
GW I love this scripture..it comes as an offer..reah out and touch...and He will make you whole..
Well I will have to see what the prof wants...but I dont believe in "accidents" and I do think that this continuing dialogue this summer will be a base for a study on Calvinism/Arminism in some way.
When it takes shape in my head I will let you know
It was definately their sin it would seem..."Let he that is without ..." But we also have to remember his admonitation to the woman.."Go and sin no more"...
Read John 10:27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:..
That is current tense GW...Not I will know them I do know them.So IF you take this as a predestination quote...it indicates CURRENT knowlege. Yes, it is current tense. Completely consistent with what I was saying before. The scripture tells us that that God the Father foreknew and predestined us from the foundation of the world to come to Him through Christ. But this verse only indicates that Christ knows His own sheep now. Not that He (Christ) knew them prior to the foundation of the world. So thank you for helping prove my point.
Look at Luke 10:18 And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven
That along with many prophetic statements indicates to me that Jesus had perfect knowlege.. I don't think we can ever truly and fully reconcile the Godhead. And I'm content with what I know. Our Lord will correct me as needed.
Yes, I like the story of the woman grasping His hem too. It's a very special account. But it does give rise to a few questions that seem almost unknowable by scripture. And I am still content with that.
Good point! And very true...Abraham was justified by faith. David was a "man after God's own Heart". All through the OT, there are examples of people saved by faith, just as we are. I do not hold with the idea that OT saints were not able to be saved the same way we are. The issue is not the words we say (the sinner's prayer, etc.) but the attitude of the heart. Our salvation is based on the imputation of the righteousness of God to those who, in repentance, turn to God and acknowledge their complete inability to save themselves, and rely on and look to God to rescue them from their sinful state. Jesus made a way for us to receive the ongoing forgiveness of sins and ongoing imputation of the righteousness of God through His sacrifice of Himself at Calvary. It can be boiled down to this: salvation is a matter of position. We are either "in Adam", i.e. sinful, sinners by nature (whether or not we have actually committed a sin), or we are "in Christ", i.e. justified, clothed with the righteousness of Christ, which is God's own righteousness. God sees us in that fashion. If we are "in Christ" we have access to the Father, to the benefits of His Mercy, Grace, and Blessing, or we are "in Adam", subject to the imputation of sin, the curse of sin, and the certain judgement against all who sin and rebel against God, both Man and Angel. There really is no middle ground. We are either "in Christ" or "in Adam".
To be sure, we must not assume that it is a "once done, never changed" transaction that allows us then to continue living the way we did before. Paul dealt with that notion in several of his letters to the churches. There is the aspect of "abiding" in Christ's teachings and Word, which would be the natural result of true conversion. If you have truly repented, you could not continue to go the same way as before. If one turns (repents) as one is walking, by necessity one is going in a different direction than before. It cannot be otherwise.
oppps be prepared to get hit on this one..*grin*..that is a bit more Wesleyan thought than most here care to hear
As to the supposed "Wesleyan" idea of salvation being an ongoing rather than one-time experience, would not even human logic indicate that one must "walk the walk" in order for it to be true? I mean, think about it! If a one-time experience with no ongoing aspects to it is a life-defining moment, then if you've ever been arrested (even falsely) for an offence, then ever afterward you are a criminal, and none can change that. That seems to be the logic behind the "once-saved, always-saved" camp.
"Well, when He was tempted by Satan, it was clear that He could call upon the angels to save Him. But did not. This was an indication of His vast and Godlike powers prior to the crucifixion even. So, the picture to me isn't entirely clear. But He certainly was granted the power to perform miracles. It seems to me from reading His prayers that these were performed through the power of the Father. But this is not, for me, a crucial matter. "
¶ And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days He did eat nothing: and when they were ended, He afterward hungered. And the devil said unto Him, If Thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread.
And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.
And the devil, taking Him up into an high mountain, shewed unto Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto Him, All this power will I give Thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.
And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. And he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence: For it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee: And in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from Him for a season.
And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about. Luke 2:1-14
In Matthews account of the same incident, it ends with:
Then the devil leaveth Him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto Him. Matthew 3:11
While yes, angels do come and serve the lord as reported in Matthew 3:11, I think this is not proof that the Lord could call down angels from heaven to do His bidding, but, here in Matthew 26:53 Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? When the Lord is talking to Peter, now here is proof that if the Lord wanted His angels, they would come in a heratbeat at His call.
Yeshua bless you.
How do you hit Abuse?
I too consider our Christian faith to be absolutley necessary to our politics.
And so may I suggest a generous contribution for the upkeep of FR..look for the nearest Freepathon thread PLEASE! LINK
Perhaps you'll read my following post which will give you an idea of why so many of us "Calvinists" consider religious debate to absolutely vital to our politics.
You as a Calvinist may see it as essential to the "political" debate, Non calvinists see it as an opportunity to bring the gospel :>))
I was just talking to a Nazerene that is teaching a Sunday School class tomorrow..He mentioned that as part of his preparation he had read his Calvin Commentaries. How is it that we are less threatened by Calvin,than the Calvinists that post here are of us?
Calvins approach was less agressive than some of the posters here..
Thanks for the thoughts on research...I will let you know what the prof wants from us..
check the menu at the bottom of the page..but PLEASE do not abuse it..Calvinists and Arminians and Weselyans all do share a love of freedom of speech :>))
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