Five seemingly unrelated items—the bronze serpent, the one hanging on a tree, the hind of the dawn, and the bridegroom and the bride—are considered together in this lesson. In the Old Testament these five items typify Christ in different aspects. The first two items signify the crucified Christ, the third item signifies the resurrected Christ, and the last two items signify Christ in His resurrection as the Bridegroom gaining the church as His bride. In the typology of the Old Testament these five items seem unconnected, but in the spiritual significance of the New Testament they are connected—Christ died and resurrected as the Bridegroom to obtain the church as His bride.
In Numbers 21 the people of Israel became impatient because the way in the wilderness was very difficult, and the people spoke against God and Moses. Then God sent fiery serpents among the people, and the people were bitten by the fiery serpents so that many of them died. When the people repented and confessed their sins, God commanded Moses to make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, lifting it up, to suffer God’s judgment as a replacement for the people and to redeem them from their sins. When they would look at the bronze serpent, they would live and not die (vv. 4-9).
The bronze serpent had the form of the fiery serpent but was without the fiery serpent’s poison. When the children of Israel were bitten by the fiery serpents, they became serpents in the eyes of God. They were serpentine and had the serpentine nature. The bronze serpent, however, had only the form of a serpent, not the nature of a serpent. Hence, it was qualified to suffer God’s judgment as a replacement for the people of Israel, who had the serpentine nature.
The bronze serpent was lifted up on a pole so that the people could look at it and live. The people of Israel, who had become serpentine, should have suffered God’s judgment unto death. However, according to God’s saving way, when the bronze serpent, which had only the form but not the poison of a serpent, was lifted up on the pole, it became their replacement to suffer the judgment of God. They lived by looking at the bronze serpent.
In John 3:14 the Lord said, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” This shows that the bronze serpent lifted up by Moses in the wilderness typifies Christ, who was made sin on our behalf so that He might deliver us out of death into life (2 Cor. 5:21). We were bitten by the old serpent and have the poisonous element of sin. Sin came from Satan, who rebelled against God (Isa. 14:12-14). This sin, which came out of the evil one, entered into man and made man not only a sinner but also sin itself under God’s judgment; hence, when Christ became a man in the flesh (Rom. 5:12; John 1:14), He was made sin (not sinful) on our behalf to be judged by God (Rom. 8:3).
The bronze serpent had the form of a serpent but not the poisonous element of a serpent. This is a full type of Christ coming in the likeness of the flesh of sin to be our replacement (v. 3). The flesh is of sin, yet Christ became flesh (John 1:14; Heb. 2:14). However, He was only in the likeness of the flesh; He did not have the sin of the flesh (2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 4:15). He was the same as a sinful man in His outward form, but He did not have the nature of sin within Him. This is like the bronze serpent, which had the form, the likeness, of a serpent but not the poison of a serpent. Only such a Christ, who did not know sin, could bear God’s judgment on behalf of us sinners, who were poisoned by sin, and could deal with Satan, who poisoned us.
Christ became flesh for us, and in the flesh He was judged by God on behalf of us who have the sinful nature. In Christ’s crucifixion God caused Him who knew no sin to become sin on our behalf (2 Cor. 5:21). Through this, God condemned sin in the flesh, judged sin for us, and dealt with the sin in our nature and the sinful nature to which it belongs (Rom. 8:3). As a result, we have the eternal life by believing in Him (John 3:15). This can be compared to the people of Israel, who were poisoned by the serpents and lived by looking at the bronze serpent on the pole. Our sins have been taken away, our serpentine nature has been dealt with, and Satan has been destroyed in us; thus, we have the life of God.