THE BRAZEN SERPENT

Everything in the Old Testament has its fulfillment in the New. And everything in the New Testament has its forerunner in the Old.

So let's look at the Brazen Serpent today. Remember the story in Numbers 21:4-9 where the Children of Israel complained to Moses and blamed him for bringing them out to the wilderness to die? The Lord punished them by sending fiery snakes to bite them. The Lord had Moses erect a brazen serpent so everyone could see it. And whenever someone was bitten by a snake, he/she could look at that serpent and be forgiven AND healed. Everyone! No one was excluded.

And is healing not found in the brazen serpent of the New Testament today? In John 3:14, 15, Jesus said, "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 have eternal life." Did you catch that "whosoever"? Again, no one was excluded.

The book of Hebrews tells us that the New Covenant, or the New Testament, is a BETTER covenant than the Old. If everyone who looked on the brazen serpent in the Old Testament was healed, doesn't it make sense that under the BETTER covenant, we, too, can be both forgiven and healed by looking at Jesus, our present-day brazen serpent?

The benefits of the Old Testament brazen serpent are the same benefits of Christ, the New Testament brazen serpent.

I Peter 2:24 says that "by whose stripes" --- that's the stripes that Jesus bore --- "we WERE healed!" If we WERE healed, we ARE healed!

Don't believe it because I said it. Believe it because the Word of God says it!

Preacher's Kid