Word of Salvation – Vol. 14 No.21 – May 1968
Only Believe
Sermon by Rev. M. Schwarz, Th. Grad. on John 3:14-16
SCRIPTURE READING: John 3:1-16, Numbers 21:4-9
Here is a young man speaking, hardly 30 years old. You should expect him to talk about his future plans, about buying a house, getting married, getting a better job. You would expect him to talk about politics, or about philosophy. But instead, the young man is talking about his death.
It is night, and the two men are by themselves. The one man is an acknowledged leader of the highest religious party. His name is Nicodemus. But instead of talking about religion in the ordinary way, Nicodemus is told that he must be born again, that he must get an altogether different kind of life.
“But can a man be born again of his own mother?” he asks. No, he is told, you must be born again by the Spirit. And then the young man goes on to talk about his own death as being the means of his getting that new life. “By my death, you can have life. If I die, then you can have that altogether different kind of life.” We don’t know what Nicodemus answered, or whether he understood.
In this conversation, the Lord Jesus Christ makes one of the most astonishing statements. We all need to have a new life. We must be born again. We cannot get it from ordinary religion or from anywhere else. “I am the life”, Jesus says. But it is only through my dying that you can go on living. And I want you to go on living; therefore I came into this world, to die, that you may live. This is so amazing, that Nicodemus, we may be sure, could not get it. This was different teaching from anything he had ever heard. He only knew that you have to try to live a decent life. That’s what all the Pharisees said. Don’t do any work on a Sabbath, they said. Go to the Temple, give your tenth, and don’t get into the bad company of the publicans and harlots. If you do all this you will be alright. But Jesus said: No, you will not be alright. This is not the way to get the true life. It is only by my dying that you get life eternal.
This was revolutionary! Nicodemus always thought that if you are wrong then you have to put things right yourself. The criminal had to be punished, and no-one else could take his place. When, one day, the Pharisees found a woman in the act of adultery, they took her and wanted to stone her. That was the rule and the order of the day. Everyone gets what he or she deserves. The only way out is to try to live a decent life and not to do anything bad.
But Jesus said: No, that’s not the way either, because people can’t help being bad. They need a new heart and a new life. Even if you are in the temple and live a good life, your heart inside is still bad. It is not what goes into the heart, but what comes out of it that is bad. Therefore you need a completely new start. You must be born again. And this life you can only get from me. If I be lifted up, then you can have life through faith in me. By my dying you can go on living. Do you understand this?
Nicodemus could not get it. To help him along, the Lord Jesus reminded him of a story in the Old Testament. Nicodemus knew his Bible very well and there was no need to tell him all the details. Only this: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.”
Now, this illustration should make it easier also for us to understand just how we can get life by faith in Christ. At that time the Israelites were in the wilderness. For various reasons they became impatient, staged a general riot against Moses and against God, and revolted against everything. “There is no food and no water”, they murmured, “and we loathe this worthless food.” The manna given by the Lord was no longer good enough for these people.
In reply – by return mail, as it were – the Lord sent them fiery serpents into the camp. In that area, we are told, there were many snakes anyway, but the miracle was that, all of a sudden, they began to invade the camp of the Israelites, just at that time.
Terrible confusion followed; many died. Then the people woke up to the fact that they had sinned before God and before Moses. They recognized that there was a very direct connection between their rioting and the snakes coming into the camp.
The same can happen also in our days. A terrible thing can happen to us personally, or to our country. It can be a direct punishment for certain sins in our lives. Do we then wake up to the fact that our real trouble is spiritual? Are we prepared then to examine ourselves and to repent of every known sin in our lives?
When the Israelites realized their sins they went to Moses; very humbly, and in a true attitude of repentance. “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord, that he may take the serpents from us”. They felt that they themselves could not come to the Lord. They asked Moses to pray for them. And Moses, as a true high priest and mediator, much as the Lord Jesus Christ was to be our great High Priest later on, came to the Lord on their behalf, and prayed for the people.
And then, the Lord said to Moses: Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it shall live.”
Moses was obedient.
“So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole, and if a serpent bit any man he would look at the bronze serpent and live.”
Now, this story perfectly illustrates what the Lord Jesus Christ came to do; namely, to give his life for the sake of sinners. This is how he explained his work: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.”
All that Moses was commanded to do was to fabricate a serpent and set it up on a pole, so that everyone could have a look at it and receive the healing of his body. Under the circumstances, with snakes all around the camp, and with a lot of people dying or already dead, it was a very strange and unusual thing to do, to put a serpent up on a pole.
But this was what the Lord wanted them to do. They were not told to manufacture some ointment for the wounded. We would regard this as a very much more practical thing to do. They were not told to look after the sick, and to be careful, and to care for the wounded. They were not told to fight the serpents in any way. You could imagine some men coming together and forming a “Society for the Extermination of Serpents”.
They were not told to make an offering to the serpent on the pole. Later on people did make an idol out of that serpent and worshipped it. But this was never the intention. No, through the serpent God wanted something to give, not to receive. It was to be a demonstration of salvation and healing by grace and not by works. So they were not told to pray to the serpent either. It was to be only a matter of looking at it. They were not even to look at Moses or at their own wounds – only at the serpent on the pole.
The serpent was lifted up on a pole so that everyone could see it. Even the weakest and those who were dying, could still have a look. “And every one who is bitten when he sees it shall be healed.” Some may have doubted at first. What good could it do to look at the serpent? But when they looked, they too were healed.
Now, this happening was ordained by God to serve as a perfect illustration of what the Lord Jesus came to do later on. “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believes in him may have eternal life.”
There are striking parallels. In both cases, the sins of the people made it necessary. In both cases God himself took the initiative, and provided the remedy. In both cases, the lifting up was done publicly for all to know about it. And in both cases healing comes by way of looking alone.
There are also differences. The uplifted serpent brought physical healing, but the uplifted Christ brings spiritual healing; not only an extension of this life, but an altogether different kind of life.
Golgotha is like the camp in the wilderness. Jesus Christ is crucified there, lifted up, suspended between heaven and earth. His outspread hands and arms can be seen as the people look from afar. Yet, so it must be.
Even as a young man, the Lord Jesus already knew that this was the only way. “Even so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that whosoever believes in him may have eternal life.”
This is what faith is: to receive something from Jesus Christ on the Cross. Faith is not something we bring as our contribution to a bargain. If you believe, you get something. You get that new life. Everybody is invited to get it.
In both cases, the main emphasis lies in the fact that healing is a pure gift from God. The Israelites only had to look at the serpent and they were healed. Jesus says we only have to believe, and then, whosoever we are, all our sins will be done away with and we will be given eternal life.
Do you really believe in Christ? Are you born again? Do you have that altogether different kind of life? In the Lord’s Supper, we remember the Lord’s death in a special way. In every sermon we remember his death. Why do we remember his death? Because, believing in him, we have eternal life. He takes us into his life, while he takes our sins and our sicknesses upon himself into his death. We are in his life, which could not be held in the grave; the life of the resurrection.
Yes, this is a great mystery, is it not? We cannot explain it. The text before us does not try to explain it either. But it promises us that it works. Just as it worked in the case of the Israelites in the wilderness, when they were healed from snakebites merely by looking at the lifted-up serpent, so it works when the sinner truly believes in the lifted-up Christ – the poison is taken out of his soul; he is given a new life not only physical but eternal life.
Do you believe this? Do you claim this promise for yourself? If you were told that, before you can get that life, you had to do good works – that you had to be a good person first before you could come to Christ – you would believe more easily. But there are no such conditions. You can come as you are. The worst of sinners, the vilest criminal, even hypocrites, false Christians, nominal Christians, stubborn and hardened people, young and old, rich and poor. The Lord Jesus says: “Whosoever believes in me has eternal life.”
This is not a matter for the future. Some people think that eternal life begins when you are dead. No. It starts the moment you truly believe i n the Lord Jesus Christ. If you haven’t got it today, you don’t have it when you die either. Today, we must be sure that we truly believe in Christ. Come to the Lord Jesus today. He is the Saviour, lifted up and crucified for you, risen from the dead, that you should have eternal life. You come as you are, and where you are; you look up to Jesus Christ.
But, you say, how come that it doesn’t cost anything? In the whole world everything costs money; not even a piece of bread can be got without money. Yet here we get eternal life for nothing. Precisely; this is how it is meant to be. There are no clauses attached to it. It is for nix, for nothing.
Why? The answer is: because God loved you.
No, he doesn’t see anything good in you. Apart from Jesus Christ you are dead in your sins and trespasses; you are not alive but dead. No, the only reason is that God loves you. Will you reject the love of God? Can you still harden your heart, when you look at the Cross? See the Crucified One, and yet you can still harden your heart?
Listen to the next verse, which has warmed the hearts of countless Christians; which has converted more people perhaps than any other passage:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
This is the verse of the love of God. It assures you that you can indeed have eternal life just by believing in Christ. God himself loves you to have it, and Jesus Christ died and rose for you that you should have it. The verse tells us seven things about the great love of God:
1. The tense: It is past tense. God loved you even before Christ died for you. God shows his love to us that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
2. The greatness: He so loved us. See the height and depth, the length and breadth of the love of God!
3. The scope of his love was the world. Not just Palestine and Israel, but also the Gentiles; the white and black people, the red and yellow. He embraced the whole world in his love.
4. The nature: He gave. Real love does not seek its own, but gives. Real love seeks the highest interest of others. It is unselfish. It gives. It spares not.
5. Its sacrificial character: He gave his Son. He gave his Best. He freely delivered up his only begotten Son. He did not even spare Him, but delivered him up for us all.
6. The design: should not perish. Many people died in the wilderness of snakebites. Many people harden their hearts, and will suffer eternal death in hell. But God purposed to have a people who “should not perish”. By faith in Christ, they should not perish.
7. The goodness: eternal life. This is what God will give to every one of his own. Eternal life. It is an unconditional promise.
See, brothers and sisters, boys and girls: the love of God! As we read elsewhere in the Bible: “Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed!” It is so great and deep that we cannot fathom it. Look at the Cross, remember Calvary, and know that God is love.
There is a beautiful poem and chorus, which some of us may know:
“Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made;
Were ev’ry stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade:
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry,
Nor could the scroll contain the whole
Tho’ stretched from sky to sky.”
If the frightening future of hell does not send you into the arms of Jesus; if you care nothing about the last Judgment to come; can you simply ignore the love of God? Can there be no value at all in something that has cost God his only Son? Is it wise for you to argue and to doubt, and to go from here as cold and perhaps as unconverted as you came in? Is it wise for you to reject the testimony of countless Christians who testify that they have found eternal life in Christ?
The only thing that should make Christians cry and weep is the fact that so many people are perishing, because they do not believe in Christ. It is not sins or crimes that get people to hell, but unbelief. They are all invited, but they don’t want to come.
But there are also some who truly seek some greater measure of assurance and salvation and peace. “What must I do to be saved?” you ask. The answer is: You must do nothing but believe. You must stop being busy saving yourself by your own good works and good life. This does not work. Believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, lifted up on the Cross. “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.”
Just as Moses said to the people after he had erected the pole with the serpent on it: “Look at that. Everyone bitten by the snakes, who truly looks at the serpent, shall be healed,” so the Word of God assures us now that whosoever believes in Jesus Christ has eternal life.
Take this into your heart by faith.
Do not harden your heart now in unbelief.
Do not say: this is too simple for me.
You want to get to heaven?
You want to be saved, to have eternal life and to live a useful, God-glorifying Christian life?
Then believe in the Lord Jesus Christ with all your heart, and you shall be saved.
Then you have eternal life.
Amen.