Thought from today’s Bible reading from Numbers 21-22.
“The people spoke against God and Moses, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this miserable food.’ The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. So the people came to Moses and said, ‘We have sinned, because we have spoken against the Lord and you; intercede with the Lord, that He may remove the serpents from us.’ And Moses interceded for the people.
“Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live.’ And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived” (Numbers 21:5-9).
This account reminds us of the regular pattern of sin and salvation found in the Bible.
- Man sins – the Israelites spoke against God and Moses.
- God gives a punishment for sin – He sent the fiery serpents.
- God offers forgiveness of sin and salvation from punishment – He directed Moses to make the bronze serpent.
- Man is saved only if he meets God’s conditions for salvation – those who were bitten were saved when they looked at the bronze serpent.
Though we are under a new law today and are not being plagued by fiery serpents, our salvation follows the same pattern.
- All have sinned (Romans 3:23).
- The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23) – this is eternal punishment and separation from God (Matthew 7:23; 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9).
- God has made forgiveness and salvation possible through Christ (Ephesians 1:7; Acts 4:12).
- We must meet God’s conditions in order to be saved – belief (John 8:24), repentance (Luke 13:3,5), confession (Romans 10:9-10), baptism (Mark 16:16; Acts 2:38; 1 Peter 3:21), and a life of faithful obedience (Matthew 7:21; Revelation 2:10).
God has done everything necessary to make salvation possible for us. He will now save anyone who will meet his conditions of pardon.
Tomorrow’s reading: Numbers 23-25
[I’m using the Chronological reading plan on the Bible Gateway website if you’d like to follow along, too.]
Daily Notes & Observations contains all 365 articles from this series and is available in paperback from Gospel Armory.
