"YOU WERE KILLED ON THE CROSS"

Numb 21:5-9  And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for [there is] no bread, neither [is there any] water; and our soul loatheth this light bread. 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.

John 3:14-15  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.

John 12:24-33  Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will [my] Father honour. Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, [saying], I have both glorified [it], and will glorify [it] again. The people therefore, that stood by, and heard [it], said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him. Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes. Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. 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 related to us the words of Jesus that explained how His death would be similar to the lifting up of the brazen serpent in the wilderness when Israel was plagued by vipers and bitten and dying.

• How does the lifting up of Jesus relate to the lifting up of a serpent in the wilderness by Moses?
• How does Jesus relate to a serpent?

• God told Adam to dress and keep the Garden in Gen. 2:15.
• He was to protect the Garden.
• To keep it.
• Like building barriers of protection around the Garden.
• Usually a hedge is used around a Garden to protect it.

Eccl 10:8  He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it; and whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him.

• Satan told God that He built a hedge around Job and all that Job had, keeping the devil out from hurting Job.

Job  1:10  Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land.

• Disobedience to God breaks God's protection around you.
• And a serpent can come in to you.

• Poisonous serpents have sacks of venom beneath their fangs.
• Those fangs inject poison into the victims they bite.
• Serpents have been known to mesmerize an animal, and draw it to itself and then sting it with venom and devour it.

1Cor 15:56   The sting of death [is] sin; ...

• God told them they would die the day they disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit.
• The moment they sinned in disobedience was the moment death stung them.

• Numbers 21:4-5 tells us that they murmured against Moses and God as they became discouraged.
• And serpents were sent to them and many died and were dying.

• All who look to the serpent will live.

• When Jesus died, He died in the place of everybody.
• Everybody who sins must die, just as God told Adam he would die if he disobeyed God.
• Sin is knowing to good and not doing it.
• Adam knew to stay away from the forbidden tree and not eat of its fruit, but he did not do what he knew was right to do.
• Adam sinned.
• He broke the protection that was around him.
• A serpent entered the Garden and bit them both.

2Cor 5:14  For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead:

It is just as good as everyone of us being dead, if it is true that Jesus died for us.

• It is really not right to say that He died so that we would not have to die.
• Actually, He died because we needed to die.
• He took my place and died, because I had to die due to sin.
• And since Jesus died as me, then it is true that I died.

• God did not say, "Let's pretend you're dead now, and we will tell Satan to leave you alone now."
• No, the devil would not have fallen for that.
• And that would make God unrighteous.
• He cannot cheat His own laws.
• No, Jesus actually died as us, and therefore we died with Him.
• The problem is that we really do not know that yet.
• It often seems as though He simply took our places.
• But that is not correct.
• We were actually killed with Him.

 

 

2Cor 5:17  Therefore if any man [be] in Christ, [he is] a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

• The Greek word for new means RECENTLY MADE, and OF A NEW KIND.
• It means UNPRECEDENTED.
• We are creatures that did not exist on this earth before.
• We were not made in Genesis, but were made in the New Testament era.
• A new creation is actually what we now are.

We are crucified with Him.

• The old "us" is dead.

• He said that "I will take all of humanity, and when I die, all humanity will have died."
• "That means that the debt of having to die due to their sins will be paid by my single death."
• "It will not be just one man that dies, If I be lifted up."
• "It will be the entire human race that will die."
• "This will not be 'pretend.'"
• "It will be real."
• One man did not die on the cross that day.
• All the people who would ever live died that day.
• He died "as them all".

• Here is where the parallel to Moses' serpent comes in.
• Moses told the people that if they would only look to the brazen serpent on the pole, they would live and not die.
• The reason there will be people who will be lost for eternity is because they refused to look to Jesus for healing.
• They either did not believe that He died as them, or refused to give their lives to Jesus by looking at Him.
• People need to look to Jesus.

• The situation was that Serpents were biting the Hebrews in the wilderness and they were dying from those serpents.
• They saw a representation of what was killing them when they looked at the brazen serpent that Moses lifted up in the wilderness.
• Serpents were killing them, so they looked upon a serpent on a pole that they might live and not be killed.

2Cor 5:21  For he hath made him [to be] sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

Gala 3:13  Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed [is] every one that hangeth on a tree:

• He became what was killing us.
• As the serpents were killing Israel, they had to look upon a serpent on the pole to live.
• You need to really see what happened that day when Jesus died.
• He became what was killing you so that you could live.

• A serpent.
• And when that serpent got Adam and Eve to sin, death stung them.
• Death wanted to kill them.
• Death came by sin.

 

 

Roma 5:12  Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

• Death got them the moment they sinned.
• And death, the serpent, was killing them.
• So Jesus became sin and since He took the sting of death away, by taking sin away from us, and became sin, you could say that not only were you killed on the cross with Him, but so was death.
• He crucified sin and death.

 

 

Roma 8:3-4  For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

• That is why there is no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus (Ro 8:1).
• Sin condemned us to death.
• Sin was the condemner.
• Sin was the sting of death, and we sinned.
• Death got us.
• But God took sin and condemned the condemner IN THE FLESH.

 

 

John 12:31-32  Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all [men] unto me.

• He meant that all the world must be judged due to sin.
• They must face God and be condemned with their sin.
• But Jesus said the time of the world's judgment and condemnation was when He would die.
• I sinned, and I was condemned and was to be judged.
• I was doomed.
• But God already CONDEMNED, or JUDGED, my sin when Jesus died 2,000 years ago.
• I simply had to look to Him.
• And I looked to Him in 1977 and my sins were taken away.

 

 

1Tim 5:24  Some men's sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and some [men] they follow after.

• They were already judged.
• All because I looked to Jesus.

• God will say, "Today, when you look to Jesus, I do not need to judge your sins today.  The work has already been done.  The money was put into your account 2,000 years ago, but since you never looked before now, you never went and claimed the money and lived by it."
• The whole world's sins are paid for.
• But the world has not looked to Jesus and gone to their banks and enjoyed the life because they never believed it was true.

• I did not got to the bank that day.
• She did.
• But I wrote cheques and used my debit card and enjoyed the money by buying what I needed.

• And I believed it and I looked to Jesus.
• I saw a revelation of Jesus that day.
• I saw that He became what was killing me.
• He took my sins.
• He took my death.
• He died my death.
• He died as me.
• And it is in my account, and I can write cheques on that!

Roma 6:6-11  Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with [him], that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

• How did I die with Him?
• The way He died, on a cross.
• So how do I live with Him?
• The way He lives... and He lives forever unto God.

 

 

Roma 6:10  For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

• You do nothing.
• The work is FINISHED.
• You just do not allow the devil to do anything to you by lying to you and putting thoughts in your mind that will cause you to quit writing cheques on this account!
• Do not allow him to stop you from gathering with the people of God and learning more about Jesus.

• When you see what is true about Jesus, you see what is true about you, because you are united with Him.
• You died and live with Him.
• He is the head and you are the body.
• How much closer can you tie up to Him?
• He is the vine and we are the branches.