=14, 15. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness.= The reference here is to the event recorded in Num. 21:4-9. The account there should be carefully studied and compared with the spiritual interpretation which Christ affords here. What species are there indicated by the description “fiery serpent” is not very clear; probably the title was given from the burning sensations produced by their bite. Travelers describe a large serpent, said to abound in the Arabian peninsula, full of fiery red spots and undulating stripes, and regarded as one of the most poisonous of the serpent kind. Excruciating heat and a burning thirst are among the symptoms produced by the bite of this serpent. The brazen serpent described in Numbers is thought to have been put upon a pole and carried throughout the camp, so as to bring it within the sight of all the people. It was carefully preserved and carried into the Holy Land, where it became an object of idolatry and was destroyed in the reformation instituted under Hezekiah (2 Kings 18:4). A Roman Catholic church at Milan, Italy, however, still claims to possess the original brazen serpent.--=Must the Son of Man be lifted up.= Why _must_? What is the necessity? That question Christ does not answer here, nor, so far as I can see, does the N. T. anywhere. It simply represents the atoning sacrifice of Christ as a necessity, without explaining the grounds of that necessity (comp. Luke 24:26). That it is in the divine economy of grace an inexorable necessity is indicated even by the types of the O. T. (Lev. 17:11; Heb. 9:22). The phrase “Son of Man” was a common Jewish designation for the Messiah. It would have been so understood by Nicodemus (Matt. 10:23, note).--=Be lifted up.= Not only _on the cross_, but _by the cross unto glory_. It is the cross which lifts up Christ to be the object of adoration for the whole creation (Phil. 2:9; Rev. 5:9).--=Should not perish.= These words are wanting in the best manuscripts. But the doctrine implied, that those who do not believe will perish, is clearly taught in verse 16, from which it was probably borrowed and inserted here by some early copyist.--=Eternal life.= The same Greek words are rendered everlasting life in the next verse (ζωὴν αἰώνιον). Comp. ch. 10:10. Eternal life is the life of the soul which disaster cannot impair nor death destroy--a present possession, not a future inheritance, except that it is a possession which grows in value and importance in the future.