In studying Christ’s language in these two verses observe (1) That we have Christ’s authority for the doctrine that the O. T. history is intended to indicate, by types or object-teaching, the great truths of the Gospel. This he assumes elsewhere in his ministry (Luke 22:15, 19, 20; John 6:49-51), and it is directly asserted by Paul (1 Cor. 10:11), and underlies the Epistle to the Hebrews. The history of the brazen serpent is then a parable of the Gospel; parabolically it points out the way of salvation. (2) The serpent is throughout the Bible an emblem of Satan, and its poison an emblem of the deadly and pervasive effects of sin (Gen. 3:1, 14, 15; Deut. 32:33; Psalm 58:4, 5; 140:3; Rom. 3:13; 2 Cor. 11:3; Rev. 12:9). It is a fitting emblem--slight in its first wound, affecting the blood, the current and fountain of life, pervading the whole frame with its subtle poison, a poison for which there is no human remedy, and resulting in certain death. (3) For the human soul, poisoned by sin, the end whereof is death (James 1:15), there is lifted up One who, though he knew no sin, was made in the likeness of sinful flesh (2 Cor. 6:21), so that in him the enemy himself was, as it were, nailed to the cross (Col. 2:15). Thus, as the brazen serpent represented the fiery serpent, yet had in him not poison but healing, so Christ represented sinful flesh, but had in him no sin but redemption from the poison of sin in others. (4) The one only condition of healing to the poisoned Israelite was that he _look on_ the brazen serpent; and this simply as an act of obedient faith. To this fact Isaiah had reference in his interpretation of the divine condition of salvation, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else” (Isaiah 45:22). So here to “believe in him” is not to believe some doctrine about the Messiah, but simply to trust in him, to look unto him (Acts 16:31; Heb. 12:2). (5) The work of heralding the Gospel is the work of Moses in the wilderness. It is a simple pointing to the Saviour, lifted up that the sinner, by looking unto him, may be saved. The work of instruction in the precepts of Christ and the principles of his kingdom comes after, not before, salvation (Matt. 28:19, 20, note). 16 For God[97] so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. [97] 1 John 4:9.