Christ in the Shadows

Christ in the Shadows

By Apostle Felix

No one has risen into the heavenly realm except the Son of Man who also exists in heaven.” “And just as Moses in the desert lifted up the brass replica of a snake on a pole for all the people to see and be healed, so the Son of Man is ready to be lifted up, so that those who truly believe in him will not perish but be given eternal life.

John 3: 13 – 15

Israel sinned against the Lord by murmuring and complaining about the manna God had provided for them in the wilderness. The murmuring displeased the Lord and snakes were unleashed against the Israeli community and many died of the snake bites. In scripture, a snake is symbolic of rebellion, which is sin. The message to the children of Israel was that consequences of sin is death. And God was also informing them that the penalty of sin is death and it can only be remedied by substitutionary death.

For God made the only one who did not know sin to become sin for us, so that we who did not know righteousness might become the righteousness of God through our union with him.

2 Corinthians 5: 21

Jesus had to become sin for the sake of saving man from his predicament. He was hopelessly under the influence of the venom of sin. Like the children of Israel in the wilderness, man could not rescue himself from sin. One man, Jesus Christ had to come and be punished for the sins of man. The brazen snake that Moses had made and lifted on the pole had nothing to do with the biting of the people. But it represented the snakes that were biting the people.

The brazen snake had to bear the brunt of the snakes that had killed the people. It did not kill but it became the sacrifice. Jesus was not the one who sinned but He became sin, not a sinner. He became it that had made man to die spiritually. He did not die as a sinner, but as sin. Sin had to be punished and the vessel that had accommodated it. Jesus was buried as sin. He had to experience total separation from God, the Father through His experience of death.

Because you will not leave my soul among the dead, nor will you allow your sacred one to experience decay.

Acts 2: 27

The death Jesus experienced was a separation from the Father. He never remained in hades (death), Jesus rose from the dead victoriously. He conquered death and sin. And whosoever comes to Him, look to Him and call upon Him shall be saved. He is life. Do not sit back and be groaning in the oppression of sin. Call upon Him today and He will save you. If He can take away sin, then He can take away anything that sin brings along. Put your trust in Him alone. Not the brazen snake. That was a shadow of the Christ. Do not trust in shadows, Christ is the substance.

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.

Numbers 21: 7 – 9