Numbers 21:9 // So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.
The preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ offers an extravagant promise of life to those who meet its one condition—"look and live!" The one condition that must be met if abundant and eternal life would be ours is that we look. And what a desperate need for a saving look the people of God had in the wilderness! Though their Redeemer had delivered them from Egypt, their sin-bitten hearts had pumped the poison of impatient pride through their veins and their spiritual necks had grown stiff. God's judgment came against them in the form of fiery serpents whose bite brought the sting of death, but also produced a softening effect that prepared them to experience His mercy and grace. Moses set a bronze serpent on a pole, as God had instructed, and lifted it up among God's people. In the midst of his judgment against their sinful complaining and dissatisfaction, God provided an object of his promise that would cure their venomous disease under one condition—those who had been bitten must “look and live.”
So too, we are called to a life of looking and living, beloved! Apart from faith-filled looking, the poison of sinful pride courses like a noxious weed through every thread of our lives. Apart from faith-filled looking, we grow impatient against God, and our lips raise complaints against him and his messengers whom he graciously sends to us. And apart from faith-filled looking, we find ourselves trading away the eternal comfort that only our Redeemer can give in exchange for the death-producing relief that slavery to sin temporarily promises. We who have been bitten by the fangs of sin and death need a faith-filled look toward the object of God’s promise of life.
And what an object we have to behold in the cross of Christ! Where else could we look that would silence our bitter complaining? Where else could we look and be convinced that God's provision alone can satisfy? And where else could we look to know for certain that death has died? The great promises of the gospel are available to you if you would but "look and live!"