John 3:14,15

“ And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, 15, that whosoever believeth on him, may have eternal life. ”

The commentators give more or less forced explanations of καί (and). Lucke : “I can reveal (John 3:11-13), and I must do so” (John 3:14-16). Olshausen: “I give not only my word, but my person. ” De Wette: “Jesus passes from the theoretical to the practical.” Meyer and Luthardt: “He has spoken of the necessity of faith; He speaks now of its sweetness. ” Weiss: “There is here a new motive to believe. The elevation of Jesus will give salvation only by means of faith. ” All this is too artificial. From our point of view, the connection is more simple: the καί and, and also, adds a second divine mystery to the first, the decree of redemption to that of revelation.

The central idea of this verse is that of the lifting up of the Messiah. Three principal explanations have been given of the word ὑψωθῆναι (to be lifted up). It has been applied either to the spiritual glory which the moral perfection which He will display in His sufferings will procure for Jesus in the hearts of men (Paulus), or to His elevation to heavenly glory which will take place as following upon His death (Bleek), or finally, to the very fact of His suspension on the cross; this last interpretation is the one most generally received. And indeed, in the one or the other of the first meanings, Jesus would rather have used the term δοξασθῆναι (to be glorified). For the third, the following points decide the case: 1. The comparison with the serpent raised to the top of the pole, which certainly had nothing glorious in it; 2. The naturally material sense of the word ὑψωθῆναι (to be lifted up); finally, 3. The relation of this word to the corresponding Aramaic term zekaph, which is applied to the suspension of malefactors. Only we must take account of the allusion which Jesus, in using this term (being lifted up), certainly made to the ideas of Nicodemus, according to which the Messiah was to ascend the throne of Solomon and rule the world. And the voluntary and ironical amphibology of this expression will be understood as in connection with the Messianic expectation of the Pharisees. To perceive this shade, we must strongly emphasize the οὕτως : (it is thus) and not as you picture it to yourselves that the lifting up of the Son of man will take place.

This word (will be lifted up), intimates indeed that by this strange elevation the Son of man will attain not only to the throne of David, but to that of God. Such is the full meaning of the word: to be lifted up. We must not, as Meyer does, refuse to follow the thought of Jesus in this rapid evolution, which instantaneously brings together the greatest contrasts, if we would understand all the depth and all the richness of His words. We find here again the same enigmatical character as in John 2:19. The fact related in Numbers 21:9, is one of the most astonishing in sacred history. Three peculiarities distinguish this mode of deliverance from all the other analogous miracles: 1. It is the plague itself, which, represented as overcome, becomes, by its ignominious exposure, the means of its own defeat; 2. This exposure takes place, not in a real serpent the suspension in that case would have proclaimed only the defeat of the individual exposed but in a typical copy, which represents the entire species;

3. This expedient becomes efficacious through the intervention of a moral act, the look of faith on the part of each injured person. If this is the type of salvation, it follows from this fact that this salvation will be wrought in the following way: 1. Sin will be exposed publicly as vanquished, and for the future powerless; 2. It will not be in the person of a real sinner which would proclaim only the particular defeat of that sinner but in the person of a holy man, capable of representing, as a living image, the condemnation and defeat of sin, as such; 3. This exhibition of sin as one who is vanquished, will save each sinner only by means of an act on his part, the look of faith upon his spiritual enemy condemned and vanquished. Here, Jesus declares, is the salvation on which the establishment of the Kingdom will be founded; here is the second heavenly decree revealed to men. What a reversal of the Messianic programme of Nicodemus! But, at the same time, what appropriateness in the choice of this Scriptural type, designed to rectify the ideas of the old doctor in Israel!

“ Must,” says Jesus; and first, for the fulfillment of the prophecies; then, for that of the divine decree, of which the prophecies were only an emanation (Hengstenberg); let us add, finally; and for the satisfaction of certain moral necessities, known to God only. The designation, Son of man, is here, as at John 3:13, chosen with a marked design. It is on the complete homogeneousness of His nature with ours, that the mysterious substitution rests, which is proclaimed in this verse, precisely as it was on this same community of nature that the act of revelation rested, which was announced in the preceding verse.