It is significant that Numbers chapter 20 groups together three significant events: Miriam’s death, Moses’s sin (striking the rock twice), and Aaron’s death.
These three events point to the fact that neither Aaron, representative of the Priesthood, nor Miriam, representative of the Prophets, nor Moses, representative of the Law, could successfully lead Israel into the land of promise and rest. The way into the Promised Land was to be led by Joshua who, in the book that bears his name, is an incredible type of the Lord Jesus Christ. (Note: Joshua is the Hebrew rendering of the name Jesus and is actually translated Jesus in Acts 7:45! KJV)
The reason God was so stern with Moses about disobeying His command to speak to the rock is revealed in 1 Corinthians 10:4. That wasn’t just any rock! That Rock was Christ! The Rock had already been smitten once (Ex. 17:5), and God didn’t want it smitten again. Striking it again would imply that Christ’s one sacrifice on the Cross wasn’t sufficient to pay for man’s sin. Because of Moses’s defilement of the type, he was not permitted to enter the Promised Land. Husbands, take note, God does not take kindly when someone spoils the picture of His Son! You, too, are a picture of Christ in your relationship to your wife (Eph. 5:22–32). Unless your relationship with your wife is right, it will be as impossible for you to enter Canaan (the fullness of life in Christ) as it was for Moses!
Chapter 21 presents another incredible picture of Christ. The people had been bitten with the fiery serpents because of two sins: 1) They spoke against God; and 2) they spoke against Moses. Because of their sin, they were dying (vs. 5–6). In like fashion, we are sinners who have sinned against God and against our fellow man (Mark 12:30–31). We have been bitten by the fiery serpent of sin and are destined to die (Rom. 6:23a – “the wages of sin is death”).
God’s remedy in Israel was a serpent of brass that was to be lifted up on a pole among the people, and all who looked to it were delivered from death to life. In John 3:14–15, Jesus said, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him [i.e., looks to Him in faith] should not perish, but have eternal life.”
It is therefore easy to compare the physical salvation provided through the serpent of brass lifted up on the pole with the spiritual salvation provided through the Lord Jesus Christ, lifted up on the cross:
1. Their salvation was by faith.
It wasn’t by anything they did, the command was simply to “look and live”!
2. It was by faith alone.
Israel was not saved by looking at the serpent and keeping the Law ... or bringing a sacrifice ... or promising reform. They were saved by faith alone. Likewise, our salvation is not Christ plus anything! If anything needs to be added to Christ, then Christ is not sufficient in Himself to provide our salvation. God forbid!
3. Their was only one remedy.
Many people are convinced that “there are many roads to heaven, or many ways to God.” There was only one remedy in the camp of Israel, and there is only one remedy today! Jesus said in John 14:6, “I am the way [not a way] ... no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” Unless a person looks to Christ by faith, the “sting of death” (1 Cor. 15:56) is inevitable and eternal.
4. Their salvation was immediate.
Just as the bitten victim in Israel received an immediate miracle when he looked to the serpent of brass, so every sinner bitten by the fiery serpent of sin receives the immediate miracle of eternal life when he looks to Christ by faith.
Have you come to Christ by faith... and by faith alone?