*A Biblical Asterisk4 min read

Don’t get lost in what follows. There is an asterisk.

Of course the most famous and perhaps cherished Bible passage is John 3:16. It certainly does not need to be cited here because you have just now recited it in your head. We call it The Gospel in a Nutshell.

The verse after it is a good one too. “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17). This is an important verse that helps the Church understand its mission of following Jesus’ footsteps to go into the world with a message of salvation, not condemnation.

The two verses before it are also good. “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14–15). These are important verses that help us to understand the Old Testament better. The Old Testament lays the groundwork for understanding the person and the mission of the Christ.

Remember, there is an asterisk coming.

These verses refer to Numbers 21. During the wilderness wanderings, the Israelites were complaining yet again against YHWH, so he sent fiery serpents against them. The serpents were biting and killing the people. The people called to Moses for help. YHWH told Moses to make a serpent out of bronze and direct the people to look to it. Whoever looked to the bronze serpent would live.

A “Type” of Christ

This passage serves as a “type” of Christ; you might call it a physical rather than verbal prophecy. (Keep reading. Wait for the asterisk.) It pointed to the same reality that would be fulfilled in Jesus, as the Gospel writer John makes clears.

There are other examples of this. Jonah is one. So is the account of David with Goliath. That passage is not really about how YHWH helps you go up against giants; it is about how YHWH provided the Son of David to do that for you. You might re-read the account of Esther in light of this. Esther, about whom it was said “for such a time as this,” points us more to the excellent timing of the Father sending Jesus to be Savior of the world (Romans 5:6) than it does to whatever timing you might find in your life as you face a difficult time.

The asterisk is just around the corner.

John 3:14–15 is a great example of what Jesus did for the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Remember how they said, “Did not our hearts burn within us when he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” (Luke 24:32). The Old Testament is full of prophecies and typologies regarding the person and the mission of Jesus. Chief and clearest of them is this event, the bronze serpent as a type of Christ.

The Asterisk

Now here is the asterisk. There is an asterisk to the bronze serpent as a figure of salvation. You will find that asterisk in 2 Kings 18. After the days in the wilderness, apparently that which had been a vehicle for the Israelites’ salvation had become a snare. The bronze serpent had been named Nehushtan and was an object of worship in and of itself. What had been a good thing had become an idol. What had been an instrument of God’s grace had become an end in and of itself.

King Hezekiah, a follower of YHWH, did what needed to be done. He destroyed the idol.

We should pay attention to this example (see 1 Corinthians 10:11). We Christians need to be on guard about this very temptation. All too easily good things become ultimate things. All too easily religious items and practices can become idols. Religiosity can lead us to idolatry.

There are many temptations and experiences in life that can pull us away from faith in Jesus. Such things never present themselves as wicked or abhorrent. Rather, Satan is at work to pull us away from Jesus by offering us things that present themselves as good, pleasant, and even religious.

Let us be careful lest we fall. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, lifted up on the cross as prefigured in the wilderness, raised from the dead as prefigured by Jonah, reigning at the right hand of the Father as promised to David, and soon, may it be very soon, returning as He told His Church to expect.

But let us also remember the asterisk of 2 Kings 19. Let us fix our eyes on Him and the grace He gives, not the vehicles (religious practices, traditions of man, church buildings, human beings) that lead us to Him. The idols of the world allure. But they are not in the world alone. Oddly, religion can lead us away from Jesus. May the faithfulness of Hezekiah be borne out in us today. Together, may we together cling to the person of Jesus revealed in Scripture (John 3:14–15) and share His salvation with the world (John 3:17).

**Gideon’s ephod is a second asterisk. Judges 8:27

_{Photo by Elisa Schulz/Michigan District, LCMS}