Church of the Holy City

The Light Has Come into the World

The Light Has Come into the World
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
March 18, 2012

Numbers 21:4-9 John3:14-21 Psalm 107

The Bible passages we heard this morning bring up some long-standing Biblical problems. One problem is how God deals with humanity. Related to this problem is the issue of all those snakes. Then there is the problem as to what Jesus means by believing in His name.
Let’s begin with the snakes. The Israelites grumble about their life in the desert. The Bible then tells us that God sent fiery snakes to punish them. We are told that many Israelites were bitten by snakes and died. The people then repent, admit their sin, and Moses prays to God for them. Then there is an interesting episode in the story. Moses makes a bronze snake and puts it on a pole. If an Israelite gets bitten by a snake and looks at the bronze snake Moses made, he or she won’t die. This story has profound depth when we look at it from the internal sense, which we will do just after I clarify some theological problems.
We are told that God sent the Israelites snakes because they grumbled against God. This is an appearance of truth. Swedenborg says that the Bible contains many statements that aren’t strictly true. And the idea that God would punish the Israelites by sending them venomous snakes is not true. God never punishes anyone. Swedenborg makes this very clear.
in the Word it is frequently said that God is angry, takes vengeance, hates, damns, punishes, casts into hell, and tempts, all of which pertain to evil, and therefore are evils. But . . . the sense of the letter of the Word is composed of such things as are called appearances and correspondences . . . when such things are read these very appearances of truth, while they are passing from a person to heaven, are changed into genuine truths, which are, that the Lord is never angry, never takes vengeance, never hates, damns, punishes, casts into hell, or tempts, consequently does evil to a person (TCR 650).
God is pure love and does only good to people. God cannot even look at us with a stern countenance.
as He wills only what is good he can do nothing but what is good. . . . From these few statements it can be seen how deluded those are who think, and still more those who believe, and still more those who teach, that God can damn any one, curse any one, send any one to hell, predestine any soul to eternal death, avenge wrongs, be angry, or punish. He cannot even turn Himself away from humanity, nor look upon anyone with a stern countenance (TCR 56).
So when we read that God sent snakes to punish the Israelites, we are dealing with an appearance of truth. When we understand this story from the internal sense, there is profound depth to this story about snakes in the wilderness.
The story of the snakes in the desert works very well with the passage we heard in John about Jesus saving the human race. John even says that just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up. Both of these images of lifting up relate to salvation–Moses saves life when he lifts up the bronze snake, and Jesus saves our souls when He is lifted up in the resurrection. To begin this comparison, let us consider the story about the snakes in Numbers.
The snakes appear when the Israelites grumble against God. Snakes symbolize the lowest part of our personality. The snakes symbolize the part of us concerned with our senses. We have many levels to us, some higher, some lower. Our senses are the lowest part of our personality. When we reject God we become increasingly interested in the life of our senses only. We believe only what our senses tell us. Since we can’t see God or heaven, a person who lives only by their senses denies God. Since it looks like we are all individuals separated from one another, a sensual person is only interested in self and what benefits self. This is when the snakes come. All the evils and falsities in which a person becomes involved stem from paying too much mind to our senses. When we deny God, or when we turn from God, we let evil and selfishness into ourselves. This is the affliction of the snakes. These evils are not imposed on us by God. Rather, we freely take them on of our own accord.
Now the way the story unfolds is critical for us to understand how Jesus is our savior. The next thing that happens in our story is that the Israelites repent. They say, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you.” Just as one skinks into sensuality when one turns away from God, so one wakes up when he or she turns toward God. God offers a means of salvation. God doesn’t take the snakes away. But God does render them harmless. If an Israelite gets bitten by a snake, he or she will live if they look at the bronze snake that Moses put on a pole. Our fallen nature will always be with us. We will always have proprium. We inherit tendencies to evil and we act on some of these and make them our own. These tendencies, distorted feelings, and incorrect ideas about life are part of who we are. They are all in our proprium. But God plants holy loves and innocence in our proprium and gives it spiritual life. God lifts us up out of our proprium and into heavenly love. This is what is symbolized by looking at the bronze snake that Moses put on the pole. The affliction of the snakes are healed by the upward gaze to the bronze snake. And it is Jesus who lifts us up out of the affliction of our proprium; that saves us from the evils and sensuous thinking that the snakes symbolize. This takes us to our New testament story.
John compares Jesus’ resurrection to Moses lifting up the bronze snake in the wilderness. In John 3:14 we read, “And 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.” When John says that the Son of Man must be lifted up, he means several things. First, he means that Jesus rises from the dead on Easter and takes on all power and dominion. This is one meaning of the Son of Man being lifted up. He is lifted up from the grave and completely unified with God. It is the risen and glorified Jesus that leads us into heaven. It is the risen and glorified Jesus that fills us with His love and enlightens our minds. It is the risen and glorified Jesus that lives in us and us in Him that makes us Christians and makes us an image and likeness of God. So John says, “For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” But being saved by Jesus is not something that just happens.
We need to take action in order to let Jesus save us. Here we run into religious controversy. Some Christians use John 3 as proof that all we need for salvation is to believe in Jesus. They base this belief on John’s words, “For God so loved the world that He gave his only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (3:16). That looks like believing in Jesus would give us eternal life. But if we read further, things look different indeed. We find John talking a good deal about our deeds, and we see clearly that belief is not enough. John tells us, “And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil” (3:19). John says further that when we do evil deeds, we turn away from Jesus and love the darkness. “For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come into the light, lest his deeds should be exposed” (3:20). Then we find that coming into the light happens when we do good deeds. “But he who does what is true comes into the light, that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been wrought in God” (3:21). So coming to Jesus means doing deeds that are wrought in God. Deeds matter a great deal. In fact our salvation depends on the deeds we do that are wrought in God. Believing in Jesus is not enough.
This is how I read that controversial line that comes up very often in religious discussions. John 3:18 goes as follows, “He who believes in Him is not condemned; he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” This line depends on what John means by the name of the only Son of God. To Christians who read the Bible strictly on the surface, the name means Jesus. Since Jesus is the Son of God, the name of the Son of God is Jesus. In this reading, only those who believe in Jesus are saved. But I think that John means more than just a name, like John Doe. A person’s name is all that they stand for. This is what we mean when we say that a person has a good name. When I say that I am known by my name, I mean I am known by what I stand for, not just David Fekete, my first and last name. When we say that those are saved who believe in the name of the Son of God, we mean what that all stands for. What does the name of the Son of God mean? It means all the things that God is known for: love, forgiveness, peace, innocence, wisdom, purity of heart, humility, and infinitely more than these few qualities. These qualities are the things that save, not just confessing Jesus’ personal name. If we believe in forgiveness, peace, innocence, wisdom, purity of heart, love, and humility, then we will seek out these qualities and make them our own. That is what we mean when we say something like, “I believe in love.”
These qualities are the light that came into the world with Jesus’ birth. But they are not unique to Jesus. The great religions of the world have their own words and traditions that bear witness to the light. The great world religions have their own list of deeds that are wrought in God. Notice how John moves from talking about Jesus first, and then generalizes his discussion to light and darkness, and finally opens it up to deeds that are wrought in God. This passage is a text that includes all who do Godly deeds and who believe in those qualities that the name of Jesus stands for. It is not a text to condemn other religions that are not Christian. Rather, it is a text that includes all the peoples and religions that believe in the name that Jesus stands for. When we lift up Jesus’ qualities, as Moses lifted up the bronze snake in the wilderness, then we are saved.
In this Lenten Season we look forward to Easter, when Jesus rose from the dead with power and might. This Sunday, we look at the name of Jesus and consider how it saves. We believe that when Jesus rose from the dead, He took onto Himself God’s infinite power. And the gentle God who showed compassion to the whole human race took on the power to fill the whole human race with that compassion. And we are filled with that compassion when we lift up the name of Jesus in our own hearts, as Moses lifted up the bronze snake in the wilderness. When we lift up the name of Jesus, let us lift up who He was and what He stood for in our hearts, and in our thoughts.