Why did Jesus say that the Son of Man must be lifted up (John 3:14)?

What then, it may be asked, are we to do'? Whither are we to turn? How are we to get this new life? Our Lord's second "must" furnishes the reply. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." This makes all plain. A second Man has entered the scene. There are two men and two musts. As to the first man, he must be born again, and as to the second Man, He must be lifted up. In a word, the Cross is the grand solution of the difficulty, the divine answer to the "How?" Am I completely struck down by the first "must"? Am I overwhelmed by the insuperable difficulty which it proposes to me? Am I on the very verge of despair as I contemplate the apparent impossibility of what, nevertheless, must be? Oh then, with what power does the second "must" fall on my heart! "The Son of man must be lifted up." Why must He? Because I must have new life, and this life is in the Son, but it could only be mine through His death. The death of the second Man is the only ground of life to the first — life to me. One look at Christ, as lifted up for me, is life eternal. The soul that simply believes on the Son of God, as dead and risen, is "born of water and of the Spirit;" he has everlasting life — he is passed from death to life, from the old creation into the new, from the first man to the Second, from guilt to righteousness, from condemnation to favour, from darkness to light, from Satan to God. May God the Spirit unfold to the reader's heart the beauty and power, the depth, the comprehensiveness, and moral glory of the two "musts."

Here the Lord introduces the cross. (Ver. 14, 15) It is not a question simply of the Son of God, nor is He spoken of here as the Word made flesh. But "as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must (δεῖ) the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." As the new birth for the kingdom of God, so the cross is absolutely necessary for eternal life. In the Word was life, and the life was the light of men. It was not intended for other beings — it was God's free gift to man, to the believer, of course. Man, dead in sins, was the object of His grace; but then man's state was such, that it would have been derogatory to God had that life been communicated without the cross of Christ: the Son of man lifted up on it was the One in whom God dealt judicially with the evil estate of man, for the full consequences of which He made Himself responsible. It would not suit God, if it would suit man, that He, seeing all, should just pronounce on man's corruption, and then forthwith let him off with a bare pardon. One must be born again. But even this sufficed not: the Son of man must be lifted up. It was impossible that there should not be righteous dealing with human evil against God, in its sources and its streams. Accordingly, if the law raised the question of righteousness in man, the cross of the Lord Jesus, typifying Him made sin, is the answer; and there has all been settled to the glory of God, the Lord Jesus having suffered all the inevitable consequences. Hence, then, we have the Lord Jesus alluding to this fresh necessity, if man was to be blessed according to God. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." But this, however worthy of God, and indispensable for man, could not of itself give an adequate expression of what God is; because in this alone, neither His own love nor the glory of His Son finds due display.

How did He effect this? Listen — "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up." He brings out that if there be an inexorable necessity for this new birth because of man's condition, not less is it the necessity of God's own nature that sin shall receive its judgment if man is to enter the heavenly scenes of which He speaks. We not only have sins that must everlastingly debar us from His presence, but we possess a nature unsuited to God, and therefore the Lord brings out in verses 14 and 15 the truth of the cross, the necessity of His death to meet the claims of God in righteousness, and make a pathway for us into glory. How? Through His death for us on the tree? Look at these two "musts," and put them together. "Ye must be born again." "The Son of man must be lifted up." The "must" of man in his need, is divinely and fully met by the "must" that flows from the heart of Christ in His blessed grace, and led Him to the cross. The Son of Man must be lifted up. All that the flesh was in man must meet its judgment. His sufferings for us were necessary. Did Nicodemus understand that? Do you? He knew well that deliverance came to the dying people, when bitten by the serpent, by simply, in faith, lifting their eyes to the brazen serpent on the pole. What has brought in death? Sin. And what do I see upon the cross? He who is Himself the Son of God, and the Son of Man, who knew no sin, made sin for us; and, in His death, sin in the flesh is condemned. As He dies, death is annulled, and my sins are blotted out. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up; that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life." Is not that good news? Who does "whosoever" mean? Who does it not mean? That is the point.

193 The Son of man — for Jesus was more than Messiah — must, in the counsels of God and in the need of man, be lifted up, rejected from this earth. But this lifting up was His rejection by the world. Christ could not (for man was a sinner) take His place as Messiah in blessing to Israel. He was to suffer in the character in which He had to say to all men, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness" (ver. 14); so, instead of a living Messiah, they were to have a rejected dying Son of man. The cross was healing saving power for man. Whoever believed in Him would not perish, but have everlasting life; for God so loved the world — an immense truth then, which opened the way to the fullest display of God and of grace, if one should not rather say it was such. It was an efficacious work of God (not to fulfil prophetic promises merely, but) to bring to God, "that whosoever believed in him" (this Son of man) "should have everlasting life." It was needed. Atonement must be made — redemption must be accomplished-if sinful man was to have to say to a holy God. If there was a revelation of the divine nature, and man's partaking of it was connected with his having to say to God, there must be atonement as well as a new birth. The Son of man — He who as man was to have in man's nature the inheritance of all things, and who took up man's cause — must be lifted up, like the serpent in the wilderness, made sin for us, that men may look on Him and live.

For this brought out another fundamental truth. If heaven was in question, something more was needed than being born again. Sin existed. It must be put away for those who should have eternal life. And if Jesus, coming down from heaven, was come to impart this eternal life to others, He must, in undertaking this work, put sin away — be thus made sin — in order that the dishonour done to God should be washed away, and the truth of His character (without which there is nothing sure, or good, or righteous) maintained. The Son of man must be lifted up, even as the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, that the curse, under which the people were dying, might be removed. His divine testimony rejected, man, as he was down here, showed himself to be incapable of receiving blessing from above. He must be redeemed, his sin expiated and put away; he must be treated according to the reality of his condition, and according to the character of God who cannot deny Himself. Jesus in grace undertook to do this. It was necessary that the Son of man should be lifted up, rejected from the earth by man, accomplishing the atonement before the God of righteousness. In a word, Christ comes with the knowledge of what heaven is and divine glory. In order that man might share it, the Son of man must die — must take the place of expiation — outside the earth. Observe here the deep and glorious character of that which Jesus brought with Him, of the revelation He made.

The revelation, then, of heavenly things, of eternal life, could only be made through the lifting up of the Son of Man. This is emphatically declared by the language the Lord employs. First, then, let us dwell upon the term "must." He "must" be lifted up; that is, it was a moral necessity that He should be lifted up, a moral necessity for God before e could righteously accomplish His purposes of grace. The man who had so grievously sinned, the first and ruined man, the man of responsibility, must be dealt with root and branch in final judgment before blessing could be established in the Second Man out of heaven. It was also a moral necessity for man, for he would otherwise have had no righteous ground of approach to God excepting in and through the death of Christ. There is also the descriptive term, peculiar to this gospel, "lifted up," as setting forth, on man's side, the character of the death the Son of Man should die. Outside the scene of man's failure and ruin, between heaven and earth, Christ was made sin, and in His death every question of good and evil was for ever settled, for there it was that God condemned sin in the flesh, and in the very act displayed all that He is; for as verse 16 teaches, "God so loved the world, that He GAVE His only begotten Son," that the end of His lifting up might be accomplished. God is love, and His love entered, in the death of Christ, into the dark region of our sin and corruption (for we were dead in sins) and illumined it for ever. There, too, all the attributes of God were blended in their perfect harmony, the requirements of each having been met and satisfied; and when our eyes have been opened through grace we discover that all these attributes, in their combination, do but express the nature of God, and that is LOVE.

“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” The sons of Jacob were dying in the desert from the poisonous bite of the serpents, just as you are from the bite of sin. A serpent of brass was made and lifted up upon a pole, and it came to pass that when one who was bitten beheld the serpent he lived (Num. 21:6-9). In the lifted up Son of Man you have that which was foreshadowed in the serpent of brass. Now you look to Christ. On that cross He was bearing the judgment of all who believe on Him, “That whosoever believes on Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

"How can these things be?" says Nicodemus, and Jesus tells him, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up: that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life" (vers. 14, 15). It is very simple. Jesus therein tells the story of His own death. Look at the two "musts" of this chapter. "Ye MUST be born again" (ver. 7), and, "Even so MUST the Son of Man be lifted up" (ver. 14). If you are to live, I must die, says Jesus. You MUST get life, and I MUST go into death to give you life. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up: that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life." And who does "whosoever" mean? It means what the boy told the blind man, who inquired whom it meant, "You, and me, and everybody." That is what "whosoever" means. God opens the storehouses of His grace to whosoever believes in him."

But there is something greater in the mind of God for man than even new birth, and this the Lord proceeds to speak of. He was to take the place of life-giving Head to man, and if He was to do this, the judgment which rested upon man must be borne. Hence the necessity of the cross: “the Son of Man must be lifted up.” The man after the flesh has to be set aside in the judgment of God. But the love of God was such toward the human family that He gave His only begotten Son to bear in His body that judgment. In His cross the judgment which lay upon man has been borne, and the love of God has been expressed.

In this same Gospel we read "God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son," but we cannot rightly separate those words from what goes before them. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up." "Must" is a hard word. There is no word in any language that presents with greater force what is inexorable. He must be lifted up. If eternal life was to reach a ruined race, carried far from God and under the judgment and power of death by their sins, a Son of man must be lifted up in their stead, as their substitute and representative. Divine and eternal justice demanded this; nothing less could avail. But this Son of Man must be unlike every other man, He must be entirely free from the taint and offence of sin that brought in the ruin, and upon Him death must have no claim. Where shall He be found? He was found in God's bosom. "God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son." The Son of man is the Son of God.