Page 36 - The Mark of the Beast

Numbers 21:6-9
Yahweh sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many
people of Israel died. So the people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned,
because we have spoken against Yahweh and you; intercede with Yahweh, that He
may remove the serpents from us." And Moses interceded for the people. Then
Yahweh said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall come
about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live." And Moses made
a bronze serpent and set it on a pole; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any
man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived.

I can imagine that before Christ was crucified there lived many godly men who desired
earnestly to understand the significance of this thing that Yahweh instructed Moses to do.
Why make a bronze serpent and place it on a pole? How would looking to this serpent bring
healing to mankind? What was symbolized here? Yahshua revealed to His disciples that the
bronze serpent on the pole actually pointed to His own crucifixion.

John 3:14-15
As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be
lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.

The saints eagerly embrace depictions of Christ as a pure and spotless lamb, but there
is something within them that recoils at seeing the Son of God depicted as a serpent. Yet
Yahshua testified that this serpent pointed to Himself. Moses himself recoiled when God
first revealed to him an image of Christ as a serpent.

Exodus 4:2-3
Yahweh said to him, "What is that in your hand?" And he said, "A staff." Then He
said, "Throw it on the ground." So he threw it on the ground, and it became a
serpent; and Moses fled from it.

You may ask, “How do we know the serpent depicted here represents Christ?” Moses’
staff was a symbol of Christ. This staff was the power of God to accomplish salvation for the
Israelites. In many places in Scripture we see the staff being symbolic of Christ. When David
penned Psalm 23 he wrote, “Your rod and your staff, they comfort me,” it was Christ who
was depicted as both the rod and staff. In Isaiah we also read:

Isaiah 11:1
There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of
his roots.

The staff in Moses’ hands is a picture of Christ, and that the staff turned into a serpent
is a further confirmation of this divine imagery. Yet even as Moses fled from the serpent,
so too do most Christians flee from the image of Christ as a serpent. It was this serpent,
however, that swallowed the serpents of Pharaoh’s magicians. And it is the serpent on the
pole that brought healing to all those dying among the Israelites who would look to it.
Why should the Son of God be depicted as a rod that changes into a serpent, or a