“for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor 3:6, NKJ)
Now that we have a better understanding of the weight of the Word of God, it is of great importance to exactly define our (the readers’) handling of it. But before we get there, it is important to pause at this point. Many people read and use the Bible unknowingly as an idol or as a tool of witchcraft.
To explain this, one can use the excellent example of the copper snake in the desert. Num 21:4-22 tells of the Israelites’ wanderings in the desert and how they became impatient and murmured to Moses and to God and said: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread.” (verse 5).
Then the Lord sent poisonous snakes among the people and they bit the people and many Israelites died. When the people came to Moses to ask for forgiveness, Moses prayed for them, and the Lord said to Moses: “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.” (verse 9).
The copper snake was put up on a pole and everyone who looked at it was healed. Thus, if you were bitten by a real poisonous snake, then you could look at the copper snake on the pole and, behold, you were healed. Interestingly enough, God did not take the snakes away, as He did with the plagues in Egypt. A process of salvation is built into the fallen state. The Bible does not say this pertinently, but I presume that it was only the rebellious ones and the mutterers who were bitten by the snakes, and they had to learn to submit to God and keep their eyes on Him.
That salvation is the underlying message of these Old Testament happenings (also for those to whom it happened at that time) is sure, because Jesus refers to it in John 3:14-15 (yes, just before the important 3:16!): “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
But, over time, the Israelites began to regard the copper snake on the pole in a different manner and they saw it as an object of salvation and no longer as the saving manifestation of God’s presence. Thus, 2 Kings 18:4 says that king Hoshea: “removed the high places and broke the sacred pillars, cut down the wooden image and broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made; for until those days the children of Israel burned incense to it, and called it Nehushtan.” Nehushtan literally means ‘bronze thing’, nothing more!
The Bible is an ordinary book, merely ink on paper. It is not an idol or a charm. If you are not led by the Spirit who wrote it, then the Bible’s letters will only minister death.
- Sela: Read 2 Cor 3:14-17 and pray that God removes this veil in your life.
- Read: 1 Sam 14; Ps 136; Luke 11
- Memorise: Luke 11:2-4
