The Making of Nehushtan Took Time
The “cure” God told Moses to construct for the people who were bitten by poisonous snakes was to construct a brass serpent and place it on a pole for the people to look at. One thing to realize is that it took a lot of time for Moses to construct such a brass serpent on a pole. Their salvation from when the solution was announced to when it was implemented took time. It was not immediate.
Moses first had to make the mold: craftsman would be needed to make it look like a snake that could drape over a pole or cross. The brass had to be collected and melted. Once poured, it had to be allowed to cool. While brass was commonly used and the Israelites had obtained much of it from the Egyptians and it could be melted using wood fires, the making of such an elaborate piece would likely have taken several days to a week or more in order to complete the process. How many people died before the brass serpent was on the pole for them to look at?
This is somewhat congruent to the time it took for Jesus’s birth to occur here on the Earth. A lot of time passed from when God first announced Christ’s coming to earth (Gn 3:15) to the time he arrived (Lk 2:11). God says Christ arrived at just the right time. He did not come too late, and he did not come too early. Galatians 4:4-5 says, “But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.”
So why did Jesus arrive on the Earth when he did? Let’s explore that question. Well, the short answer is only God knows! Yet, there are a few reasons we could mention that could help to explain this:
1. The Law was needed for mankind to understand they could not save themselves by following a set of rules.
2. The people were ready for a Messiah (although most were looking for the wrong type of Messiah).
3. The entire known world was under the domain of Rome and Parthia with both existing in a détente where travel was allowed between the two empires enabling travel over the known world to be allowed with little resistance.
4. Jews lived in almost all prominent cities of the known world.
So, it seems Jesus arrived on the scene when he was supposed to arrive—not any earlier; not any later. There is a video by Julian Gentry (MK TriciaUGC FB 240318A 16x9 to MK VSL Alt Intro 16x9 1 07x (youtube.com) who gives an explanation as to why Jesus had to have come 2000 years ago and not at any other time in history. Julian is a Christian who works for Ratio Christi in North Carolina ministering to college studies. He also makes YouTube videos of apologetics in defense of the Christian faith. In this video referenced here, he makes two main points: first, this was the time of history that many cultures were looking and worshipping a type of god with many of them having similar characteristics and this was the time that Jesus Christ stepped into history and made a lasting impact which has lasted for over two-thousand years. Second, if Jesus Christ had been just another “god,” then his influence should have waned just like all the other ones did. But he didn’t. He is still impacting people in a positive light even today.
That fact is something we can’t really ignore. I hope you don’t either.
Next time, we’ll look at how Nehushtan is, indeed, a mysterious paradox.
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Visit Books & Words to Inspire by Randy C. Dockens