The Antidote

Gary Belhomme

The Gospel of John • Sermon • Submitted a year ago • Presented a year ago

John 3:14–21

Salvation

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Missing Heaven on a Technicality

In the book The Faith of Elvis, Billy Stanley, half-brother of Elvis, he poignantly shares the ups and downs of Elvis’ walk with Jesus. On a more humorous side, he shared this encounter between Elvis and Sammy Davis Jr.:

It was a kind of a funny thing, and also serious in a way, but one time in Las Vegas, he was talking to Sammy Davis Jr. Sammy noticed Elvis wearing both a Star of David and a cross necklace—two things that don’t normally go together because they represent two distinct religions: Judaism and Christianity.

Sammy said, “Elvis, isn’t that kind of a contradiction?”

Elvis looked at him and said, “I don’t want to miss heaven on a technicality.”

Source:

Billy Stanley, The Faith of Elvis, (Thomas Nelson, 2022), pp. 161-162

Although this account is humorous, we are unsure if Elvis was serious when answering Davis’s question. But if Elvis was serious, he certainly got it wrong. No one will miss heaven on a technicality. In fact, this type of thinking mars God’s character. “Sorry, due to this technicality, this minor detail, you are condemned to eternal death, farewell… forever!” No one will perish and miss out on heaven because of a technicality. [TS] Jesus’s dialogue with Nicodemus reveals why people will be eternally lost because of reasons recorded in John 3:14-21.

John 3:14–21 CSB

14 “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. 16 For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Anyone who believes in him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God. 19 This is the judgment: The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone who does evil hates the light and avoids it, so that his deeds may not be exposed. 21 But anyone who lives by the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be shown to be accomplished by God.”

The Venom & the Antidote

In John 3:14, Jesus told Nicodemus, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up” (Jn 3:14, CSB). The trained Pharisee would have immediately recalled the episode of the children of Israel in the wilderness referred to by what Jesus said. Let’s quickly examine this story.

Although the Lord delivered the Children of Israel from bondage with mighty miracles, they had a misapprehension of God’s intentions as their journey to the promised land became difficult. They complained that God had brought them out of Egypt to destroy them. “The people spoke against God and Moses: ‘Why have you led us up from Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread or water, and we detest this wretched food!’” (Nu 21:5, CSB)

To show them their end if they returned or stayed in Egypt, the Lord removed his restraining power and permitted poisonous serpents around the people to bite them. As the people started falling dead, Moses appealed to God for help, and this is what the Lord told him to do.

“Make a poisonous serpent out of brass and fasten it to a pole. Anyone who has been bitten and who looks at it will live.” (Nu 21:8, ISV)

Anyone bitten by a serpent had to simply look to the bronze serpent Moses made and mounted on a stick, and they would live. God showed the people that his intention was not to destroy them but to protect them and save them from death. God did not deliver the people from bondage, only to destroy them himself. That is ludicrous! But that’s what many of the Israelites believed.

The bronze serpent represented Jesus not only taking the sins of the world upon himself but, as we discovered a couple of weeks ago, identifying with the human race so closely that he was numbered among the rebellious. As Paul wrote in 2 Cor 5:21, Jesus became sin for us who knew no sin. Or according to Gal 3:13, Jesus became a curse for us.

Jesus told John, “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (Jn 3:17, CSB). God sent Jesus into this world not to judge, not to punish, but to save. Jesus came to save and not to destroy. Jesus came to save and not to condemn.

Jesus the Antidote

The Antidote

In verse 18, Jesus said to John, “Anyone who believes in him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God.” (Jn 3:18, CSB)

Believing in Jesus is akin to looking to Jesus. If the Israelites looked to the bronze serpent, they would live; if they refused to look to the serpent, they would die. Likewise, if we believe in Jesus, we will live; if we refuse to look to Jesus, we will die. Note that believing in Jesus is compared to an action, not a mental assent or a verbal declaration, but an action. The Israelites would live if they obeyed God’s word to them and looked to the bronze serpent for healing. Likewise, we will live if, in obedience, we look to Jesus for salvation. Obedience meant life; disobedience meant death.

However, there is something fascinating about how verse 18 is constructed. Let’s reread it.

“Anyone who believes in him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God.” (Jn 3:18, CSB)

The text could have read like this, “Anyone who believes in him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is . . . condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God” (Jn 3:18, CSB). However, the text uses the phrase “already condemned.” How do we understand this phrase? Why did John write, “already condemned?” The key to solving this mystery is the original story of the bronze serpent in the wilderness.

Why did God permit the serpents to bite the rebellious Israelites? Why not scorpions? Why not deadly spiders? The bite of the serpents represented Adam and Eve being metaphorically bitten by the snake in the Garden of Eden. When the first couple ate the fruit, it was as though they were bitten by the deadliest serpent in existence. The serpent’s venom–sin, would instantly kill Adam and his wife if not for Jesus stepping in as the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” and allowing the death penalty to fall upon him. Jesus is the antidote for snake bites. If Adam and Eve believed in him, although they would die, they would be raised back to life at the Second Coming of Jesus and live forever with him and the rest of the redeemed. In other words, they would only experience the first death, or sleep as the Bible calls it. However, if they had rejected Christ or anyone for that matter, rejects the only antidote for the venom of the snake called sin, the venom will do its work and kill them.

John uses the phrase “already condemned” because every one of us has been snake bitten, and if we reject the antidote of looking to the uplifted Savior, the venom will do its work and kill us.

What Can Neutralize the Antidote

If Jesus stepped in to save us, yes, all of us, the entire human race; If he offered himself as the antidote for sin, why will so many perish in the end? Why are so many, as Jesus said, taking the broad road that leads to eternal death?

Let’s read verses 19 and 20 to answer these important questions.

This is the judgment [or, according to the NKJV, “the condemnation”]: The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light and avoids it, so that his deeds may not be exposed.” (Jn 3:19–20, CSB)

The sad and painful truth is people hate the light. They hate the truth. They try to obscure the truth with ideological concepts such as your truth or my truth because they hate the truth. There is no such thing as your truth or my truth. There is only the truth, but the truth points out sin; it points out darkness, and thus people hate it. Multitudes will perish because they hate the truth. They prefer alternative facts! They hate the light because it exposes their evil deeds. The truth awakens the conscience to the reality of sin, and the majority does not welcome this awakening.

In the end, friends, the lost will not be condemned by Jesus. They will not be condemned by the Father. No, they will condemn themselves and acknowledge they are deserving of eternal condemnation and death. Jesus said,

“If anyone hears my words and doesn’t keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. The one who rejects me and doesn’t receive my sayings has this as his judge: The word I have spoken will judge him on the last day.” (Jn 12:47–48, CSB)

In the end, when the lost come face-to-face with Jesus, they will, in agony and gnashing of teeth, exclaim, “Just and true are Your ways, O King of the saints.”[1]

But we are not of the darkness nor the night, but according to 1 Thess 5:5, sons and daughters of light, amen! Then if so, let us willingly accept the only antidote for sin, Jesus Christ. Let us walk in the light, walk in obedience, and not in the darkness, for “anyone who lives by the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be shown to be accomplished by God.” (Jn 3:21, CSB)

2 NU, M nations [1] The New King James Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982), Re 15:3.

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