When Israel was in the wilderness, stubborn, and murmuring against Moses and God, God regarded their rebellion as the sin of witchcraft and their stubbornness as iniquity and idolatry. The result was death through a plague of serpents sent by God. Their salvation after they repented, was not the removal of the serpents, but rather the image of a serpent being put up on a pole and they had to look at this serpent intently to be healed from the snake bites. When we rebel against the freedom of grace and turn back to the Law, it has the same result of death. Paul was, in his letter to the Galatian Church, addressing this issue of them being bewitched and the solution thereto was that Christ be formed in them anew. Jesus compared himself to this serpent being lifted up and whoever believed in him would not perish but have eternal life. God does not remove the snakes out of our lives, because we have to learn how to contend with them, but the biggest snake is the one inside. When we look intently at Christ on the cross, the snake inside is devoured and we are healed, like when Moses was contending with Pharaoh and his staff turned into a snake and devoured the staffs of the magicians which had also turned into snakes. Our end destination is portraying Christ to those around us, and our life and holiness come from washing of the water of the word by the Spirit of God. To have Christ formed in us, is having our calling coming to fulness in us. Our overcoming the snake has a genetic benefit to our offspring, the generations coming after us.
