Nicodemus now understood in some measure what entrance into the Kingdom meant; but its how seemed only involved in greater mystery. That it was such a mystery, unthought and unimagined in Jewish theology, was a terribly sad manifestation of what the teaching in Israel was. Yet it had all been told them, as of personal knowledge, by the Baptist and by Jesus; nay, if they could only have received it, by the whole Old Testament. He wanted to know the how of these things before he believed them. He believed them not, though they passed on earth, because he knew not their how. How then could he believe that how, of which the agency was unseen and in heaven? To that spring of being no one could ascend but He that had come down from heaven, [1843] and Who, to bring to us that spring of being, had appeared as the Son of Man,' the Ideal Man, the embodiment of the Kingdom of Heaven, and thus the only true Teacher come from God. Or did Nicodemus think of another Teacher - hitherto their only Teacher, Moses - whom Jewish tradition generally believed to have ascended into the very heavens, in order to bring the teaching unto them? [1844] Let the history of Moses, then, teach them! They thought they understood his teaching, but there was one symbol in his history before which tradition literally stood dumb. They had heard what Moses had taught them; they had seen the earthly things' of God in the Manna which had rained from heaven, and, in view and hearing of it all, they had not believed, but murmured and rebelled. Then came the judgment of the fiery serpents, and, in answer to repentant prayer, the symbol of new being, a life restored from death, as they looked on their no longer living but dead death lifted up before them. A symbol this, showing forth two elements: negatively, the putting away of the past in their dead death (the serpent no longer living, but a brazen serpent); and positively, in their look of faith and hope. Before this symbol, as has been said, tradition has stood dumb. It could only suggest one meaning, and draw from it one lesson. Both these were true, and yet both insufficient. The meaning which tradition attached to it was, that Israel lifted up their eyes, not merely to the serpent, but rather to their Father in heaven, and had regard to His mercy. This, [1845] as St. John afterwards shows (ver. 16), was a true interpretation; but it left wholly out of sight the Antitype, in gazing on Whom our hearts are uplifted to the love of God, Who gave His only-begotten Son, and we learn to know and love the Father in His Son. And the lesson which tradition drew from it was, that this symbol taught, the dead would live again; for, as it is argued, [1846] behold, if God made it that, through the similitude of the serpent which brought death, the dying should be restored to life, how much more shall He, Who is Life, restore the dead to life.' And here lies the true interpretation of what Jesus taught. If the uplifted serpent, as symbol, brought life to the believing look which was fixed upon the giving, pardoning love of God, then, in the truest sense, shall the uplifted Son of Man give true life to everyone that believeth, looking up in Him to the giving and forgiving love of God, which His Son came to bring, to declare, and to manifest. For as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth should in Him have eternal life.' [1847]
With this final and highest teaching, which contains all that Nicodemus, or, indeed, the whole Church, could require or be able to know, He explained to him and to us the how of the new birth - alike the source and the flow of its spring. Ours it is now only to believe,' where we cannot further know, and, looking up to the Son of Man in His perfected work, to perceive, and to receive the gift of God's love for our healing. In this teaching it is not the serpent and the Son of Man that are held side by side, though we cannot fail to see the symbolic reference of the one to the other, but the uplifting of the one and the other - the one by the sin, the other through the sin of the people: both on account of it - the forthgoing of God's pardoning mercy, the look of faith, and the higher recognition of God's love in it all.