Archive for June 4th, 2010
Ridderbos:
Verses 14 and 15 speak with increasing clarity about the way this descent and ascent of the Son of man, as well as the salvation represented in those events, is effected. Vs. 14 does so by comparing the raising up of the Son of man with that of the serpent in the wilderness. The reference is to the story in Nu. 21 :8f., where Moses raised a serpent up on a pole as a visible sign of salvation for all who thought they were about to die. Jesus speaks of the exaltation of the Son of man, so “lifted up” acquires a double meaning here (as also in 8:28; 12:32, 34): the exaltation of the Son of man (= his glorification) is effected by his being raised up on a cross. The comparison brings this last meaning to the fore as tertium comparationis, since the element of glorification cannot be applied to the serpent. In this connection the redemption-historical “necessity” (“must be”) of this being “lifted up” is important, strongly reminiscent as it is of passages like Mt. 16:21; Lk. 9:22 in which the humiliation of the Son of man is described as the way of his exaltation and is related to God’s counsel of salvation. Still–and this is typical for the Fourth Gospel–the crucifixion is not presented as Jesus’ humiliation but as the exaltation of the Son of man. The reason, obviously, is that Jesus’ suffering and death were the way in which he would return to God and be glorified by him and that in that way he would grant eternal life to those who believed in him (vs. 15). This last point again ties in clearly with Numbers 21: Just as gazing at the serpent was the God-given means of life, a sign both of God’s will to save and of his power over death, so Jesus as the Son of man in his suffering and death on the cross also embodies God’s will to save and power over death. But it “had to” happen in the way of the descent from heaven, of the incarnation of the Word, of his suffering and dying on the cross. Later, therefore, the living bread that came down from heaven and that “the Son of man will give” (6:27) will also be called his “flesh” that he gives for the life of the world, and only those who “eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood” will have life in themselves (6:51,53).
But all this is not further explicated, at least not in vss. 14 and 15. Here the reference is to “whoever believes in him.” 107 The object of this faith is the Son of man as the crucified one as well as the crucified Son of man. The Son of man “must” go this way, which is inconceivable to the flesh. But he takes it as one destined by God to the highest glory, as one who enters death in order thus, like the serpent lifted up by Moses, to be the great sign that in him God has the will and the capacity to save from destruction everyone who believes. Faith receives its character from the one as well as from the other truth. It is faith in the powerful Messiah-King promised by God, the Son of man, but in him as the crucified one; it is faith in the power of him who is powerless in the flesh and in the eyes of the flesh. Therein, also, lies the difference from “belief in his name” (2:23), which rests exclusively on the manifestation of Jesus’ power and which by itself need be no more than a conclusion of which the “flesh” is capable. But to be able to see and to believe in the heaven descended, cross-exalted Son of man–that takes a different set of eyes, and for that one must be born from above.