WHY JAMES GUNN’S SUPERMAN IS NOT SO SUPER!

I was really looking forward to seeing James Gunn's Superman (2025). I bought two pre-release tickets weeks before the opening night to view it at the Hoyts, Forest Hill (the one with the Gold Class electric recliner seats). I left the launch screening on Thursday July 10th utterly disappointed — and I really didn’t want to be. 

WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THE SUPERMAN STORY

The two creators of Superman were two Jewish teenagers, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, both born in 1914. Their creation of a 'superman' was inspired by their challenging experiences as immigrants in the United States who also had to endure the harshness of the rising global antisemitism. 

Siegel and Shuster could not afford to go to college, but found financial success by creating comics (including increasingly popular newspaper comic strips). In the early 1930s they began drawing on their Jewish heritage and the aspirations of their messianic hope. By 1933, they published their first Superman comic strip - presenting to the world an ultra-immigrant (from the planet of Krypton), who came to America as a baby, who looked like any other American, but was secretly different because of His Krypton physiology. Surely if the world could accept and embrace such a character then surely Americans could open their hearts also to their Jewish immigrants. 

The creators of Superman clearly defined the world of Superman. It was our world. But like the fiction of C. S. Lewis’s mythopoeia (his Trilogy and Septet), Siegel and Shuster created a “Supposal”. That is, they framed their Superman story in an imaginative way founded on the on the idea: 

“Suppose there was a planet within our universe in which its people resembled earth’s human beings - yet had certain other supernatural powers or abilities. Suppose that for some reason this planet was about explode and the parents of a newborn child were able to send their child on a journey to our earth where he would be able to blend in but use his powers for great good.” 

Siegal and Shuster have the space-craft with the infant Kal-El crash-land on a farm near Smallville, Kansas, owned by John and Martha Kent. As it turns out, the effect of the gravity of earth is something that the young Kal-El is able to manage so that he can fly at will. The radiation of the earth's Sun has the effect of giving Kal-El extraordinary strength. This was something that his Father, Jor-El (note the Hebrew implications of these names — “El” means 'God' or 'mighty one' in Hebrew) anticipated and sent his son, Kal-El, to earth with a message embedded into a crystal telling his son that he was to be a “savior of the helpless and oppressed” to the people of earth.

SUPERMAN AS A JEWISH MESSIANIC-LIKE HERO

The original concept of Superman could be seen as an embodiment of the Jewish hope of all that the Messiah was expected to be. That is, Siegel and Shuster’s Superman was a Christological figure. He grew up respecting his earth-parents - especially his mother. He was to be an example of courage, humility, masculine strength and moral purity — without ever being a show-off or braggart. He was to look ordinary so that no one would ever imagine just how strong, powerful, or fast, he was. In this way he could just fit into society and blend in with other ordinary people. Jor-El had told him in his crystalized message that Kal-El was to use his extraordinary strength to uphold truth, justice and “the way” of the people of earth. 

I like the idea of a super-hero who selflessly helps the helpless and rescues the oppressed in virtual anonymity thanks to his Clarke Kent disguise and has hypno-glasses (which hinder people from perceiving that Clark Kent was Superman). There are many parallels between this original concept of Superman and Jesus Christ! Jesus the Christ, the True Desire and Hope of Israel, was omnipotently strong - yet looked ordinary (note Isaiah 53:1-2). Jesus was the epitome of humility, like Siegel and Shuster had imagined the Messiah to be and had their Superman exhibit. And these traits are why I was so disappointed with James Gunn's 2025 Superman. 

WHAT I DID NOT LIKE ABOUT THE 2025 GUNN SUPERMAN

The meta-narrative of James Gunn’s Superman over-looked several non-negotiables in fictional story-telling. The first of these is that fictional stories, especially mythopoeic stories, require a 'world' where there are rules. Unlike the world of Siegal and Shuster, the world in which James Gunn’s Superman is not set in this world. It is part of a multiverse - rather than our universe. In our universe there are governing physical laws. For example, “ex nihilo nihil fit” - from nothing, nothing comes. Yet in James Gunn's multiverse, Lex Luther not only creates things apparently out of nothing, he creates entire universes from out of nothing and does so in a previously non-existent dimension as well.

Secondly, James Gunn's Superman was not a model of moral excellence. Perhaps we could overlook the foul language that he used (although this is the first time that anyone playing Superman has used expletives). This is the first time a Superman has killed human beings. This is the first-time that a Superman has spouted ontological nonsense about what a human-being is - and virtually renounced his own ontological identity (this happens in the final exchange between Kal-El and Lex Luther. 

Thirdly, then there is the introduction of Kal-El’s cousin, Kara-Zor-El. She is the epitome of a wild-child who is unable to get drunk on earth and is now forced to travel to a planet with a red-sun which is the only place in the multi-verse where she can get drunk! It seems to me that James Gunn’s Superman, and his Supergirl cousin, are a far cry from what Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster had envisaged for their concept of Superman — especially their Jewish messianic hope. 

CONCLUSION

Superman is my favourite superhero. As a Christian thinker who has an appreciation for the redemptive use fictional literature and especially mythopoeia, I would like Hollywood to give more consideration to superheroes who reflect Jesus Christ - especially since Christ was the Ultimate Superhero! I would also like to encourage other preachers to consider how culture's ache for a virtuous hero is actually an intuitive ache to be reconciled to God the Father through the work of the eternal divine son of God. 

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

PHILIPPIANS 2:5-11

Amen.

THE RESULTS OF CHRIST'S CROSS

For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel,
and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
¶ For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing,
but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
First Corinthians 1:17-18

The cross of Christ is the greatest ever public display of God’s wisdom and power. The Greco-Roman world knew that the penalty of death on a cross was the ultimate humiliation. Rome made sure that any who defied it would be made an example of through crucifixion. For example, when the Romans put down the Spartan revolt of 71BC they wanted to send a chilling warning to anyone else who thought they could defy Rome. Six-thousand conquered Spartan soldiers were crucified on Roman crosses and displayed along the Appian Way (the main road leading into Rome).

It was the practice of the Romans that those condemned to die by crucifixion were stripped naked and forced to carry their patibulum (the heavy cross beam of the cross) which was put across their shoulders and tied to their wrists as they were publicly paraded and forcibly marched to where they would be nailed to the patibulum and fixed to the vertical post of the cross. Unlike the deaths of the two criminals and Christ on that original Good Friday, the death of those being crucified would result – not from the crucifixion itself – but from their long exposure to the elements and the attacks of wild birds of prey which pecked repeatedly at their flesh. GOD indeed chose this most humiliating means of punishment and execution to bring about the greatest and most glorious triumph in the history of the universe! The humiliating death of Christ became the means by which GOD in Christ would humiliate His enemies!

He [Christ] disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame,
by triumphing over them  in him [by the cross].
Colossians 2:15

But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God,
which God decreed before the ages for our glory.
None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had,
they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
First Corinthians 2:7-8

No wonder the apostle Paul told the Corinthians that the cross was folly to those who were perishing, but the power of God to those who were being saved.

 

THE JOURNEY TO THE CROSS

When the New Testament refers to “the cross of Christ” (1Cor. 1:17) it is also referring to His journey to the cross (known as His ‘passion’). This journey (Christ’s passion) began on earth with His incarnation in the womb of the virgin Mary. While the incarnation of the Word was the greatest miracle, His work on the cross was the greatest public miracle. It is also true that the death of Christ on the cross has now provided the means by which any repentant sinner can be forgiven of their sins and made right with God. But it is also true that the death of Christ on the cross means not just this, and, much more than this. This also involves understanding that not only does the New Testament use the expression the cross or the cross of Christ to include the events leading up to the cross, it also encompasses the events proceeding after the cross – including Christ’s resurrection, ascension and glorification.   

This journey to the Cross led to Jesus revealing the Father

Athanasius wrote, On The Incarnation of the Word, and asked the question about the point of Christ’s ministry and teaching at all – especially in light of God’s mission for Christ to die for the sins of the world. After all, why could Christ just be incarnated, and then die privately as the atoning sacrifice for mankind’s sins? Athanasius answers his question by discussing the need for Christ to reveal the Father publicly (Jn. 14:9), fulfil His role as Israel’s promised Messiah (Jn. 1:41), fulfil the role of being the Second/Last Adam (1Cor. 15:45) by sinlessly exhibiting the perfect image of God (2Cor. 4:4), doing battle with the forces of darkness in the midst of their territory by sinless conquest without yielding to their temptations (Matt. 4:1-11), and establishing the Church (Matt. 16:18).  

The journey to the Cross leading to Him taking the sins of all mankind into the realm of the dead where He also “preached to those who were dead.”

When Christ died, His body would have gone into rigor mortis very quickly (refer to the recent expert comments about this phenomena by Dr. Joseph Bergeron, M.D.). During the 3-day period of His physical death Christ went to the place of the dead and announced the gospel to the righteous dead who were awaiting their release from this Old Covenant holding place for the dead which would take place when the Old Covenant was finally done away with when the Temple was destroyed in A.D. 70 (note Heb. 8:13 written about AD 63 which states that the Old Covenant “was about to be done away with“). 

For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead,
that though judged in the flesh the way people are,
they might live in the spirit the way God does.
First Peter 4:6

Thus, in the Revelation 6:9-10 we can hear the martyrs from the Neronic persecution of AD 64-68 cry out (if I might paraphrase it) When will You avenge our martyrdom and how much longer will we have to remain here? Thus, even during the three days that Christ’s body was in the tomb, Christ was still working on our behalf. When He went into the realm of eternity He carried our sin, guilt, and shame there, which ensure that even the sins of mankind not yet committed would be atoned for! We can be sure that Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross was sufficient to atone for all the sins of mankind and that there is no need for any human efforts to supplement what Christ has achieved for us! Rest now and forever in His saving grace!

The journey to the Cross resulted in His resurrection from the dead as the “firstfruits” which now enables the resurrection of all the redeemed.

When Christ had completed the atoning sacrifice of His life as the True Lamb of God, He rose from the dead by the same Power that enabled Him to originally be incarnated (Rom 1:4).

If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you,
He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your
mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
Romans 8:11

His resurrection from the dead is referred to as “the firstfruits” which means there are more resurrections to come!

¶ But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at His coming those who belong to Christ.
First Corinthians 15:20, 23

Thus, the grave is not the end for anyone. All people will be resurrected – some to eternal life, and (for those who reject God’s Son) some to eternal condemnation.

¶ “Do not be amazed at this, because a time is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear His voice and will come out—the ones who have done what is good to the resurrection resulting in life, and the ones who have done what is evil to the resurrection resulting in condemnation.
John 5:28-29 NET

Christ’s resurrection announced that He had conquered the forces of evil (who schemed to put Him to death) and had overcome sin and death (Rom. 6:9; 1Cor. 15:26, 54-55; Heb. 6:14).

The journey to the Cross resulted in the vanquishing of certain Principalities and Powers leading them captive into permanent captivity at Christ’s ascension.

The Jews had a belief that there had been three ‘falls’: Genesis 3, the first Man and the Woman who ate of the forbidden fruit; Genesis 6, certain Watcher angels who left their stations and sired the Nephilim (Gen. 6:4);  and, Genesis 11, when certain “sons of God” (powerful Heavenly beings also referred to as “Princes”, refer to Deut. 32:8) led some of mankind into a rebellion against God (and probably included further acts of immorality resulting in siring the more Nephilim and Rephaim) at the Tower of Babel. When the Lord intervened after the third “fall“ (Gen. 11:7-9) some of these more powerful rebellious heavenly creatures, according to Jewish tradition (note particularly the Book of First Enoch referred to in Jude 9), had some of their powers curtailed and were confined to the territory of Mount Herman (which is where Christ was transfigured in Matt. 17). The prophetic psalmist foretold of the day when the Lord would one day vanquish the evil spiritual princes who still used their manipulation powers to indirectly commit their evil schemes:

¶ O mountain of God, mountain of Bashan;
O many-peaked mountain, mountain of Bashan!
Why do you look with hatred, O many-peaked mountain,
at the mount that God desired for His abode,
yes, where the LORD will dwell forever?
The chariots of God are twice ten thousand,
thousands upon thousands; the Lord is among them;
Sinai is now in the sanctuary.
Psalm 68:15-17

The apostle Paul would have known about this Jewish traditional understanding of the captivity of these principalities and powers to Mount Herman, and saw that the ascension of Christ resulted in their temporary captivity at Hermon being made a permanent captivity in Tartarus (2Peter 2:4; Jude 6). Thus Paul wrote that it was Christ at His ascension who fulfilled the prophecy of Psalm 68 – 

Therefore it says, “When He ascended on high He led a host of captives,
and He gave gifts to men.”
Ephesians 4:8

At Christ’s ascension Jesus returned to His Father where His “blood” was accepted by the Father as the sufficient atoning sacrifice for the sins of mankind (Heb. 9:12, 14). Because of this, every believer can now enter boldly into God the Father’s presence and present our requests to Him (Heb. 10:19).

The journey to the Cross led to the Holy Spirit being sent after Christ had returned to enter His glory enabling for the regeneration of all the redeemed.

When Christ ascended He returned to His Father and re-entered into His glory. On the Isle of Patmos John the Apostle encountered not just the risen Jesus, but the risen glorified Jesus (Rev. 1:9-18). Jesus had told His disciples that during His earthly ministry the Holy Spirit had been with them but after He had returned to His Father the Spirit would be in them (Jn. 14:17). The day that the promised Holy Spirit was poured out revealed that each of Christ’s acts of redemption actually corresponded to the Jewish feasts described in Leviticus 23. It was on the Day of Pentecost (Lev. 23:9-14) that the Holy Spirit was poured out on believers “baptising” them with power to be Christ’s witnesses (Acts 2:1-4).

The journey to the Cross established Christ as the rightful Judge of all mankind – some to life and those who reject Him to condemnation.

As a result of Christ’s triumph on the cross, His Lordship was declared in heaven affirming that He will one day judge all mankind (Jn. 8:16). Christ’s, resurrection, ascension, and re-glorification has provided for all the redeemed our eternal salvation, our  regeneration by the Holy Spirit, our adoption by God the Father, our baptism with the Holy Spirit, our future resurrection with an imperishable body, our ultimate glorification with Christ, and, our participation in the divine nature and inviting us to rule and reign with Him as joint heirs of Christ (Rom. 8:17; 2Tim. 2:12). What glories await the believer! Our eternal destiny in the New Heaven/Earth will mean that we will forever be in union with God and partners with Him in building and administrating His eternal kingdom where there will be no possibility of sin or evil!

¶ His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence, by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.
Second Peter 1:3-4

These are all the result of the cross of Christ, that benefits us, the redeemed!

Your Pastor,

Andrew

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AS MOSES LIFTED UP THE SERPENT IN THE WILDERNESS, Explained

It might seem an odd thing to write about just two days before Christmas, but the story of God plaguing the Israelites with poisonous snakes and then commanding Moses to construct a bronze serpent and attach it to a cross-beamed pole has baffled even the best minds for centuries. Some people have regarded this story as yet another reason for them to reject God and the Bible and consider both to be nonsense. An ever-so-slightly-less-cynical approach that some, who seem to really want both God and the Bible to be true, have taken is to regard the story as a fictional myth with mysterious allegorical meaning. I think this is how Dr. Jordan Peterson recently interpretted it in his discussion with Mr. John Anderson on their Youtube discussion last week. The high profile psychologist Dr. Peterson seems to have been on an interesting spiritual journey of late and he is obviously delving into the Bible and coming up with what appear to be some roadblocks to his complete acceptance of the claims of Christ largely due to these obscure passages in the Bible such as this account in Numbers 21. “No one has ever been able to explain it to me!” he told Mr. Anderson. I wish he had asked me; because if he had, this is what I would have explained to him.

THE STORY OF THE DEADLY SNAKES

From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red [or Reed] Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food. Then the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you. Pray to the LORD, that He take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.”
Numbers 21:4-9

Theologically liberal scholars take this account in Numbers to be fictional and to be the later work of an exiled Jewish scholar around 500 B.C. I have a couple of reasons why I do not agree with this dismissal of the story’s truthfulness. Firstly, there is biblical evidence that the bronze serpent which Moses made was preserved up until the time of King Hezekiah (2Kings 18:4). Secondly, Jesus cites this story to Nicodemus in John 3:14 and makes a case from it about His own destiny that demands that it must have been non-fictional (true).

 

SERPENTS IN THE BIBLE REPRESENT EVIL AND SIN

Based on this story, the Israelites whom God had just redeemed from their bondage in Egypt were now complaining about their arduous conditions involved in trekking from Egypt to the Promised Land. There are several parallels to the New Testament gospel in this account that also make this story very consistent with the Bible’s message about our spiritual journey through this life not being without some hardships and even some deprivation. It has often been noted that Israel’s deliverance from Egypt is a type of the world that keeps unsaved souls in bondage to sin (note John 1:10). 

We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents,
nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer.
First Corinthians 10:9-10

It will also come as no surprise even to the novice Bible reader that serpents are emblematic of evil. When the redeemed people complain about God and Moses not caring about them, they had grossly under-estimated God’s amazing care that He had already bestowed on them. In what became a lesson that the Israelites did not fully understand at the time, it certainly became a lesson that they would never forget when God said, You think that I am not caring for you? Then I will lift my hand of protection from off of you just for a moment so that you will realise what I have been all along! The deadly truth that resulted was a truth that we still need to be reminded of today — God is caring, protecting and sustaining us even when we don’t realise it! The lifting of His hand of protection against the deadly serpents that swarmed that part of the wilderness for just a moment was catastrophic. In First Corinthians 10:9-10, the apostle Paul reveals that the fiery serpents were instruments of the devilish Destroyer!

The next time you are tempted to think that God no longer cares for you, you might need to postpone your complaint against Him and take a moment to thank Him for all of your existing blessings that you currently take for granted. A simple test to discover what these unappreciated blessings might be is to ask yourself, What if tomorrow I only had left what I was thankful to God for today? 

While the result of God momentarily lifting His protective hand off of the Hebrews was widespread death, He also had an unusual momentary solution to the serpents’ poisonous venom that was immeasurably profound.

 

GOD’S ODD SOLUTION:
A BRONZE SERPENT ON A CROSS-BEAMED POLE

Bronze can apparently withstand tremendous heat. The altar in the Tabernacle where the sacrificial animals were slain was to be a brazen (bronze-plated) altar. Bronze became a symbol, a type, of that which withstands judgment. When the Son of God appeared to the apostle John on Patmos, John describes Jesus as having feet that were like burnished bronze – that is, Christ has been judged and has withstood the judgment on behalf of all those deserved everlasting judgment!

His feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace,
and His voice was like the roar of many waters.
Revelation 1:15

The Israelites who had been bitten by the fiery serpents and contracted the deadly venom were instructed to look at the bronze serpent on the pole that Moses had made and be healed. This is reminiscent of the later prophecy of Isaiah who also told people to look to the Lord and be saved.

“Look to Me, and be saved,
All you ends of the earth!
For I am God, and there is no other.”
Isaiah 45:22 NKJV

The fact that Moses was instructed to set the brazen serpent on a pole to be lifted up for all Israel to see is also significant. In Athanasius’s De incarnatione Verbi Dei: “On the incarnation of the Word” (published in A.D. 318) he points out that Christ had to be killed publicly where anybody could look at Him. He also pointed out that His death was the defeat the “Prince of the power of the air” (Eph. 2:2) which is why He died suspended in the air while He was nailed to the cross. When Moses was ordered to make the bronze serpent he was told to lift it up in the air on a pole. This is also how Christ was to die (Acts 2:32-33).

So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man,
then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing on My own authority,
but speak just as the Father taught Me.
John 8:28

And I, when I am lifted up from the earth,
will draw all people to Myself.”
John 12:32

Athanasius answers the question, Why couldn’t Jesus have died for the sins of the world secretly? He points out that it was Christ’s public and very visible execution that became the means—the doorway—to His glorification (Rom. 6:4) and the verification of His indisputable death. And if someone could have seen into the spiritual realm as Christ was nailed to cross and lifted up into the air they would have seen that while on that cross Adonai-Christ was grotesquely transformed into the sin of all the human race.

HE BECAME SIN FOR US

The significance of Moses being commanded by Yahweh to make a bronze serpent and lift it up on a pole was not merely, as Dr. Jordan Petersen proposes, for the snake bitten Israelites to now “confront their greatest fear”. Rather, the significance was that it was a type of what the Saviour would one day do for all poisoned people – not just from snake-bites – but from something far deadlier: sin. When Jesus was lifted up on a Roman cross he became sin. He was embodying all of the sins of all of the people of all time – past, present, and future! Just as the bronze serpent represented the Hebrews’ sin of rebellion against God (the root of all sin), Jesus-Adonai literally represented the sins of all humanity when he died on the cross and shed His life-blood for us all. The Apostle Paul describes this as a great exchange in Second Corinthians 5:21 –

For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin,
so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.
Second Corinthians 5:21

Like all of the typology in the Old Testament, when the Yahweh-Christ was lifted up on the cross to face the Father’s wrath for our sin as our propitiation {one whose blood is shed to atone for the sins of others} (Rom. 3:25; Heb. 2:17; 1Jn. 2:2; 4:10) the lifting of the bronze serpent up via a pole was just another ‘shadow’ of what Jesus the Christ would one day do. Those who interpret God allowing fiery serpents to bite and even kill some Hebrews as an indication of God’s maliciousness have got it completely wrong! It is completely on the contrary. This is why John 3:16 makes little sense unless we accept what Jesus told Rabbi Nicodemus in their clandestine conversation.

FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD

John 3:16 is perhaps the most memorised Bible verse among Christians. It was probably a part of the Apostle John’s commentary on the conversation he had just heard between Jesus and Nicodemus (despite most of our Bible’s printing it in red letters as if Jesus had just said it). But its full impact cannot possibly be understood unless it is read in the context of the previous verses about Moses and the bronze serpent being lifted up.

“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness…” (John 3:14) was a dramatic pre-figuring of what The Christ would do and Jesus told Nicodemus that this pre-figuring of what Moses did would ultimately soon be fulfilled by His own on death on the cross. All of this would happen because of God the Father’s great love for all people. “Wilderness” in the Bible is presented as the devil’s domain – it is a place wild barrenness (‘wilderness’) which fittingly depicts the devil’s work. When Christ was crucified, He was taken outside of the city limits to a barren hill called Golgotha (Matt. 27:33) in a way that resembles Moses lifting up the bronze serpent in the wilderness. At the time of Moses, the people repented, were healed, and never faced the threat of a plague of fiery serpents again. As a result of Christ’s atoning death as the only One who could withstand the wrath and judgment of God, all those who look to Jesus as Saviour in repentance can also be healed from the poison of their sin and have their sin-stain wiped away for all eternity! So, Dr. Peterson, this is what I would have told you about the significance of Christ telling Nicodemus about lifting the bronze serpent up in the wilderness if you had asked me. Merry Christmas everyone.

Your Pastor,

Andrew

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