Man seems to share a close relationship with the serpent for better or for worse. What was it that caused man to sin? It was the serpent, wasn't it?

In Genesis chapter 3, we have the words that God spoke to the serpent:

God's plan was accomplished when Jesus was lifted up and nailed to the cross, but this was also what Satan wanted. Jesus was lifted up to hang on the cross.

Here, too, Jesus was speaking about His crucifixion. He referred to Himself as the Son of man, since He had come into the world in the flesh. He said, "When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he." In other words, they would come to understand after He had been crucified.

What does it mean that Jesus would be lifted up from the earth? God spoke continually through the prophets in the Old Testament, telling of the crucifixion of Jesus.

When the Israelites had come out of Egypt under the leadership of Moses, they began to complain against God and against Moses, and so God sent fiery serpents among them. These were poisonous snakes, and most of the Israelites who were bitten by them died. So Moses prayed to God, making an earnest plea for help. God told him to make a bronze serpent and set it up on a pole. (See Numbers 21:4-9)

Let's try to imagine this situation. When Moses told the people to look at the serpent, the more naive and uneducated people would have raised their heads and looked up right away. Those who trusted more in their intellect and powers of reason, however, would have found the solution completely illogical and refused to look up. If they had been told to melt down the bronze serpent, break it into pieces with a hammer, or grind it into powder to make a tonic that would heal them, they might have tried it, even though it would involve a great effort on their part. Would they have found it easy, however, to believe that they could be healed just by looking? Jesus also said something similar:

The Israelites were told simply to look at the bronze serpent. All they had to do was look. In our case, too, all we need to do is look to the cross, and yet merely a case of the death penalty being carried out; He was crucified in accordance with the words that had been recorded in the scriptures. It was as the Bible says: "The Son of man goeth as it is written of him." (Matthew 26:24; see Mark 14:21)

Let's go back to John chapter 3.

When Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, what happened to the people who looked at it? They were healed and they lived. "Even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." God's aim in giving us His word was not so that we might lead religious lives of reading the Bible and singing hymns and yet not be able to go to the kingdom of God. He gave us His word in order that we might receive eternal life. Being born again itself is a matter of becoming connected with eternal life. The path that had been cut off between man and God has been reestablished. As Jesus was lifted up and nailed to the cross, He became the path to the kingdom of God. In the above verse, Jesus was explaining the moment when we come into contact with this eternal life.

Nicodemus probably heard the voice of God in his heart on that day and was deeply moved. The path to the kingdom of God is opened only through Jesus Christ. But it is a narrow path. Many people make all kinds of efforts in their attempts to prepare themselves to be able to go to heaven, but there is no need to make such efforts or to do anything at all. Just as the Israelites were healed simply by looking at the serpent, we become born again by looking to Jesus. In other words, we experience rebirth. When we read the Bible after we have had this experience, we find that it also explains to us the paths we are to take as we live our lives as children of God.