3:13
Sometimes people speak about Jesus coming to realise who He was and what His mission was. Such talk is just nonsense and totally without Biblical foundation. Jesus knew exactly who He was and what His mission was. He is the One who came from heaven, and Jesus knew this full well. God did not chose a man and chose to dwell in Him, God came as a man. This is the incarnation.
Moreover, Jesus is the only one who has come from heaven, and no one has gone into heaven. This is an implicit rejection of claims for anyone to have gone into heaven. Today we sometimes hear of near-death experiences and claims about what people claim to have seen. We do well to ignore all such talk, they are mere speculations. The only one who can tell us about heaven is Jesus Himself.
3:14,15
Jesus then refers back to the time in the desert when the Israelites complained about having been brought out into the desert. A plague was sent among them. The people then repented, admitted their sin, and went to Moses. Moses prayed for them and God told him to make a bronze snake, and whoever looked up to it would be saved (Num 21:4-9).
There are a number of parallels here. First the people had sinned. Israel needed to realise she was a sinful nation. Notice that the object which saved them in the desert was a model of the thing that was killing them. In the same way sin is killing us, Jesus was made sin (2 Cor 5:21), our sin was laid upon Him. And we need to look to Jesus in order to be healed. This was what the Pharisees needed to do, it was what all Israel needed (and needs) to do, and it is what all of us need to do.
So everyone who believes in Christ will have eternal life in him. It is in Christ alone that we find eternal life. Eternal life literally means life of the age to come. It is more than just everlasting, it is the nature of that life as well. It is a life lived in perfect communion with God, in perfect trust, love and obedience to Him.
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