John 3:14

Just as ¹  Moses lifted up the serpent ²  in the wilderness, ³  so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ⁴ 

Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,

"As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up;

And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so I, the Son of Man, must be lifted up on a pole,

In the same way that Moses lifted the serpent in the desert so people could have something to see and then believe, it is necessary for the Son of Man to be lifted up--

As the snake was lifted up by Moses in the waste land, even so it is necessary for the Son of man to be lifted up:

And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,

"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,

Just as ¹  Moses lifted up the serpent ²  in the wilderness, ³  so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ⁴ 

¹ tn Grk “And just as.”

² sn Or the snake, referring to the bronze serpent mentioned in Num 21:9.

³ sn An allusion to Num 21:5-9.

⁴ sn So must the Son of Man be lifted up. This is ultimately a prediction of Jesus’ crucifixion. Nicodemus could not have understood this, but John’s readers, the audience to whom the Gospel is addressed, certainly could have (compare the wording of John 12:32). In John, being lifted up refers to one continuous action of ascent, beginning with the cross but ending at the right hand of the Father. Step 1 is Jesus’ death; step 2 is his resurrection; and step 3 is the ascension back to heaven. It is the upward swing of the “pendulum” which began with the incarnation, the descent of the Word become flesh from heaven to earth (cf. Paul in Phil 2:5-11). See also the note on the title Son of Man in 1:51.