When the Diagnosis Undermines the Necessity of the New Birth

There is much to appreciate in this Good Friday sermon preached by Rev Stuart Withers at Wodonga Presbyterian church. When there has been so much preaching encountered in this series that is reduced to therapeutic encouragement or moral exhortation, this sermon stands out for its theological seriousness. It is deeply rooted in Scripture, Christ-centred throughout, and unapologetically proclaims the substitutionary death of Christ as the only remedy for sinful humanity.

The preacher handles the typological relationship between Numbers 21 and John 3 with considerable skill. He rightly sees the bronze serpent not merely as an illustration but as a divinely appointed foreshadowing of Christ lifted up upon the cross. The movement from Israel's wilderness experience to Calvary is pastorally compelling and firmly grounded in our Lord's own interpretation of the passage. Likewise, the exposition of Galatians 3 and 2 Corinthians 5 presents a clear and robust doctrine of penal substitution. Christ bears the curse, our sins are imputed to Him, and His righteousness is reckoned to all who believe. These are not peripheral truths but the very heart of the gospel, and they are proclaimed with clarity and conviction.

The sermon is also commendable for its pastoral warmth. Rather than remaining abstract, it presses the hearer toward personal reflection. The preacher repeatedly reminds his congregation that the cross is not merely an historical event but God's gracious provision for sinners today. His repeated emphasis that salvation is received by "looking" rather than by "doing" is faithful to both Numbers 21 and John 3 and beautifully magnifies the freeness of divine grace.

Precisely because the sermon possesses such genuine strengths, however, two theological concerns become more apparent.

The Sin of Numbers 21

The first concerns the diagnosis of sin.

Throughout the sermon the dominant description of humanity's fallenness is discontentment. Israel's rejection of the manna becomes the controlling lens through which modern experience is interpreted. We become dissatisfied with our possessions, our careers, our relationships, our achievements, and our circumstances. The illustrations are perceptive because they describe something recognisably true about the fallen human heart.

Yet Numbers 21 itself places the emphasis elsewhere.

The text does not simply tell us that Israel became dissatisfied. It tells us that "the people spoke against God and against Moses." Their complaint about the manna was the outward expression of something much deeper: covenant unbelief, rebellion against God, contempt for His gracious provision, and rejection of His appointed mediator.

Similarly, while one may reasonably observe that dissatisfaction lies beneath Eve's temptation in Genesis 3, Scripture itself does not principally describe the Fall in those terms. It speaks of deception, transgression, disobedience, unbelief, and rebellion. Discontentment may accompany these sins, but it is not the theological category Scripture employs to explain humanity's ruin.

This matters because our understanding of the remedy is shaped by our understanding of the disease. If sin is principally described as discontentment, Christ naturally appears as the One who satisfies the restless heart. That is gloriously true, but it is not where Scripture begins. Scripture begins with humanity standing guilty before a holy God, alienated from Him through rebellion and under His righteous judgment.

The bronze serpent is therefore not God's answer to dissatisfaction. It is God's provision for condemned sinners.

Looking to Christ—or Perishing Without Him

The second concern arises from the sermon's treatment of the bronze serpent itself.

One of the sermon's finest emphases is that salvation comes through looking rather than doing. The preacher rightly dismantles every notion of human merit and repeatedly points hearers to Christ alone.

Yet Numbers 21 teaches not only that those who looked lived, but also that those who refused to look died.

This negative dimension is scarcely developed.

John's Gospel likewise refuses to separate promise from warning. The same chapter that declares, "Whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life," also declares that whoever does not believe stands condemned already and that the wrath of God remains upon him.

The sermon beautifully proclaims the freeness of grace but leaves largely unexplored its exclusivity and urgency. The hearer is warmly invited to look, yet is not equally confronted with the dreadful consequences of refusing Christ. As a result, the evangelical summons loses some of the solemn weight that both Numbers 21 and John 3 naturally carry.

A Mismatch Between the Diagnosis and the Remedy

These concerns reveal what may be the sermon's deepest theological tension.

Its doctrine of the cross is profoundly forensic.

Christ bears God's curse.

Christ satisfies divine justice.

Christ is our substitute.

Christ secures our righteousness.

This is classic biblical and Reformed theology.

Yet the sermon's diagnosis of humanity is not equally forensic. The dominant problem presented to the hearer is not rebellion against God or condemnation before His law but dissatisfaction with life and the restless search for something more.

The result is a subtle mismatch between diagnosis and remedy.

The remedy proclaimed by the sermon is larger than the disease it has described.

The New Testament, however, presents the opposite movement. Humanity's disease is infinitely deeper than dissatisfaction. We are spiritually dead, guilty before God, enslaved to sin, and under His righteous judgment. Only such a diagnosis explains why nothing less than the incarnate Son bearing God's curse upon the cross could save us.

This also explains why Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus begins where it does. Before speaking of the bronze serpent, Jesus first declares, "You must be born again." The necessity of looking to Christ arises because humanity is not merely dissatisfied but spiritually dead. The cross addresses our guilt, while the Spirit grants the new birth that enables sinners to see and enter the kingdom of God.

In this respect, the sermon's two weaknesses converge. By describing sin primarily through the lens of discontentment and by underdeveloping the judgment that rests upon those who refuse Christ, the sermon inevitably softens the urgency and necessity of the new birth. The listener is left with the impression that Christ chiefly resolves humanity's inner restlessness rather than raising spiritually dead rebels to new life.

That is a pity, because the sermon already possesses an excellent doctrine of the cross. Had the diagnosis of sin been as deeply forensic as the atonement it proclaimed, and had the warning of remaining under judgment been pressed with equal force alongside the invitation to believe, the necessity of the new birth would have emerged with far greater clarity. The hearer would have seen not simply that Christ satisfies the dissatisfied, but that He alone gives life to those who are dead in trespasses and sins.

The sermon remains a thoughtful, biblically rich, and warmly evangelical exposition of Good Friday. Its strengths deserve genuine appreciation. Yet those very strengths invite one further step: to allow the gravity of humanity's guilt and the reality of divine judgment to create the full biblical context in which the new birth appears, not as the cure for dissatisfaction, but as God's sovereign act of raising condemned sinners into the life of His risen Son.