John 3:14–15 is commonly cited in non-Calvinist arguments against Unconditional Election. Jesus tells Nicodemus, "as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life." The non-Calvinist argument is that God's way of salvation, like His way of healing in the wilderness, comes with a condition that everyone is invited to meet.

The Bronze Serpent

Jesus is referring to Numbers 21. When the Israelites spoke against God and Moses, the Lord sent fiery serpents among them, and many died. When the people confessed their sin, God told Moses, "Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live." Moses made a bronze serpent, "and if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live" (Numbers 21:8–9).

So which of the Israelites did God choose to heal? Those who looked at the bronze serpent. And which of the Israelites were given the offer to look and be healed? All of them. God sovereignly chose a method of healing that clearly involved a condition, and the offer went to everyone who was bitten.

Jesus' Answer to Nicodemus

The setting matters. Jesus has told Nicodemus, "unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God" (3:3), and Nicodemus has asked, "How can these things be?" (3:9). Verses 14–15 are Jesus' answer:

"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:14–16)

The way to receive the life Jesus has been describing is to look to Him in faith, just as the bitten Israelite looked to the serpent. Jesus makes the same connection later: "I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself" (12:32).

The Calvinist Reading

Calvinists agree that looking to Christ means believing in Him, and that faith is necessary. Their argument is that only those God has first regenerated are able to look, because the new birth of verses 3–8 comes before the faith of verses 14–16. In that reading, God's choice of whom to heal is made before anyone looks, and the looking is the result of His choice. We look at this order more closely under Regeneration Precedes Faith.

What the Passage Establishes

In Numbers, nothing suggests that only some of the bitten were enabled to look. The command went to "everyone who is bitten," and the promise was attached to looking. Jesus applies that same structure to Himself: "whoever believes." Just as Jesus said elsewhere, "many are called, but few are chosen" ( Matthew 22:14). The gospel is offered to all, and God chooses to give new life to those who meet His condition of repenting and turning to Jesus Christ as Lord.

The Look Had No Power of Its Own

It is important not to confuse faith with the source of salvation. Faith is the condition God has set; God is the source. The act of looking at the bronze serpent had no healing power in itself. An Israelite who said, "I gazed at the bronze serpent, so I healed myself," would have been badly mistaken. The serpent was only a tool God used, and God did all of the healing for those who looked. Later the bronze serpent became an idol, and King Hezekiah destroyed it because the people had been making offerings to it (2 Kings 18:4). A sick person today would not be healed by building a bronze serpent and staring at it. The serpent was never the source of the power; God was.

The same is true of faith in Christ. Without His death and resurrection, faith would accomplish nothing: "if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins" (1 Corinthians 15:17). We do not wield faith as a tool to save ourselves. Faith in a false god saves no one, and it does not make a person partly saved. Faith is powerful only because of the promise God has attached to faith in Jesus Christ, which is exactly why salvation by faith leaves no room for boasting (see faith is not a work).

The image itself points to the cross. The Israelites were saved by looking at a likeness of the very thing that was killing them, lifted up on a pole. Christ, who knew no sin, was made "to be sin" for us (2 Corinthians 5:21) and became "a curse for us" when He was lifted up on a tree (Galatians 3:13).

Conclusion

John 3:14–15 shows that God's way of salvation, like His way of healing in the wilderness, is offered to everyone and received by looking to what He has provided. The look did not heal; God healed those who looked. In the same way, faith does not save; God saves those who believe. When regeneration is described as unconditional, or as coming before faith, an essential part of the gospel Jesus preached to Nicodemus is lost: "whoever believes in him may have eternal life." See more passages where faith precedes regeneration.