<p>3:15 <i>That whoever believes may in him have eternal life</i>- Or, &quot;Whoever believed in Him&quot;. &lsquo;Belief in Him&rsquo; therefore specifically refers to looking upon the cross in understanding, and believing it, just as Israel had to look to the serpent to be saved from the death which was already in their blood stream. In John, 'seeing' is 'believing'. &lsquo;He&rsquo; was and is His cross. There we see the epitome of Him. Jesus &ldquo;by himself purged our sins&quot; (Heb. 1:3) and yet it was by His cross and His blood that sin was purged. But He Himself was epitomized in His blood / cross. And so to believe in Him is to believe in Him crucified (Jn. 3:15,16). In the context, Nicodemus had claimed to kind of believe in Jesus in that he recognized the miracles must be of God. But the Lord is saying this is not enough; to believe in Him is to believe in Him as the crucified saviour from our personal sins and death sentence within our blood stream. God&rsquo;s so loving the world was in the giving of His son to die. His sending His Son into the world was specifically through the cross see on Jn. 1:14- this is another development of the prologue. One wonders whether we gaze enough upon the cross.</p><p>Clearly enough, the bronze serpent lifted up on the &ldquo;standard&rdquo; was a symbol of Christ crucified. But time and again throughout Isaiah, we read that a &ldquo;standard&rdquo; or ensign will be &ldquo;lifted up&rdquo; in order to gather people together to it (Is. 5:26; 13:2; 11:12; 18:3; 62:10). This was the idea of an ensign lifted up. Thus our common response to the cross of Christ should be to gather together unto Him there. And we need to take note that several of those Isaiah passages are speaking about what shall happen in the last days, when divided Israel will unite on the basis of their acceptance of the crucified Jesus.</p>