Sin has been putting nails in our coffins for many millennia now.
Sin has gotten our minds and hearts so twisted that we believe that the bible teaches just the opposite of what it really does.
And the facts are this. Since the very beginning when Adam and Eve committed their first step away from their creator sin ingrained itself deep within the human soul. It became so bad that people thought sin to be so miner that only eight people wound up on this.
Throughout all this earths ages God has been working to bring as many people and nations back to Him as would come.
This is what the serpent on the pole was doing. It pointed the Hebrews to Jesus their Savior. Whoever accepted Jesus as their savior and turned from their sins were saved and lived. The same goes for us today. When we accept Christ as our atonement and tur4n from doing wilful sin we shall live.