Due to the fall of man in Genesis, we tend to associate serpents or snakes with Satan who is said to appear as one (Genesis 3:4), though the Hebrew word there is Seraph, which is Seraphim plural and type of angel (Isaiah 6:1-7), regardless people tend to say the serpent is Satan’s symbol and creature, even the Final book of the Bible says, “That serpent of Old, Satan.” (Revelation 12:9, Revelation 20:2). However, would it interest you to know that the serpent is associated more with The LORD our God, with Jesus Christ specifically? So let’s take a look. The most famous words of our Lord and Savior are, “Just as the serpent was lifted up in wilderness, so will The Son of Man (Himself, Jesus) be lifted up,” (John 3:14), this God the Son was endeavoring to make a connection to the Bronze Serpent or Nehushtan, which Moses raised up in Wilderness, “And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live. So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.” (Numbers 21:8-9). Later God had the Bronze serpent destroyed because Israelites rather than associating the Bronze Serpent with LORD healing them, began to worship it, “He removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it (it was called Nehushtan).” (2 Kings 18:4). It is interesting because the serpent here is a symbol of healing for those perishing from venomous snake bites, just as Jesus hangs on cross to save us from bite of death and its string, “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 15:55-56). Here we begin to see snakes can have two symbolisms, death in form of a venomous bite or Satan in Garden of Eden, or it can be Nehushtan, the Bronze Serpent that our Savior compares himself to. Paul the Apostle even does a similar thing to the Bronze Serpent in that Black Momba bites him and he shakes it off, proving that Jesus’ power to heal is greater then venomous bite, “As Paul gathered an armful of sticks and was laying them on the fire, a poisonous snake, driven out by the heat, bit him on the hand. The people of the island saw it hanging from his hand and said to each other, “A murderer, no doubt! Though he escaped the sea, justice will not permit him to live.” But Paul shook off the snake into the fire and was unharmed. The people waited for him to swell up or suddenly drop dead. But when they had waited a long time and saw that he wasn’t harmed..” (Acts 28:3-6).
Jesus does not stop there with the positive associations of the serpent, He tells His disciples, “Be wise as serpents, and gentle as doves.” (Matthew 10:16). Here the One through Whom all things, even snakes, were made (John 1:3, Colossians 1:16) is saying serpents are wise. Indeed, it could be reference to when Moses faced off with Jannes and Jambra before Pharaoh, and God turned Moses staff in a cobra, and so did magicians, but God’s serpent swallowed them up, “So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the LORD commanded. Aaron cast down his staff before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent. sorcerers, and the Egyptian magicians also did the same things by their secret arts (magics), Each of them threw his staff down, and they all became large snakes. But Aaron's staff swallowed theirs.” (Exodus 7:10-12); this showed greater is wisdom and power of God to all the knowledge and sorcery of Egypt.
Even one of Twelve Tribes of Israel, Dan, was who is called to Justice is described by the LORD as a serpent,
“Dan shall provide justice for his people as one of the tribes of Israel.
will be a snake by the road, a viper in the path that bites the horse’s heels so that its rider tumbles backward.” (Genesis 49:16-17). So that is interesting because you have serpent, Dan specifically, being associated with Justice, and you have Bronze serpent being associated with healing in the Wilderness rather just Satan who led mankind to fall. In fact, the overlap between the story of the Greek Myth of Argos and was defeated by sword made of a snake feels like a connection to the Bronze Serpent because Argos is a spirit of infirmity or disease.
We are even told in Paradise regained, a message from the Prophet Isaiah, that in time of New Heaven and Earth, children will play with snakes,
“The infant will play by the cobra’s den, and the toddler will reach into the viper’s nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.” (Isaiah 11:8-9). I another verse it even says the serpent will feed on dust and no longer on flesh,
“The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent's food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain,” says the Lord.” (Isaiah 65:25). These verses not only tell us what the New Earth (Revelation 21:1-53) will be like, but it makes a important point, snakes will be in this new world. The serpent is thus not a cursed creature, or else why would it be in the new paradiso?
The Lord God uses serpents a lot in judgement, there is in Prophet Amos and Isaiah where he says, “If they hide themselves on the top of Carmel, from there I will search them out and take them; and if they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them,” (Amos 9:3), and “Rejoice not, O Philistia, all of you, that the rod that struck you is broken, for from the serpent's root will come forth an adder, and its fruit will be a flying fiery serpent.” (Isaiah 14:29).
Again the question in Hebrew is it referencing Seraph or an angel, or snake? Well in Amos it says bite, so that is snake for sure, and Isaiah bothers to use Adder which is a type of snake, so The Lord is associating his power of judgment with serpent here. So we see snake used by God in three displays of Himself, Healing in Wildness with Bronze Serpent (Jehovah Rapha), Wisdom when Jesus says Be Wise as Serpents (Jehovah-Sophia), and Justice through the Tribe of Dan and through these acts of LORD (Jehovah-Tsidkenu).
This mention of a fiery serpent that comes up often (Numbers 21:8), “An oracle on the beasts of the Negeb. Through a land of trouble and anguish, from where come the lioness and the lion, the adder and the flying fiery serpent, they carry their riches on the backs of donkeys, and their treasures on the humps of camels, to a people that cannot profit them,” (Isaiah 30:4), sounds more like Leviathan, the dragon in Job (John Chapter 41), and makes me think if it is distinct from the serpent elsewhere, though in same verse the Adder is mentioned and that is a proper snake.
It is interesting Satan appears as Serpent and tells Eve, “you surly will not die,” (Genesis 3:4) and then God uses serpents to keep people from dying, “Make a fiery serpent and those who look at it will not die.” (Numbers 21:8). Proving that symbols and creatures like serpents are not exclusively the devil’s. That God even redeems the serpent as symbol in the Wilderness. It is a shame that still many brothers and sisters in Christ have not reclaimed the symbol of he serpent, even when Jesus commands us to be “wise as serpents and gentle as doves.” While certain serpents still get used in witchcraft, like with Lilith and magicians of Egypt, the point is as Christians we can use serpent imagery too, even a Cobra like Staff of Moses to say God swallows up the devil’s works, “He came to destroy the works of the devil.” (1 John 3:8). Amen.
Comments
Post a Comment